Living in beautiful rural Wales would seem to have few drawbacks, however with growing children, a small cottage, small garden with poor soil and ever increasing concerns about our environment, we thought it prudent to relocate. But where?

As part of our big family plan I had down sized to a low paid part-time job, our income from our hobbies and other interests was minimal, and the costs of living where we were had started to escalate, we seemed to be running out of options and cash. I had been talking to a small group of people forming a sustainable community in Romania, they were very keen for people living in Britain to relocate there and set up sustainable communities, we seriously considered this until we found out about the rabies and the wild dogs roaming the streets there.

We needed somewhere where we could afford a slightly bigger house, with some land, that was warmer and better suited to growing fruit and vegetables. France seemed ideal, house prices were a lot lower than in Britain, the weather was warmer, yet there was still enough rain for us not to be concerned about the effects of global warming. Sandy and I toyed with the idea for a few months and we decided to put our house in Wales on the market, if it sold it would be a sign.

Within weeks of our house being for sale we had several offers and eventually sold it almost for what we wanted for it, to a lovely couple with family in the area. The familiar rush involved with selling a house began, I made a trip to France clutching a house hunting itinerary created by Sandy. It had been meticulously planned and involved visiting several areas in central France, meetings with estate agents and a set number of properties to visit each day, she had scheduled in lunch breaks and some free time in the evenings.

I got on a plane, time was too short to take the train, and headed off to Limoges airport, on arrival the weather was wonderful and I was soon on my way to the guest house booked by Sandy. Driving on the wrong side of the road with limited French was a very interesting experience, I arrived at the guest house a little late, made something to eat and got an early night.

I spent a wonderful week rushing around the middle of France meeting estate agents, and visiting all sorts of varied and interesting properties in some of the more rural and picturesque parts of department twenty three. I made notes, videotaped and photographed houses inside and out and all of the surrounding views from each of the properties. On returning to Wales we sat down as a family and we went through all of the properties I had visited. After a few days considering the pros and cons of each property we eventually reduced our list to two properties that we could all live in. One was a little bit too small and the other a little out of our reach financially. We contacted the estate agent and put in an offer on the expensive house, it was refused :(

We put in another offer with some caveats and to our surprise the offer was excepted! This of course started a whole series of events including speeding up the sale of our property in Wales, resigning from work and organizing the move. Sandy is a born organizer she has a knack with managing several things at once, so she organized the following:

Removal companies
Boxes
Solicitors and selling
Travel options and timings
Legal stuff
Post forwarding
Packing
Organizing the children

I helped ;)

After a few weeks, some upsets we were eventually scheduled to move out, stay at my parents,  catch a ferry and travel to a guest house in Creuse, we arrived in France just over one year ago

The story continues...