Well, thought we’d best do an entry before we head back to the UK next week, so here it is… though what to say? Things have been typically slow and quiet at Port 80 of late, all told. The weather turned somewhat this week: it has been colder (no more than 10 degrees or so) and a lot cloudier. We have had our first rain since… well, November I think, so all the gardeners are relieved. Talking of, we are now in possession of a rotivator and a huge selection of seeds, so are more or less ready to get our garden up and running. We just need to sort out a fence to keep out the deer who, according to Lucien and Mauricette, will otherwise eat absolutely everything.
Before we can sort that out though, we could use an end to the fog. Being high up, we are very susceptible to fog here in Mazeroux and lately, it has been especially thick. This morning it was somewhat clearer but by now, it has returned with a vengeance. The only clue to the presence of the horses is the occasional disembodied neigh ringing out across the opaque fields. A little ethereal and disconcerting…
So, what have we been up to? Well, our main focus now is coming up with a way to make money. We have been flirting with various ideas about how to help people sell their homes by cutting out the estate agents, whose fees we know from personal experience can render many great places unaffordable to interested buyers. This idea is crystallising in the form of providing sellers with their own dedicated website (for which, they will be able to choose from a range of different, predesigned templates or have a custom one created from scratch) which will allow them to showcase their property better than via an agent’s advert. Combined with the cheaper price tag, hopefully this will help boost interest. We have a few bolt-ons we are considering offering too, such as the option of customers having a dedicated domain name, or offering an interactive floorplan showing the property layout with hover-over images of each room on the plan, and of course the option of creating the site in both French and English to reach both markets.
We are lucky to have a test case for this in our friends, Mike & Jean, who are seeking to sell their home in Brantôme. They do not really speak any French so are only using agents for the sale. We have offered to both create a bilingual site for the place and also to place adverts on the main French classified sites. Here’s hoping it helps them – and thereby suggests we might be on to something. I am nearly done on their site now. Once that is finished, I need to get cracking on one for us, advertising our services. Matt has already looked into available domain names and luckily, our first choice was free: sitesforhomes.com. Short, catchy and pretty descriptive. Mike and Jean say they know of around 5 other English couples all trying to sell up as well, so if we can help them, we may get a few referrals too. We shall see…
What else? Well, we are catching the Eurostar on Thursday morning to head back to the UK for my (ahem)th birthday. Matt is using the opportunity to speak to a few old contacts to try and drum up some other work and we will try and also catch up with a few other friends we’ve not seen in a while. The party is Saturday at a bar in London’s “trendy” East-end, near the City. It promises to be excellent fun with a good crowd coming and cocktails a-plenty guaranteed. The next day, Dad will be once again coerced to drive to London, this time to drop off a few bits of furniture we are appropriating from Nan’s store, as well as a wooden spice rack and a really beautiful oak kitchen unit, both made by Dad for us. We are leaving all this, along with my coffee table and the few other bits and bobs still at our old house, at our ex-neighbour Iain’s house (assuming he is OK with it – we have yet to ask!) to be collected in mid-March by the one-man France-UK delivery service we found online.
Dad will then take us back to Buckinghamshire so that I can spend the dreaded day itself (Monday) in the presence of family. I may not be at my emotional best! The following day we shall be headed back to France to relieve Lucien, Mauricette and Sharon of their cat-management duties. Fingers crossed the boys cope ok without the both of us for the first time ever. This evening, Sharon is joining us for dinner, which will be nice. Otherwise, all is quiet out here in misty Mazeroux. Ok, more “news” soon.