Premian

Despite the help of our Michel Thomas language CD’s when we watch programmes on the French tv channels we understand only some of what is being said.  I appreciate the train of thought that says don’t get satelite tv, watch French tv and your French will improve!  It’s not as though we’re big watchers in the UK and follow none of the British soaps thank goodness but its either satellite or bring over lots of dvds.  I can feel myself quickly giving in to the idea of satelite freeview so that I can watch (and understand) the news and visitors and family will expect it, won’t they?  I think we’d really appreciate it in the winter months when we want to stop in in the evening and chill – we have the quote, best get that appointment made.
Regardless of all the shopping we’ve done can you believe it I still need to bring over more stuff from the UK – especially a winter weight quilt for our English bedding.  What will the weather be like in the winter?  We want to visit in January and then travel down to the Font Romeu area so that Martin can ski for a few days and again hopefully in March after the end of the school holidays.  I think our baggage allowance will be maxed out again for the next couple of trips bringing some of our ski gear to leave in Languedoc.

Two more weeks and we’ll be back there -  we can’t wait. This time I’ll be celebrating my 50th birthday while we’re there, I hope Martin remembers to book a restaurant!

We’ve arranged to meet a local lady who does property management, this will give us peace of mind, knowing that our property will be visited and checked over between our visits.

So after one hell of a long day following our arrival we sank into our beds, and “we didn’t need any rocking”! – this became Martins saying of the week.
I swear the next day dawned minutes after we’d gone to bed. The discovery that our clock tower seems to strike on the hour every hour did nothing to disturb our sleep.

We knew that although the house was partly furnised we had to do some fairly serious shopping and had deliberately rented a hatchback to transport our cargo! We promised ourselves that due to being in France if we shopped Friday and Saturday we could have Sunday off. How wrong can you be? On the Friday we trudged off down to Beziers to begin purchasing all that we needed, we got home again about 6pm with the car solidly loaded and happily unloaded all our new purchases.

Saturday – yes you’ve guessed it – like true Brits we hurtled off towards Montpellier and Ikea for some flat pack furniture for our bedroom. Sunday – that day of rest was spent busily putting the units together. Still the house was starting to take shape, but if theres one thing I wanted in France it was outside space, often in short supply in the villages, we had our outside space but alas no garden furniture for me to sit on to enjoy my dinner and local wines – that took care of that days shopping, table, chairs, relaxers, parasols. So next morning after breakfast al fresco, off again down the road to Bezier, once again a car packed solid with stuff that you take for granted at home, once again arriving home early evening. The neighbours must have been bemused and wondered where on earth we were putting everything – had our modest home got the internal dimensions of the tardis? But did it all end there? Not quite – no washing machine and I’m certainly not going to continue to hand wash for ever more. Yes you’ve guessed it, the well travelled road to Bezier, granted the route along the N112 is pretty and the towns and villages enchanting but I want to spend the days wandering around them leisurely shopping for knick knacks please!!!

The full week was to continue fairly much in the same way – shortly after our return to the UK it had been planned that my Mum and stepdad Ken were coming out for two weeks so that Ken could watch the tour de france arrive in Carcassonne and then set off from Bezier. Best laid plans had been upskittled though when Ken had to go into hospital and it was still unknown if they’d make it or not, but we wanted to have our little home fully equipped for them hoping they’d make it.

We did manage a little r and r, enough to whet our appetite for our next visit when we could enjoy the fruits of our labour. We briefly visited Olargues (pictured below) and were here when Anna rang from the UK to tell us she’d got her exam results for her first year Masters in HRM – well done Anna! We are keen to revisit Olargues again to take our time, stop for lunch and do some shopping.

As we drove through Roquebrun (pictured below) we promised to ourselves to return as soon as we could. All in all, despite all the hard work we had an excellent week and really enjoyed ourselves, this is just the start of things to come…

Exactly one week after our planned first visit and feeling optimistic we set off yet again for the airport and though the knock on effects were still being felt this time fate was on our side. We flew into Perpignan and landed in France on Thursday the 6^th April very excited at what hopefully lay ahead. With the help of Keith Pow-Williams at ALR Associates we had made appointments with 3 local agents to view properties, based on the fairly broad criteria we had given him.

We had booked into the Chateau Saint Martin des Champs at Murviel les Béziers, it did not disappoint, lovely surroundings and extremely friendly staff. We set out on the Friday full of optimism to see 2 agents and saw a total of 5 properties, most of them below our fairly modest budget, but needing various amounts of renovation or refreshment. We had seen a couple of possibilities but wondered about the difficulties that we would have to undergo having to oversee a renovation project from the UK whilst speaking very little French.

On the Saturday morning we had an appointment with Jenny Malmberg at AFI agency at Bedarieux, and set off bright and early from the relative plains to the mountains. The first property she showed us, whilst having potential was not for us, we then travelled along the D908 heading for Premian. The mountain scenery around every bend was breathtaking, the valley was full of cherry trees in blossom, I was captivated – if we were to buy in Herault then it had to be in the hills. The second house we saw that day was in the village of Premian but was a little large for us, we then walked further along the village to the next property, we both had the same feeling – this was it, our perfect holiday home, and the mountain view I so dearly wanted from my window.

After many weeks planning and researching online, reading up on several departments and looking at what we could get for our budget the time was right to go and visit France. We felt that the Languedoc offered us everything we wanted and planned our visit to the Herault region of the Languedoc in the south of France. We were looking forward to the trip, and hoping to find our perfect holiday home or at least begin to narrow down the type of property we wanted, in what is a very diverse area of mountains, plains, coastline and of course vineyards!

Alas, things were not to go as smoothly as we’d hoped and in the week leading up to our trip there was unrest in France due to the new Youth Employment Laws that had been introduced. Our lives suddenly became obsessed by watching the news and looking on Ryanair’s website for news on the effect on flights. Some flights were being cancelled, some were still going ahead, so on the morning of Thursday 30th March 2006, our bags packed and our hearts full of uncertainty we left for the airport. We had just got onto the A1 when we got a text from a friend (thanks Tony), to tell us that our flight had been cancelled. Gutted, (sorry but there is no other word for it), we got off at the next exit and came home. Once home, determined our trip would go ahead, although things were still very uncertain due to no resolution and threats of yet more strikes we rebooked for the following week.

Comment – Its hard to be unbiased when affected by such chaos but one must look at the wider picture – I read that youth unemployment stands at 23% in France.