Another week has passed and there isn’t a whole lot to report. We’re now well into August meaning we’ve got less than three months left of our planned year off. As a result, we’re now starting to think longer term in terms of housing and unfortunately, jobs.
On that front, I’ve recently updated my Linked-In profile to say that I’m looking and made contact with a few old colleagues. I will continue to get the word out and hope something comes of it. A friend of our has a small business and has asked me to build him a time-keeping application so that will bring in a bit of cash.
I am now nearly done with the prototype. I’ve been working on it for three months or so, which means I’m getting very tired of looking at it. It’s nice to have it finished but the main things left on this version are just bits of clean-up so it’s not very exciting work. After that, I’ve got more features to add so I won’t get much of a break. I’ve allowed myself a few hours of reading by the pool this past week so I’m not working quite as hard these days. We’re weeks away from being incorporated and once we are, I’ll explain the whole thing in detail.
Will spent a few days doing the web site for our business. He’s also got one client that he’s waiting (and waiting..) for feedback from before he can finish the site. Other than that, he’s been playing guitar outside and reading by the pool.
The garden is coming along. This week we’ve had potatoes and cherry tomatoes. The lettuces are doing nicely although we’ve only got a total of four heads. The courgettes are blooming and we’ve got a few cukes that will be ready soon, along with the red and yellow tomatoes.
Last weekend, we went to another night market, this one in Mareuil, our closest town. It was in the fairgrounds on the outskirts and they had some stalls selling various wares, a stage with a band and a few other acts and some rides like bumper cars (dodge ’ems). They were serving moules et frites and sausage sarnies but we had eaten before going out. This was a much smaller affair than the one we went to the previous weekend and not nearly as drunken. The bonus was the fireworks display that was fairly impressive for a small town. We missed them on Bastille Day so it was good to see some this year.
The kittens are still keeping us on our toes. They’ve started to explore further from the house and into the surrounding undergrowth. They usually come back when called so for now, we’re letting them roam. Smeagol has recently caught a small shrew that he then toyed with for hours. Today he caught a bird but didn’t realise it could fly so he accidentally let it go. They are both getting darker, wirier fur, especially on their backs. They prowl around the back door if we don’t let them out; Louis jumps up on and hangs on the panes. It won’t be long before he figures out how the door handle works according to Veronique (who sold them to us).
Oh yeah, I should explain the title of this post. Sharon heard about a house for sale, just north of Nontron, which is exactly where we’d like to end up. The seller just lowered the price from €250K to €175, still out of our range but worth a look anyway. It’s a five bedroom house, with basement and attic. It’s got a lovely huge fireplace in the living room and great views from a small veranda. It’s fairly basic but we could move in right away and not have to do any work to it. It also has a large barn that’s currently just used for storage and another smaller outbuilding that could be converted into a gite. It has a small plot of land around the house and two other plots just over a small road. One piece has a number of fruit trees and the other has place for a garden and a well. We liked it for it’s long term project potential and the location (and views), but since it’s already out of our range, we’re not going to consider it for now.
It’s also slightly premature to be thinking about houses until I’m fairly sure there will be some money coming in. So we probably won’t do much more house-hunting for the next few weeks but then we’ll make it more of a priority.
A bientot.