Bloody hell, has it really been one year since Matt’s birthday party/our leaving party in Islington? Actually, I am not sure if it feels like less or more than that, thinking about it. Just seems like another world entirely now… Anyway, happy birthday poppet! It is a sunny day with blue skies, so we may take a walk later – but the temperature has dropped a lot today, and the nights have become positively freezing. Time to get the fire going of a night, methinks.
Otherwise, we haven’t much planned today really. It is also Sharon’s birthday the weekend after next, so we are going to go out for a meal in Brantome for a joint celebration the Saturday in between. Otherwise, Matt has a quiet, relaxed birthday lined up for aujourd’hui. *
Not much to report otherwise, except that my previous ‘coup de cœur’ has become a ‘cœur brisé’ – the place we had set our sights on is now a no-go. The adjoining barn owned by the original French family has been sold, so our romantic plan of reuniting it with the part of the house we saw has fallen through, and we are back to square one on the house-hunt. So very, very depressing.
We have decided to widen the net and look all over the Dordogne, as we have now seen literally every place in the Nontron area that we could afford and are no nearer to finding a suitable home. We saw one yesterday that is right on the northern border of the Dordogne, so not an ideal spot, but the place does have a lot of promise. It is currently rented out as a holiday home but the owners are in a big hurry to sell it to free up the money to work on a new place they have just bought. It looks stunning, has a pool, 2.5 hectaires of land, a barn to expand into etc, so basically ticks all our boxes, barring location (and also total lack of central heat!). We may put in an offer just for the hell of it and see what happens.
Well, nothing else to say that I can think of. A bientot everyone.
*There was actually once nice little treat lined up for this evening: we had decided to indulge ourselves and have takeaway pizza from Le Vieux Four in Brantome. As we discovered when we got here a year ago, more than the change in the weather, it’s the sudden closure of all restaurants everywhere that marks the end of summer in the Dordogne. However, we know from experience that Le Vieux Four is open Fridays at this time of year. Well, yes, normally. Tonight? No, not so much. Denied pizza. We even tried 2 places of lesser quality nearby in desperation, but it was in vain in both cases. So, we ended up cooking. Now, it is a lovely recipe – very tasty and easy to make with lots of different flavours…. but curried cous-cous salad vs a quattro fromaggio pizza laden with extra ham? No contest. Les salauds…