Monday, May 26, 2008
Snork Maiden, Marans
Grand Designs
Well. Well. On Saturday morning Al woke up and said that he had a proposition. No, not that. He said that he thought we should abandon sailing (not ship) for a few more days, while we got the ‘buying a French ruin’ idea out of our systems. After all, we have been planning this for almost 2 years now. First sell the flat in London and then buy a ruin in France, make it habitable and green, then go and live there when the work / money runs out. Low overheads, keep chickens and a goat, stay in touch with friends (that’s you) over the web etc. Some of you might remember that an early incarnation of the idea in more optimistic times was to buy a building plot and install a beautifully built and cheap kit house from East Germany. That one fell at a number of fences, including the fact that most building plots are too small, too remote, too expensive… and most of the best sites have already been developed. So we decided to do the next best thing and go for a restorable ruin.
Last September we found a very neat place in the department of Deux Sevres (named after the 2 rivers Sevre that run through it). It is on the edge of a village near an undistinguished medieval town called Thours (after the river Thouay). To locate it for you, it is around100 Km NE from La Rochelle, 37Kms from Saumur (on the Loire), around 4 hours drive from the Western channel ports, 2 hours-ish from Paris by TGV from Saumur. It’s also quite close to Loudon (cf Ken Russell & The Devils) and Chateau Oiron – home to a VERY surreal art collection. In fact our fermette is probably at the epicentre of French cultural activity. The landscape is rivers / agricultural land with quite a bit of woodland.
The place itself is a barn and cowshed in an L-shape, with adjoining piggery and kind of shed thing joining on to the long side of the L. Then there’s a wall that completes the lines of the buildings to enclose a courtyard. On the other side of the cowshed and barn, there’s a field also enclosed by a wall. The field is big – quite enough for a garden etc.
We drove there in the pelting rain last Saturday, and just as we got there the rain cleared, the sun shone on the little fermette, there was a sound of crescendo strings and readers, we fell for it. Anyway, we have made an offer that the chatelaine next door (Mme Chateau – har har) will probably accept. Now for a close encounter with French bureaucracy.
Café du Quai de Midi in the rain
Aaargh! Now we are ready to go – toilet fixed – copious amounts of new pipe, glue and rescue tape, since you ask, boat all ship-shape and a GRUESOME weather forecast of strong winds and plenty of rain. Still, that’s how it all is with sailing, ain’t it just. Lying around reading and waiting for the weather to get better and buying House and Building mags in French.
I think I may have to split the blog between sailing and la terre. We already have an incipient Jean de Floret over access to ‘our well’. Toujours la meme chose & all that.
Please do keep up the comments – we like to know you’re out there!
4 comments:
Woodland... good, mushrooming in autumn!
well, well, indeed. congratulations on the grande folie. always knew you'd end up living in a pig sty, didn't you?
By the way, it's Jean de Florette. In them days and in that region, children were given their mothers' first names instead of their father's second names.
I'll report back on well negotiations! Our vendor is Mme Chateau. thanks for Florette. Nice name - wonder if anyone uses it any more. And it's an etable (?) - cowshed, not La Vacherie which seems to mean whorehouse.
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