Well, we enjoyed another lovely lunch in Place Carnot. For me, it's not about the food really, it's more about the atmosphere. I love to watch people walking around the square, taking photos and simply enjoying Carcassonne in the sunshine. My stomach must be shrinking ( it's a miracle! ), as I actually struggled with the 3 course meal this time. I would have liked a bit of a break before we had our dessert but Mum wasn't having that so full steam ahead, ordering 2 Creme Brulee. Fortunately we had done all our tasks before lunch so there was no rush to finish. 
We decided to stroll back to the car park via the main shopping street. What a mistake! Like moths to a flame, we saw "Soldes" on all of the shops. Oh dear lol. What bargains though! Mango and PROMOD were the highlights. I found a lovely pair of navy tailored trousers reduced to just 20euros, 2 stylish vest tops and a dotty cardigan for only 12 euros each. Do not let me go into any more shops!!!

Although we have all been complaining about the bad weather, it has really helped our garden to flourish over the past few months. We've never seen it so green and the Rosemary and Lavender have really grown which has brought lovely scents for when we sit out in the garden during the (rare!) sunnier evenings.

Here are some photos of our garden, taken today. Excuse the few weeds which I need to remove! xxx

Well, it's another grey and cloudy day. Is this Summer 2013?? Although my Mum always says that Sundays are jinxed and if any day is going to have bad weather, it's a Sunday!

There is a Vide Grenier all day in Pezens today and as it's just 5 minutes down the road from our village, we decided to head over there earlier this morning to see if we could find some bargains for our new house. I'm glad we went early as it was sooo busy! Cars everywhere and you know how people area, they just abandon their cars anywhere. Nobody seemed to want to walk so parked as near as possible to the Vide Grenier. We were happy to walk ( it was only 5 minutes!!) so parked down one of the side streets where there were no cars at all. What a surprise!

We walked over the bridge in Pezens and approached the Vide Grenier. Despite the miserable weather, there were lots of stalls with a huge variety of items. From lovely baby clothes to old furniture to glassware, there was something for everyone! As with all Vide Greniers and carboot sales in the UK, there are always some stalls which are filled with total junk, but that's to be expected. Not everybody has perfect pieces of furniture and homeware to sell on.

It was quite the social occasion and we bumped into several people we knew and it was nice to have a good catch up. They had all found some good bargains so were heading home with their purchases. We were just walking past the last few stalls, having given up on finding anything when I spotted two mirrors resting against a stall on the floor. They are quite rustic looking and would look great in a cottage-style property. This is the kind of style we are going for in the Kitchen and the Den in our new house so they were perfect. We asked the price and at just 8 euros each how could we refuse!!!

I bought a vintage dressing table a few years back and I have been searching for perfume bottles to put on it, which match the style of the table. At the very last stall I found this lovely perfume bottle. Just 4 euros, so I had to buy it. I am now going to "have to" go to several more Vide Greniers and Brocantes to see if I can find more perfume bottles. After all, I can't just have the one, it would get lonely! xxx

Perphaps I'm becoming forgetful in old age ( yes, the grand old age of 26!), but I'm sure I never spent so much time filling in paperwork back when I lived in the UK. The Compromis du Vente arrived today for me to read through and sign and there are so many pages to read through. Most important are the DPE Reports which all seem to be OK but will have a friend check through them for me to make sure I haven't translated anything wrong.

Then I have the fun of signing and initialing and writing "Lu et approuve, bon pour accord" on various pages. I feel it's going to be a long afternoon so I'm taking a break to have lunch. I can't complain as all of this leads to the excitement of having a house which we love, I just wish everything could be completed faster. I'm not a patient soul! lol.

We got a plan of the house in with all the paperwork today which I'm so pleased about as I have spent several days arguing with Mum about the layout of the rooms. Even she admits that she has a tendency to look round a house, step out again and immediately forget where any of the rooms are in relation to others. Hopeless!! So I will be sitting her down when she gets home to show her that I am right (as usual!) about the layout xxx

It's my Mum's birthday today so I took her out for a meal in Place Carnot. It was rainy and grey this morning so we were expecting to sit inside the restaurant but as we approached Carcassonne the skies cleared and the sun came out.Perfect! :)

We went to Longchamp which is one of our usual "hangouts" in Carcassonne. The food isn't super fancy  but it's decent food for a good price, plus the location is great. Perfect for people watching!! They own the bar next door as well so we usually start there, have some wine and then move next door for our meal.

I decided to be kind and drive so that my Mum could have as much wine as she liked ( a foolish idea in retrospect!! lol ), so I stuck with Coke and then had one glass of wine.



We enjoyed salad to start, then Mum had steak+chips whilst I had Lasagne. Then Creme caramel for Mum and my favourite, Crème brûlée for dessert. Not sure which my Mum was more excited about.. the wine, the sunshine or the chips! lol.

All in all, a lovely morning. We've now returned home where I have a nice bottle of Blanquette de Limoux for Mum, plus a small chocolate cake which I'm sure we will "force" ourselves to eat later tonight! xxx

Love looking at the difference between French and English Fashion. The sun comes out and the tourists are walking about in shorts and flip flops whereas the French are still wrapped up in Winter coats and wearing their jeans. I like to hope that I am a mixture between the two. Although I doubt I could wear a hat and big jacket like the women in the photo above! Far too hot for that! xxx

Although I'm sure most people aren't enjoying the cloudy day we've had, my 4 boys have loved it! Timmy is still recovering from his "kennel escape" so I took him and little Spike for a short walk earlier but have just come back from a lovely long walk with Leland and Guizmo. It was still really quite warm but there was a gorgeous breeze. We are now back and all drinking gallons of water! (and a sneaky glass of wine for me) xxx

The lovely open countryside, just 2 minutes from my house. So lucky!

Well that was certainly a busy afternoon! Definitely ready for a glass of wine now :) 
I decided to take advantage of the fact that I couldn't go and sunbathe today ( lovely and warm but blowing a gale!) so organised all my various papers and threw out whatever wasn't necessary, de-cluttered my wardrobe and then spent an hour in the garage sorting through all the rubbish to take to the
Dechetterie. There were so many long pieces of wood that I wondered, at one point, if the car boot would close! It was one of those scenarios which would have been very amusing to anyone watching as it was a case of Mum turning round with a long piece of wood and I then had to duck to avoid being knocked on the head!! ( I did at one point wonder if she was doing it on purpose as it happened several times...)

Then, as is always the case in our village, we met one of our neighbours whilst at the Dechetterie so had a big chat with him about our house being sold. He was very pleased that we were staying in France and not moving back to the UK so we both got a pat on the back and were sent on our way.

Then went to our local garage, which is luckily just down the road from our village, as we had taken Mum's
car in for repairs about 3 weeks ago and they said they would phone when it was done so we gave them both our mobile numbers and they already had our home number so off we went..... Well we would still be waiting now if we hadn't have gone in and of course it was all finished and ready to go. I do wonder sometimes!! Fortunately the car was ready to go and didn't cost too much to repair! So that put a smile on our faces :)

Then I thought it was R.I.P. for my laptop as I do like to think of it as "vintage" . I have had it for years and it has served me well but it is a bit delicate these days and there have been several occasions recently where I have struggled to bring it back to life but luckily Martin Gamble, the local computer whizz came round and fixed it. So it should be ok for a little while longer. Hurrah!
 
So all in all it has been a v.productive day! Back to the Dechetterie tomorrow with more clutter, I think it's a blessing that the new house doesn't have a garage!!

Mum has just been into our little village shop and the owners, who took over the shop about 6 months ago, are great as they regularly bring in new products. Well, my Mum saw the Magnum logo shining like a distant beacon so of course, had to sample their Limited Edition ice creams. It's to help you all out so that we can give you a review before you go out and try it. My opinion is : Absolute Perfection!! The flavour is Creme Brulee and it's gorgeous. Very sad that it is limited edition! xxx

It seems that after teasing us for several weeks, Summer has finally arrived! Despite being busy with organising paperwork and builders for our new place and starting to pack up ( and throw out!) some of our belongings, I have managed to fit in 2 lunches in Place Carnot in Carcassonne. I have my priorities! It was such a lovely atmosphere yesterday, sitting amongst the locals ( not too many Brits about at the moment, probably due to all the flight issues recently!), enjoying a 3 course meal in the sunshine. Perfection!

We are heading off to walk 2 of the dogs in St.Denis this morning. Tim is still resting, of course. He is basking in all this extra attention! There is a gorgeous bassin there which I try and go to whenever there is a sunny Sunday morning. As we haven't had many of those recently, I had to take advantage today and head over there. It's only 15 minutes from our house and not many people know about it so it's usually very peaceful. Here is a picture I took of the bassin on a recent walk, it's definitely worth a visit!

I enjoyed a fresh pain au chocolat on the terrace early this morning. I will definitely miss having a Boulangerie right across the street when we move! I think that I will be spending this afternoon sitting on a sun lounger with a glass of wine and the latest book I'm reading. With the unpredictable weather these days, who knows how long this lovely sunshine will last so I need to make the most of it whilst it's here! Plus, I need at least the beginnings of a tan to make my friends back in the UK jealous :)

I hope you are all enjoying a leisurely weekend in the sunshine xxx

When we drove up to the Poitou Charente to view houses at the beginning of the week, we decided to put 2 of our dogs in Kennels and take our smaller 2 with us for the drive. The Kennels we chose had a great reputation and as they were only going in for 2 nights I wasn't too worried.
We came back from our trip and were really happy as we had found a house we really liked so I should have expected something to go wrong as life never goes smoothly for too long!


Surprise,surprise, the phone rang at 9am the next morning and it was Barry, the owner of the Kennels in Mezerville to tell us that Tim had been spooked whilst out on a walk that morning and had managed to get loose. He had disappeared at 7am so I would have preferred Barry to phone us straight away so that we could have driven over there and hoped that he would still be in the area. The kennels was over an hour away so we didn't arrive until gone 10am and after wandering around for 2 hours we couldn't see any sign of him. The kennels was in the middle of rural countryside and with endless valleys he could have gone anywhere!

We had to give up and head home with our other dog Leland. I spent the afternoon making "Missing" posters and spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter. Everyone was so kind and really helped to get word out and by the end of the day over 1500 people had seen the poster online. 

I went back in the afternoon to put up the posters in the village and also the surrounding villages. It was difficult to know where to put posters as the villages were so spread out in that area and I didn't know how far he had gone! I spent another 3 hours looking for him with my Mum but still no sign. We were getting really worried and your imagination always goes into over-drive when a pet goes missing. I don't think either of us slept that night!!

The next day I didn't have much hope and had to go to do a Gite Changeover in the morning so I came home and wasn't sure what to do next. When the phone rang I was expecting it to be the usual cold caller ( we seem to have about 10 calls a day at the moment!!), so was shocked to hear a Dutch man telling me that he had been out hiking in Mezerville, had seen Tim but he had run away and had then seen my poster in the village. It was so kind of him to ring me, I will be forever grateful to him. We got straight into the car and headed over there. Cue another 3 hours of walking ( at least I lost some weight from all the exercise!!) and after nearly giving up hope, Mum found him near a farm in the area. Poor thing could barely walk as he had sores all over his feet. We took him home and since then, apart from eating and "doing his business" in the garden, he has been asleep ever since!

(Tim straight after he got home from his Doggy Drama)

Today, 2 days after finding him, I managed to get him to stay awake for more than 10 minutes at a time. The reason for my success? A Hyde bone of course! It always has to involve food lol. So he is now happily munching away :) We are applying Bio-Oil to his feet each day which seems to be really helping the sores so hopefully he will be up and about again soon.

I can safely say, he won't be going into Kennels again!!!!

It's June here in the Languedoc Roussillon and we have just sold our house after 5 happy years living near the medieval city of Carcassonne. Now it's time to start out next adventure so we headed off for a visit to the Poitou Charente, to view some houses. As it was a 5 hour journey, we had to set out early. I foolishly offered to drive there so I found myself setting out ( semi conscious!) at 5.30am, with the radio on loud to keep me awake. It also helped to drown out my awful singing! The journey there wasn't too bad, although there were a few spells of torrential rain. You wouldn't think it was June in Southern France!! With the help of the SatNav, we managed to arrive for our first viewing in the village of Aigre, without getting lost at all. If you knew us, this is an impressive feat!
We had seen the ad for the first house online and it was described as a 3 bedroom house with outbuildings and a good sized garden. Well as soon as we stepped through the door, we discovered that the photos on the website were obviously taken some time ago ( 3 years ago, the agent later admitted). Now we have already completed a big renovation project here in France so are prepared to do some work but from the photos and the emails back and forth with the agent, we hadn't expected to walk into a property with crumbling walls, interconnecting bedrooms with no way of changing the layout and an attic which seemed to have a ceiling being held up by one piece of rickety wood!! Not our dream first viewing of a house in the Charente region!
We had some spare time before the next property viewing so headed off for lunch. We were passing Ruffec, saw the familiar E.Leclerc sign, so pulled in. We go to the E.Leclerc in Carcassonne sometimes for lunch and they have quite a basic cafeteria so we weren't expecting anything fancy but this store didn't have a simple cafeteria, they had a "Bar Brasserie". Well, what a difference!! We enjoyed a lovely glass of wine each, a big salad and then a Crème brulée. Perfection!
At 2pm we were ready for our next appointment, with Kate and Susan from Papillon Properties. I had only found the property by chance on their website just 2 days before we were due to drive up to the region so I was lucky that they were able to fit us in for a viewing. The house was given the name, "I've Started so I need Finishing...." on the website which pretty much sums up the scenario.
It''s a very old property which has had most of the hard work already  completed. There are 2 small lounges which can be knocked into one large room. Then there is a fitted kitchen with exposed beams and modern  tiled floor. There is a door from here out onto the lovely rear garden. On the first floor there are two bathrooms and two large double  bedrooms-one with a dressing room attached. The  second floor has two further bedrooms. The largest has an en suite bathroom.
There is a large garden which has a ruin in the middle which must at one time been an impressive local landmark, probably with a  tower. However the ivy has now taken it over and it would be a labour of love to  restore.
As you can probably guess by my extended description, we fell in love with the house pretty much straight away. After spending quite some time wandering around, we headed back to the Papillon Offices and made an offer which has been accpeted. We should be moving in about 7 weeks and I cannot wait to get started on renovating the property!!
Here are some pictures so you can have an idea of what we were starting off with:

Bedroom 3 and 4 are on the second floor and one has a lovely en-suite bathroom. Love the beams and we want to have wood flooring throughout the property to keep a really traditional feel.