Twenty Years Ago Today

It is twenty years ago today that we made our first home hunting trip to France. This is my report, first blogged in August 2006.

When we decided to actually get serious about France, we started looking in the Charente. We had spent a magic week at Bas' place near Confolens, and naturally this was the first place we looked. Finding a house in our price range wasn't going to be easy though. There were a number of houses shown on the various internet sites, but they were in a condition even more perilous than we were prepared to take on.

Susan at dinner with Bas, Terracher

There were a number of criteria that had to be met. We needed a large garden of at least 2000 square metres for growing our self sufficiency vegetables. It had to have guest accomodation for paying guests. And it had to be in the country, far enough away from a town that it was quiet, but not so far away that the market was inaccessible.

For various reasons, all of them too distant in the past to be able to justify properly, we started looking at a small town called Argenton-Chateau in Deux Sevres. There was a nice large ex-forge overlooking the river which was just about in our price-range. After emailing the immobilier we waited......and waited. After a while, we received an answer, and arranged to see the property. Then 2 days before we were due to leave we received an email saying that it had been sold. We decided to visit Argenton-Chateau anyway, as our flights and accomodation had been booked.

The flight (from Gatwick to Nantes) was delayed by 4 hours and 59 minutes, meaning that we arrived at past 2.00am in France. BA had given us food tokens at Gatwick, but only one restaurant was open (and that soon closed) so I bought about £30 worth of biscuits and bottled water. At Nantes, BA booked us a hotel for free because the car hire place was, understandably, closed.

The house and its view near Thouars

We went to the immobilier in Thouars, who took us to see a couple of properties. The best one was part of a farm complex, the rest of the farm still being in operation . It didn't grab either Susan or myself, even though it wasn't expensive, and the agent said the owners were willing to make a deal. The main problem is both houses were small, and it was out in the sticks. The garden consisted mainly of a huge concrete hardstanding. It had a great view though - a derelict chateau standing (but only just) about 100 metres away. On reflection, we may have been expecting a bit much!

The house at Argenton Chateau

That afternoon, with another agent, we visited a few properties closer to Argenton Chateau. Once again there was no enthusiasm from either of us for any of the properties. I then asked about a property that I had seen advertised, but which filled none of our criteria. It was a house which had been converted into a hairdressers at some time in the past, which stood exactly opposite the church, only 50 metres or so from the Market square.

For some reason this place really appealed. We told the agent we were seriously interested and left for the day. We spent the whole of the next day in and around Argenton Chateau, and on our return to London, decided to make an offer. We rang the agent, decided in consultation with him as to what our offer would be, actually put the offer in - and then the vendor decided not to sell.

This put us both into a bit of a sulk. The next trip was to be more inspiring.

Simon

In hindsight, we are glad we missed out on the house in Argenton. I'm not sure how we would have earned a living, and I suspect the ex-hairdressers was in need of a lot more work than we realised. The other kicker is that Argenton Chateau changed it's name to Argenton-les-Vallées in September 2006, and again to Argentonnay in 2016. I'm not sure I would have kept up.

A Sad Ruin

When we were house hunting, back in 2006, we looked at a former boulangerie in rue Chaumont-Patin in Preuilly sur Claise. We thought seriously about buying it and it had many attractive features. But it was also a bit of a rabbit warren with many levels and eccentricities, and in the end we rejected it on the grounds it was really too big for us and there was too much work to do on it to restore it. We dodged a bullet, because as we now know, rue Chaumont-Patin is subjected to an endless stream of heavy vehicles taking a shortcut between two autoroutes.

The old boulangerie photographed on 3 November.

Nowadays the old boulangerie Gillard as it is known is in a sorry state. It has lost its roof, and that always leads to a very rapid deterioration in a building. It is now virtually a ruin, and a dangerous one at that. There is a distinct risk of the building collapsing into the busy main road it is located on.

From another angle on 3 November.

The mayor is understandably worried. Some urgent work has been done to stabilise the building, at the municipality's expense, but they are not the owner of the property. The municipality is nevertheless acting in lieu of the owner, as the owner has proved unable to fund the repairs, after repeated orders to do so.

 What the building looked like the day we first saw it in 2006.

At this point in the proceedings the municipality has not decided whether to demolish the building or rebuild it. Hopefully whatever they do they'll be able to get a grant to help cover the costs. The money might come from a project called 'Petites Villes de demain' ('Small Towns of tomorrow'). Whatever happens it is currently a cause for concern as any collapse of the building into the road will cause major disruption to traffic.

Here is what we wrote about the old boulangerie when we first saw it: 

The place we had travelled to see was an old boulangerie in Preuilly-sur-Claise. Right on the edge of the village on the main road, it was almost the first building we saw. An amazing place with many features, including the garden which had been converted into a room of over 110 square metres. That room is almost as big as the house I grew up in, which is a staggering thought. It also had a communal staircase (a stone spiral staircase possibly 500 years old) and a cellar over 1000 years old. The rooms were all higgledy piggledy, and appeared to have grown where they landed. So tempting, but at the same time a real challenge as far as what to do with all that space! It also had no garden except for about 10 metres of shared courtyard. Needless to say we were sorely tempted.

Apples in the Touraine Loire Valley

Apples are the most popular fruit in France, with each French person eating on average 16 kilos of apples annually (followed by 12 kg of bananas and 10 kg of oranges). The three most popular eating and culinary apple varieties in France are Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Reine des Reinettes. In France there is no prejudice against apples that are not red, and sweet, not too acidic apples that retain their form when cooked are preferred.

Organic pasturised apple juice.

When people think of apples and France they normally bring to mind Brittany and Normandy. But these north-western provinces are principally growing cider apples, and not so much the sort you crunch into as a snack. The Loire Valley on the other hand has just the right climatic conditions for growing dessert and culinary apples and there are many commercial orchards here. Many apple orchards in the Loire Valley press, pasturise and bottle their own juice too, but there is no tradition of cider. The apples from the Loire Valley are eaten fresh, or cooked into tarts and purées.

Homegrown apples, from left Reinette grise du Canada, Reine des reinettes, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Melrose.

The supermarkets stock half a dozen widely popular varieties, but at the farmers markets there are dozens of varieties. The producer will happily tell you what the characteristics of each of the varieties are – sweet or sharp, crunchy or soft, juicy or dry. Each variety has a different use. Don’t be afraid to try new varieties – you will be in for a treat if you take a bite out of a Pilot, a Cybele, or a Chantcler, or have a spoonful of home cooked Reinette grise du Canada purée.

Apples and mushrooms foraged in the forest.

The old varieties of apples may not be so reliable commercially, but many people cultivate them in domestic gardens. An organisation called the Croqueurs de Pommes (‘the apple crunchers’) is on hand, with branches all over France, to educate the public about how to grow and graft apple trees. 

Pressing apples into juice at a village food fair.

One reason there are so many apple orchards is because in the first half of the 20th century wine making was not profitable. At the end of the 19th century, winemakers were desperate to solve the killer fungal disease brought by the phylloxera root aphid. Within decades production was back up to pre-War levels, due to the introduction of phylloxera resistant root stock. However, consumption was slowly declining, there was an ongoing labour shortage, and the wine being produced was mostly not very good. Thousands of vines were grubbed up in the Touraine Loire Valley, with government incentives for winemakers to change their production. The apple orchards are a legacy of that farming transition. 

Homegrown apples. Reine des reinettes on the left, Red Delicious on the right.

Favourite Locally Grown Varieties: 

 The Reinette grise du Canada is a large, ugly, malformed apple with typical yellowy green russet skin with light brown scales all over. It is a variety that originated in England around 1800, under the name Golden Russet, then was introduced in Normandy to become much more popular in France than it is in England. It keeps and cooks well, and is even nice for eating raw, so long as you peel them. This apple is very fruity and aromatic, with a good balance of sugar and acidity. It fluffs up a bit when cooked but retains its shape.

Homemade Tarte Tatin.

Reine des Reinettes is a soft sweet apple when eaten fresh, an old local Touraine Loire Valley variety, yellow, streaked with red when it gets exposure to the sun. It is widely regarded as indeed the queen of French cooking apples, favoured by many big name chefs. They go soft and wrinkly quite quickly in storage, so are mostly cooked.

An organic orchardist at a farmers market, with an old apple variety that he has been unable to identify.

Golden Delicious, an American variety known simply as Goldens in France, is ubiquitious, and being sweet and crisp, by far the most popular apple here. After the Second World War men returning to their family farms in the Loire Valley were actively encouraged by the government agronomists to plant Golden Delicious orchards. The climate in the Loire Valley suits the variety extremely well, and it is highly productive here. Outside of France they are greeted with scorn and derision because of their pallid unappetising appearance and their tendancy to go disgustingly floury if they are picked too early and cold stored, as is normal for supermarket supply chains. Fortunately, a fresh mature Golden Delicious is a completely different creature to one purchased in the supermarket.

New season local apples come onto the market in September, and are good quality until March.

Because apples have been grown in the Loire Valley for millenia, naturalised trees can also be found in the forests. Usually the fruit on these ‘wild’ trees isn’t very good for eating raw, but they can be great for making apple jelly.

Apple purée is a pantry ingredient in French kitchens. Most people keep a jar of it on hand to make simple desserts. Every supermarket sells family sized jars of it.

Tarte Tatin: The best known Loire Valley recipe using apples is Tarte Tatin. This popular dessert is the benchmark for culinary apples in French minds. Apples that pulp and/or are highly acidic are not popular. In France the supply of sugar has historically been disrupted and unreliable, so French cooks prefer not to rely on adding much sugar to desserts. Therefore, naturally sweet apples are more popular. For tarte tatin you also need apples that retain their shape when cooked, so varieties such as Reine de Reinette and Reinette grise du Canada would be the choice for making this and many other traditional French apple desserts.

There seems to be no question that the Tatin sisters created the recipe in the 1880s and it became the signature dish of their hotel in Lamotte-Beuvron in the Sologne (the area between Blois and Orléans). They called the dessert Tarte Solognote. It seems to have been the famous Parisien restaurant Maxim's who dubbed it Tarte Tatin in the 1930s.

The original version seems to have been made in a cast iron Dutch oven, in the same way as one makes damper, by putting the pot in the coals and covering the deep sided lid with coals too. The sisters used the still popular old Tourangelle apple variety Reine des Reinettes , and the apples were not peeled (I peel mine). The tart is traditionally served warm, unaccompanied by custard, cream or icecream. The original recipe contains no spices or anything other than apples, flour, butter and sugar (and that is how I make it).

Traditionally the tart is an upside down shortcake, which is made by putting a layer of apple chunks on the base of a dish with plenty of butter and sugar to form caramel. Then a simple pastry is laid over the top, the ensemble baked then turned out so that the caramelly apple layer is uppermost for serving. (French people look away now…) To be honest, if you are nervous about turning the hot tart, there is no real need to do so. Just cut and flip each portion as you place it in the serving bowls, or leave with the pastry on top. It will taste the same either way. 

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos.

 

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UPDATE -- RESPONSES TO COMMENTS

Carolyn -- yes, we drive past that orchard often. It's owned and run by the Croqueurs des pommes, the association I mentioned in the blog post. They've tended to move their activities down our way more since their President lives in a village near to us.

Pré de la Forge -- I'm going on what the guy who planted our orchard told me the tree was.  

Jean -- I think French people use apple compote as a quick and easy dessert.

chm -- Simon has never mentioned apple jam, so I assume he didn't encounter it in Korea.

Anniversary of Our First Night in the House (2007)

It is the thirteenth anniversary of our first night in our house in Preuilly. We hadn't moved in at that point, but were still just coming over from London from time to time. It was like camping we had so few home comforts. This is a repost from 3 April 2007.

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This was a long standing planned trip, partly in order to try put a little pressure on M.Galland (the roofer) to start soon.

We had booked on SpeedFerries, leaving on their first sailing of the new season. On the Monday before we left we received an email saying that the start of service had to be delayed, so we had to make alternate arrangements. Luckily I was able to book a ticket with Norfolk Lines, which is a longer journey (2 hours to Dunkerque, which also adds the best part of an hour to the drive) so all was not lost. The amended booking meant that we had to leave home at 3.30am in order to make our 6.00am sailing from Dover, which meant that by the time we arrived in Preuilly we had been on the road for 13 hours including a diversion through Rouen, a town which appears to have me totally jinxed.

Our first port of call was M. Bertucelli to check on the plumbing works, which we were assured were complete. This caused us to rush to the house, as the thought of having our own toilet was very exciting.

Arriving at the house, first port of call was to wonder at the new technology - a flushing WC. We flushed, and the cistern didn't fill up. I turned on the stopcock inside the house (which made no difference) so we moved outside to the external stopcock. This is a metre under a metal plate in the middle of our neighbour's driveway. I leaned into the hole to turn the water on... and my mobile phone and hankie dropped out of my pocket into 6 inches of muddy water. I don't know if it was the sacrifice of my phone that caused the water to flow (could have been turning the tap on) but we now have tapwater and a flushing WC. Excellent!!

The next move was to set up our kerosene heater (donated to us from the junk left by previous tenants of our house in London). This meant a trip to Yzeures to buy fuel and various foodstuffs. It's always a pleasure to wander around a hardware store after driving for 13 hours....

We had our first dinner together in the house, vegetable soup, followed by bacon and beans and pastries for dessert. We weren't exactly warm, but the heater took the edge of what was to be a cold night.

It rained during the night, which meant our slumbers were accompanied by the sound of dripping water, but at least none of it entered the room we were sleeping in. We did decided, however, that we would erect our picnic tent/gazebo thing in the front room, and put the bed in there. This would provide us with a waterproof roof, and a lot more room so we could set up washing facilities. It also means that we can have our clothing in the same room we sleep in, making inter-room dashes in the cold unnecessary.

Friday was occupied with cleaning the front room, setting up the tent, moving the bed, putting a curtain over the space a door would normally occupy (and will, one day, occupy again). We also found time to visit M. Galland, the bank and the supermarket (and the hardware store). This set the pattern for the weekend - cleaning, visiting hardware stores, and plotting how we will proceed with the work.

The only real diversion came on Saturday, when we met the man from the dechetterie (the local dump, although it's more of a transfer station) whom our neighbours had organised to remove the piles of cuttings from our garden. He took a trailer of clippings to the tip, and we followed. He explained the system to us, and we trotted off to collect our own carload of stuff to junk. Most of it was "mixte", but we did have some glass, wood and cardboard which went in their respective skips, as did the old paintbrush cleaning mixture. As they say in the area; "Au pays de Descartes, je pense, donc je trie" (In the land of Descartes, I think, therefore I sort).

Cowslips

 We were amazed by how cold it was, considering how advanced spring seems to be. All the roadsides were covered in cowslips (coucou in French, the first of the wild primroses to appear) and the cherries and plums were blooming, as were the magnolias. Until recently, cowslips were big news in England, as modern farming techniques had destroyed much of their habitat. Thankfully they are on the way back in the UK, but we have never seen them in these numbers

On Sunday afternoon we rewarded ourselves with a drive in the country. as we drove on the road towards le Grand Pressigny (a trip we have done many times) I noticed, for the first time, the chateau at Etableau, a hamlet about 1.5 km from le Grand Pressigny. Why we have never noticed this before I can't say. It isn't as if it is small or anything....

Etableau.

 

We also saw a different view of the chateau at le Grand Pressigny, which makes it look like a cutaway from a Richard Scarry book.

Although it sometimes feels like we aren't progressing with the house, it is coming on peu en peu and we are getting a lot better idea of what it is we want to do with it, which is a lot better than acting before you've decided!!

Simon

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

The first time we saw our house

Ten years ago today we drove into Preuilly specifically to look at a couple of houses we had seen advertised on the internet.

The first was an interesting collection of three buildings, none of which had functioning bathrooms, and none of which you could reach from the others except via a courtyard shared with a fourth building. Far too confusing for us! (But not for someone else, who bought the collection, and has placed one of the houses back on the market).

The other was a building we were told by the estate agent was too small for us, so needless to say it was the biggest house we looked at. It is also the house we now live in.

I am not sure what was going on in our heads at the time: we both owned digital cameras, we almost instantly decided this was the house we wanted to buy, but we took only two photos of the exterior and none of the interior.

 We did take some more photos of Preuilly sur Claise (4 of them),
one of which is currently the header of the blog

We wrote about the whole life changing three day weekend in one blog post five months after the event.

Our first proper pictures of Preuilly

After spending an evening at the Gerbe d'Or in Loches talking about the boulangerie (see yesterday's post) and deciding that the only option would be to demolish part of it to make a courtyard, we decided that we were being silly, and that there were sure to be other options.

We had decided we liked the feel of Preuilly, so the next day (a Sunday) we spent the morning in the Brenne, then drove to Preuilly to have lunch. We lunched at l'Image, the first of many pleasant meals we have had there over the years. It was Mother's Day, so we were lucky to get the last free table in the place.

Our first proper picture of Preuilly. 12h38, 28 May 2006

Our second proper picture of Preuilly. 12h39, 28 May 2006. If we had known

we would still be here ten years later we would have taken more photos

The meal was enough to convince us we really did like Preuilly, and to return on Monday check out other houses on the market.

You can read an almost 10 year old account of this buying trip here

And Now it's Ten Years

They may not be the world's stunningest© photos, but they are three of the first photos we took in Preuilly sur Claise, ten years ago today. They are photos of a house we didnt buy, and here are the reasons:

We thought it was a bit weird. Turns out that compared

to other houses we looked at, it wasn't.

It didn't have a staircase of its own, but rather a staircase shared with the

almost fallen down house next door. Next door's bedroom door is on the left.

It is right on the main road. We didn't know then how busy the road

can get (we saw it on a Saturday afternoon), but it was a lucky escape.

The other reason we didn't buy this particular house is that it had an enormous semi-cellar (110m2) with one very small window, and a sub cellar beneath it. We did seriously think about the house, but we decided in the end that we just couldn't work out something sensible to do with all those rooms/half rooms/cellars.

All this means that the bottom photo is the first photo we have that shows anything of Preuilly sur Claise. It was taken at 14h50 on the 27th May 2006.

You can read an almost 10 year old account of this buying trip here

The First Time I Saw..

... Loches.

After our first foray into real estate buying in France, Susan had to take a rest by trekking across half of Australia with her family. This left me with an ambition to buy a house, but no way known was I doing it by myself.

Online, I had found two small houses for sale in Loché sur Indrois. They looked good on paper (as it were), and were within budget. I really wanted to see them: I had reached that stage where I was ready to leave London and start the next adventure, but that adventure didn't extend to talking to real estate agents on my own. I rang our friend Bryan and asked, if he wasn't doing anything, if he would like a trip to France. He was doing something, then suddenly he wasn't (meeting rescheduled), and suddenly we had a three day window in the middle of the week where we could go.

 The first photo we ever took of Loches.

Bryan was living in the Lake District at the time, so I booked a ticket on BMI Baby from Durham Tees Valley Airport for him, and myself a ticket from Heathrow, both timed to arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle within 30 minutes of each other. I also booked a car. Driving around Paris in rush hour is not much fun, but we were amused by following a circus trailer carrying a crocodile.

We reached Amboise before deciding to call it a night. Seeing the chateau of Amboise for the first time, all lit up and glowing in the dark, was magic. Having breakfast in a cafe at the base of the chateau walls was no less magic.

After breakfast we drove to Loches, to stay in the (let's be kind here...) idiosyncratic Hotel George Sand. And that's the first time I saw Loches: 10 April 2006.

(For more details, the original trip report is here)

House Hunting Ten Years Ago

It is ten years ago today that we started looking at property in France.

The search started in the Charente because we had been there and rather liked it, but looking at the internet in London it seemed like there was little available in the area. (We know - but the internet wasn't as developed as it is now, and we may have been a little naive as well...). Then we looked at Deux-Sèvres and saw a property we thought we liked, so a quick phone call to the real estate man later we were organised for a visit.

We looked at a house overlooking/overlooked by this chateau, which

had been blown up by its owner in 1949 as a tax avoidance measure.

It was an inauspicious start in a couple of ways:
The flight (from Gatwick to Nantes) was delayed by 4 hours and 59 minutes (not 5 hours, because that would have meant serious compensation from the airline).  BA had given us food tokens at Gatwick, but only one restaurant was open (and that was closing as we walked in) so we bought about £30 worth of biscuits and bottled water. After pushing out from the gate 4 hours and 59 minutes late, we sat on the tarmac for a further 25 minutes, which meant we arrived at past 2.00am in Nantes, where BA booked us a hotel for free because the car hire place was closed.

When we arrived at the house we wanted to look at we discovered there was a compromis de vente already signed, so we trawled around various other properties (none of them meeting our strict requirements) until Susan got bored. We were then shown a house in Argenton-Chateau (now called Argenton-les-Vallées) near the church.

On our flight back to London there were no delays, but the effort of the trip was too much for one of us, so on the Monday we came to an agreement and phoned the agent to make an offer on the property by the church. Luckily, that was declined, which left us free to continue our search.

The house we didn't buy after all

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Monetising the Blog: It is already clear to us that this year could be financially difficult. Bookings for tours are down - everyone in the tourism industry here is saying the same. We've decided to allow ads on the blog to earn a bit of pocket money. The ad will appear on the right hand bar (unless you've got an ad blocker installed). We choose or ban the general categories of ads that appear, but we can't control what appears at an individual ad level within the allowed categories. Every time someone visits the blog we will get a very small payment and every time someone clicks on an ad we will get a marginally less small payment. This will vary from ad to ad, depending on the deal the advertiser has negotiated with Google. It will be interesting to see what it all amounts to. We won't see the ads here, but if you notice anything off colour, please let us know.

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A la cuisine hier: I made up a batch of pickling brine to cool overnight. I've got some beef, pork belly and a beef tongue to brine today.

Five Years On

It is five years today since we first saw our house.

Looking back, I think we were suffering wide eyed naivity. It isnt usual to quote oneself, but we (OK - Susan) did say "Thus, once the roof is done, the rest is just decorating!" (She claims the following "hmmm" indicates she didn't believe herself at the time).

14h33 on the 29th May 2006. If we had known
we were buying we would have taken more photos

This afternoon at about 14.33 we will stand in the garden and open a bottle of something cold, refreshing and bubbly to mark 5 years on from that moment.

Simon

How to Research the History of your French House - an overview

In France, researching the history of your house is referred to as généalogie immobilière (real estate genealogy). Lots of people are interested in finding out about the history of their house, and sometimes circumstances mean you are obliged (or at least, well advised) to do so. As a consequence, the Conseil général and the Chambre départementale des notaires d'Indre-et-Loire have produced a booklet outlining how you go about it. The notaire supplied a copy along with our copy of the Acte de Vente.

It tells you how to locate sources of information, what the principal steps involved in the research are, what type of information the various actes contain and how to decode the references.

What will the archives reveal?

By retracing the history of your house through the archives you can find out when it was built, the succession of owners and details of changes such as extensions throughout the centuries. There are several ways you can approach the research.

The first, and the easiest, is to carefully read your deed (acte de propriété or acte de vente) which would have been put together by the notaire at the time of your purchase. It contains the first useful clues and references, indicating whereabouts of previous actes from changes of ownership. For instance, the acte for our house tells me the names, places of birth and occupations of the previous owners to 1945, and whether they acquired the property through purchase, inheritance or gift, as well as other more random seeming pieces of information. Each change of proprietor is listed with a reference to the name of the officiating notaire and which volume and document number the information was lodged under in the files of the Conservateur des Hypothèques in Loches. In time copies or originals of all documents relating to the transfer of property ownership find their way to the main archives in Tour. By visiting the archives reading room and consulting the actes, one will lead you to another, going back in time. As yet, we haven't made the time to do this, but one day...

If I owned this house, I'd want to know
about the people who constructed these
simple, graceful steps.

There is another way. When the actes notariés are missing, or they don't give any information about previous owners, or they leave you with a dead end, you can switch to other sources to find an owner's name. The Cadastral documents, the registers of the Enregistrement or those of the Contrôle des actes can all help you to pick up the trail. Your Acte de Vente documents should include an extrait du plan cadastral which gives you a map reference number for your property.

The quantity of information in the archives and the network of references should nearly always allow you to discover the history of your house. Sometimes it's not very direct and you have to wade through a maze of records and tiny clues, but you will have fun reconstructing the puzzle and revealing past lives, communities, families, owners and learn quite a bit about how people in the Touraine thought and acted in the past.

We would have loved a house with a proper tower...

This is just an overview of how you go about finding out the history of your house. I'm hoping to write in more detail about using each of the archive strands separately at a later date. Throughout your quest, I am assured by a friend who has researched several buildings in town, you will find the staff at the archives unfailingly helpful, and often indispensable to the success of your research.

The Departmental Archives for Indre-et-Loire are open from Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm and some Saturdays from 9-11.45. Access to the reading room is free, allowing you to consult the files and inventories. Anyone can consult documents if they hold a Reader's Card (carte de lecteur). Reader's Cards are free and obtained by supplying proof of identity. The Archives can be contacted by email on archives@cg37.fr and their website is www.cg37.fr. Historic records are kept at 6 rue des Ursulines 37000 Tours, telephone 02 47 60 88 88 and contemporary records at 41 rue Michaël-Faraday 37170 Chambray-lès-Tours, telephone 02 47 80 89 00. You use the Archives historiques to consult the Contrôle des Actes, the Enregistrement and the Actes notairés that are more than 100 years old. The Archives contemporaines are used to consult the Cadastral records. You may also need to contact the Chambre des notaires d'Indre-et-Loire, 32 rue Richelieu, BP 15953 37059 Tours Cédex, telephone 02 47 05 60 20, email chambre.37@notaires.fr, website www.chambre-indreetloire.notaires.fr.

Susan

The worn stone staircase

One of the properties we visited when we were looking for a house was the old boulangerie in Preuilly, which is opposite the Maison Renaissance.

We loved the 11th century cellar and small section of colombage (half-timbered) balcony, but the lack of garden was a problem. As was the one semi-underground room of 110m² - we had no idea how we would use such a space.

Another problem was the communal staircase. The house has no stairs of it's own, but shares a very worn spiral stone staircase with the semi-derilect building next door. The stones were so worn that they would requre boxing in using wood.

The photo really doesn't do the stairs justice - we are sure theys were more worn than this, so maybe I just couldn't get the most worn stairs into a sensible photo.

Simon

We are now French Homeowners!!

This happened in November (the 21st, trivia fans).

We flew to Limoges with Ryanair and booked to stay at L'Image (previously Grande Hotel L'Image) in Preuilly sur Claise. The drive was pleasant enough, only marred by some roadworks and the accompanying confusing signage around Bellac. This meant we took a slightly more scenic but only marginally longer route than we anticipated.

After driving through St Savin and Angles sur Anglin we stopped at Bricomarche, the DIY/builder's merchant in Yzeures-sur-Creuse. Here we did the first of what will no doubt be many wanders around French hardware shops looking confused. We bought a set of loppers for the garden and gardening gloves for Simon (his first ever pair). This was paid for using our new Credit Agricole Debit Card, making us feel really Frenchified. We then popped in to Intermarche, the supermarket next door to buy bottled water (essential until we get some plumbing) and various bits and bobs. Intermarche and Bricomarche are the siamese twins of the retail business - where there is one, the other is almost co-joined. They quite often have a petrol pump or two, which are 24 hours if you have a French Credit or Debit Card. (Like we do, in case you have forgotten!). On the way out of Yzeures we called in to la Promenade, the restaurant in we had visited in September, to see if we could book for dinner. Unfortunately they were complet, which meant we ate at Auberge St. Nicholas in Preuilly instead.

We then took ourselves to our local winery - Domaine de Ris - in Bossay sur Claise, just 4km down the road from Preuilly. Here we bought a Chateau Cardboard Rouge, 5 litres for 22 Euros. Although we didnt have glasses or cups with us on this trip, subsequent tastings have confirmed that this is a nice and pleasant, if somewhat lightweight, quaffer. When I have a long quiet afternoon to spare I will sample all their wines (in the interests on science, naturally) and post my findings.

L'Image is a really nice hotel. Family owned and run (at least 2 generations, with a 3rd in the wings) they also have a restaurant which is a good safe bet. They are English speaking, but willing to help with our French pronunciation (and no doubt, when such things matter, grammar). The rooms are a bit basic, but clean and comfortable. No TV, which is OK, because except for the Meteo and the occasional circus or wildlife program, French TV is pants. That is now my official opinion.

On Sunday we went to Fontevraud. That evening we went to a restaurant new to us, the "Chez Grand Ma" in Le Grand Pressigny, for a quiet, but very pleasant meal, accompanied by the new year's beaujolais.

Monday morning was grey and damp, and we were both suffering from Susan having spent the night coughing. The owners of the hotel were sufficiently worried about Susan's health to phone their sister in law, who not only works cleaning the hotel and serving tables when it's busy, but is the Pharmacist's assistant. She bought in some throat spay/anti cough stuff which is "perfectly disgusting", but which appeared to make a slight difference. While that was happening I popped down to the Maison de la Presse (newsagent and bookshop) and bought "Memoire en Images Preuilly-Sur-Claise", a book of old photos of the village and it's surrounds. Unfortunately there is no photo of our house in there, but there are some great pictures.

We then walked to the Notaire's office to sign the papers and (figuratively, anyway) hand over the money, the transfer of money having been credited to the Notaire's bank account from Australia the week before. Surprisingly, the transfer was quite turmoil free. All the legal stuff like identifying ourselves and talking about insurance and local tax was accomplished in two languages and hoarse whispers, Susan's voice being just about disappeared by this stage.

Ten minutes later Susan had the keys to her new house. We went to the house for the ceremonial opening of the door, and also to read the meters to send off a final reading to the various utilities companies. We also met with some builders to get a quote to have the roof fixed. This is the first move in what will no doubt be "the saga of the roof". Still - we aren't catastrophising about it (yet). At some stage the whole tale will be told, but at the moment neither of us has the strength.

After a small lunch at l'Image we did our first work on the house, starting to clear the garden. We made some inroads into the brambles and some self sewn elder trees, and cut back the ivy to as high as we could reach. This was a couple of hours of hot sweaty work in the drizzle, something that (no doubt) didnt help Susan's throat or cough. We made a mess of the garden, which is only to be expected - it will take a number of visits to continue clearing before we can say it is clear enough to start making it looked cared for. Having said that, we are pleased at what we did achieve.We had the full blown three course dinner at l'Image that evening, which was far too much food, both of us being dog tied. We would have been happy with the plat du jour, but we are still at the stage where we have to make the most (gastronomically) of being in France. Still - the wine was nice, a half bottle of Muscadet (the name of which I didn't note).

Next morning was a case of climb into the car and drive to Limoges without getting lost - which we almost, but scenically didnt, manage.

Simon

So far so exciting

We are currently preparing ourselves for another trip to Preuilly. This time we will be signing for the property, paying over the money and meeting a builder about the roof.

So far we have done the money transfer from Australia to France, with the money for the house arriving in the Notaire's account last week - which makes us look really organised. The house insurance is all signed and sealed and last week our French bank card arrived, so at last (we hope) we can access our account and buy petrol on a Sunday afternoon. The banking thing has been really interesting, but not totally stress free.. dealing with 4 different institutions in 3 countries has really complicated the timins - wait for one place to do what you've asked, then you find out you have missed a deadline for another institution. We almost have them all organised and in line, so next transfer should just about go smoothly.

As we found when we moved from Australia to the UK, these things aren't intrinsically difficult. The things that really trip you up are the rules that no-one tells you, because "everyone knows that". It must come in the water when you're growing up. For instance; French current accounts aren't allowed by law to pay interest. Anyone growing up in France knows this...but as newcomers, it comes as a surprise. We only found out when we asked about interest rates - the bank were as surprised by the question as we were by the answer. It also comes as a surprise when you find out you have to actually pay for a card to get your money out. And as for the chequebook............ We can only hope the bank are open and able to explain that to us when we're next in Preuilly!

This time around we will be flying into Limoges (yet another new airport for us) and driving from there. It's a two hour drive according to Mappy, taking us via Montmorillon and St Savin, and hopefully finding a nice Routier for lunch en route. We will be stopping of at Intermarche and Bricomarche (the supermarket and hardware superstore) in Yzeures-sur-creuse to start our new collection of tools and household staples. We plan to do some work in the garden cutting back brambles and ivy on Monday afternoon, so secateurs and gloves will be the first purchase.

Simon

A week where everything got going

This week has been really exciting

We received an email from the Notaire telling us that they have arranged completion of the sale for the 20th November. We have a quote for insurance, and we have set up the currency transfer accounts.

We have also started writing to builders to see if we can meet while we are signing for the house.

Very exciting - and everything is organised (more or less) 6 weeks in advance.

Amazing!

Simon

Reaching a Compromis

August 4- 6 2006

Having eventually agreed on a price for the property, the next step was to sign a compromis de vente. This is a binding document which sets out the conditions of the sale, including things like a get-out clause in case finance or building permission falls through. Once the is signed however, you can't be gazumped.

One suspects that the sudden burst of activity around agreeing a price wore the agent out, because despite regular emails from us, they appeared to be having a nice lie down and couldn't respond. We suggested a date for signing, which passed, and we wrote saying that we needed agreement on a date at least two weeks in advance because of the cost of travelling increasing. This eventually produced a response. (I'm still not sure that the agent doesn't think that we're still living in Australia and were travelling to France from there). Eventually we agreed a date, and then I booked our tickets. I also emailed Credit Agricole in Tours (because that is where their English speaking branch is) to arrange an appointment to open an account.

Because the agent had left it too late for us to do otherwise, we could only get flights in through Charles de Gaulle. Again. This time, after consulting Tripadvisor, I decided we would try the Francillien, route N104/ A104, which although it was designed by the authorities to do just the trip we wanted, refuses to appear on any of the routefinders. I also showed I had learned from previous mistakes by booking a Formule 1 (motel) in Blois.

Also, because the agents had been so tardy responding to our questions about the amount we had to pay as a deposit, we were unable to organise a bank cheque in euros (it takes 3 days). This meant I had to travel to our bank in Central London (no hardship, as it was almost on the way to the airport) and pick up euros in cash. A lot of cash...........

On the Underground to Heathrow I had a worrying though - that I had left the back door not not only unlocked but open. Unfortunately, I then spent the whole weekend worrying. (I hadn't, it must be an old man thing). The whole trip went amazingly well, however, as we ate at the airport before leaving London, thus removing the pressure of finding somewhere to eat after all the restaurants along the Motorway had closed. Even the traffic was not too bad on the new route, it appears to go mainly through countryside. We didn't even miss any direction signs.

We arrived in Preuilly about 10.00am Saturday, but the market looked a bit poor. This may be because there was the annual Preuilly Brocante Vide-Greniers (literally; attic clearance sale) and everyone was elsewhere. If it isn't the case, it means we will have to travel to Loches market, which will be no hardship at all.

Our first port of call was the bank, where we had our appointment to open an account. Our first contact with people we will have to deal with for the rest of our lives - and already I fear they may have marked my cards as "suspicious". The problem lies with the French desire to collect documents. We had only just managed to communicate the fact that I am self employed and no-one audits me therefore not being able prove my income to their satisfaction (and therefore obviously a freeloader, or worse) when I produced a bag full of cash. One wonders what they think...............

The Brocante Vide-Greniers was pretty dire - so much stuff, so little of it attractive, useful, or working. Everybody did appear to be enjoying their lunch, however. We, on the other hand, had bought a baguette, some ham and various salad bits and had a picnic by the river. Susan was delighted to see that the insect life there was buzzing (there's a pun there somewhere, I can't be bothered looking for it though).

As we had plenty of time to spare (we weren't meeting the agent until 5.00pm) we went for a drive around the immediate area. How lucky are we to have all this on our doorstep?

The Chateau, Boussay

We then visited Bossay-sur-Claise, which has a pretty park (complete with a concrete table tennis table) where the tiger moths and damselflies were busy, much to Susan's delight. We also visited Domaine de Ris, which at only 4km (21/2 miles) from Preuilly is our nearest winery. We were really pleased to find that the wine is really good quality, and very reasonably priced. Another win!

We hurried back to Preuilly, to find that the immobilier was not at the office. We sat and waited in the Post Office car park (quite nice, actually) a while, then I rang her. The answering machine was on. Then we started to wonder if we were meant to be meeting at the Notaire's, so I drove there to check. It was closed. When I returned, the Immobilier had arrived and was going through documents with Susan. Apparently no comment or apology had been made for her lack of punctuality. I guess being on time is very Anglo and therefore something we will have to work on changing. 30 Minutes later, cash was exchanged and Susan is one step closer to owning French property.

For dinner that evening Susan took me to our local Michelin star restaurant, la Promenade. owned and run by Jacky Dallais (you can read the reviews here). What a brilliant evening. Just over 100€ for a meal that stretched time (and waistbands) in a beautifully refined environment. Although we will not be going there often, we will be returning, there is no doubt. Quite a perfect gift.

The next morning I was up early to photograph every shop in Preuilly. This was less on artistic grounds than just wanting a visual reminder of what the shops are - and where they are. The upshot is that my Google Earth has every shop marked, together with a photo and contact details.

The Boulangerie, Preuilly-sur-Claise

I was reminded just how different France is by the fact that there are two boulangeries in town, and even at 6.50 on a Sunday morning they were both open. As I worked up the Grand Rue, photographing all the buildings, I passed the Immobiliers. In the window was the advert for our house, with the word "VENDUE" across it. This excited me so much, I rushed back to the hotel (a marathon of about 20 metres) to tell Susan, and then drag her out of bed to see it. We then took a walk around Preuilly to see it before it woke up. It is such a quiet town, however, that you would have trouble noticing the difference.

We had decided we would go to La réserve de la Haute-Touche, an open zoo run by the French museum service and located at Azay-le-Ferron, a mere 11km (7 miles) from Preuilly. We had a couple of hours before it opened so we recommenced our exploration of the local area by car, visiting Yzeures-sur-Creuse (where our nearest large supermarket is), La Roche-Posay, where we had coffee at a cafe overlooking a very busy market square, and the chateaux of Rouvray and La Guerche. I think being so close to la Roche-Posay could be really useful. It has a very famous health spa, and consequently is a more cosmopolitan town than Preuilly (but a lot busier and noisier) with cafe's, cinema, casino and a racetrack. It isn't somewhere I would want to live, but as it's only 15km (9 miles) away, close enough to visit regularly if we need a little big city feeling.

Chateau, La Gueche

The zoo at Azay-le-Ferron is really interesting - a section you drive through with various (mainly European) animals, and then a series of walks radiating out from the carpark. We ate at the restaurant, then wandered off to see the wolves. On the way we saw our first European Pond Tortoise, a native of the Brenne, Also lions, various tigers and lemurs. On the way out was passed a field with a Poitou donkey and it's foal. All together now: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww cute.

We left the zoo at 3.45, giving us 6 hours to make the airport. We lost a bit of time driving around Chateauroux looking for fuel (rather than filling up on the motorway). Because we don't have any French credit or bank cards, none of the fuel pumps we found would work for us. I was starting to panic by the time we hit Paris, because time was marching on, and we appeared to be moving backwards. We arrived at the desk 2 minutes after check-in had closed, causing panic and consternation. Luckily the combination of not shouting at the man, being frequent fliers and having no checked luggage meant that he was able to open the gate, enabling us to run and catch the plane. As we were on the last fight of the day, the fact that he was so understanding saved us an awful lot of bother. It is, however, definitely the last time we fly via Paris.

We were seated separately on the plane, being the last two to check in on a full flight. When we arrived at Heathrow there was no gate for us, and a bus had to be provided to carry us the last 100 metres. As Susan was near the front of the plane she was on the first bus. As I was near the back, I had to wait almost 20 minutes before another bus arrived. Luckily, we made train connections OK, and caught a cab from Dagenham East Station to be home by 1.00am.

Simon