Let me start by being honest, in hindsight we were foolish.
OK, all right, I put my hands up; I was very stupid, believing in the honesty and integrity of estate agents. I know dear reader you would have thought over my long years dealing with this anomaly of British society, I would have learned my lesson, obviously I hadn’t.
Within a couple of weeks we had visitors looking around the family castle. Some were just nosey tourists with nothing to do when it was raining; some were locals wanting to have a good look around the “English” house but others were real potential buyers.
We did all the usual, brew coffee, bake bread, clean the toilets, chain the dogs up in our neighbour’s garden, wear proper clothes, make the beds, hoover everywhere, take the washing in, hide the children, clean the pool…twice, and of course smile, smile and smile again.
Between our two agents the battle was on…. who could take the best photos, write the best spiel and drink the most coffee…the Dutch side won.
“Richard I have a buyer for your house” said our Dutch agent. “He only wants to pay half the asking price, but he is serious”
I said “NO”
“He will pay 70% of your asking price and he has no need for a mortgage,” says our man with the clogs
I said “NON”
“He will pay 80% of your asking price and he speaks English,” states the man with the Edam
I said “NEIN”
“He will give you 95% of your asking price and wants to be in within two months”
At that point I bit his hand off and poured us all a drink or three.
It was all confirmed in writing and the date was set for a visit to Piste Notaire. (See Chapter Six)
We were as you can imagine over the moon with such a good sale but a tad concerned, as we had nowhere to move to!
Remember Elaine’s “Urban/Rural” idea, I hadn’t even defined it yet alone got her to describe her wish list, blood from stone comes to mind when I asked her what she was actually looking for. A hermit’s stone sheep shed on the banks of the River Aveyron, a bijou falling down old barn with resident rats in the drains and snakes on the roof, a modern three bedroom glass folly designed by our mad local architect, or an old chateaux with little if any roof, in the middle of nowhere?
I hadn’t a clue and had no choice, but to call up help from my best friend the estate agent with the funny smoking materials.
You know when you go and buy wallpaper, they give you those huge great books that weigh a ton and have every colour, pattern and price under the sky for your perusal, well it was like that, except he wouldn’t let us bring them home.
Now, I’m a bloke and don’t find wallpaper books a particularly good read, the topics are limited, the prose is not colourful enough for me, the subject matter keeps changing and they are very difficult to balance on your knees especially if you are reading them in my favourite quiet spot in the house…the loo. (That's probably why he wouldn't let us bring them home)
His books on the other hand contained my future in their torn plastic bound spines, so they held my interest. It’s one thing to look through a catalogue for computers, children’s’ clothes, tools, underwear (I personally like Bravissimo), or garden seeds, but to do it for a house is simply ridiculous!!
Two hours later we had read the equivalent of the entire back catalogue of John Lewis wallpaper department together with the Dulux and of course Farrow and Ball (that plug is for Elaine) colour charts for the last thirty years.
We had chosen two countryside properties to look at, both within a kilometre or two from our adopted town. They had larger gardens, so I mentally added a sit on lawn mower to the budget, beautiful countryside, wonderful vistas all around, fresh air, mice, that funny squirrel thing that gets into the roof, frogs, snakes, foxes, wild boar, deer, huge spiders and did I say snakes?
With a set of details in ‘Dutglish’ we drove to the first survivor of the equivalent of Cowell’s vote on ‘Kecks Factor’, looked at the house, the grounds, the location and drove away. With the second house…. we fell in love at first site!
That was it, simple as that, we looked around the house, the gardens, the chicken run, the old shepherds cottage in the grounds, the mini lake, the river frontage and put in an offer, adjusted it slightly…upwards and the deal was done. In my entire life and multiple house purchases, I have never bought the first house I looked around; perhaps Elaine was right keeping her definition of ‘Urban/Rural’ from me.
That was the easy bit over, the hard part was yet to come.
