The next day we all sat around the dining room table, dreading sorting through at least a forest worth of advertising material and homes bearing no resemblance whatsoever to our requirements. So instead, we reminisced about yesterday’s rugby scrums, sweaty people, horrible coffee and ignorant or perhaps uninterested sales reps.
I suppose at a spectacle like that it is almost impossible to tell the window shoppers from the serious players. I didn’t know it at the time but this situation arises a lot with French agents based in France. They are inundated with bored or wet (it does rain in these parts..even in the Summer) holiday makers with little if any interest in actually viewing a property and no interest in actually buying one. That said at UK exhibitions I am sure that a little more finesse and a few more staff would not go amiss on many of the stalls.
Eventually we summoned up the courage to sort through the woodland of leaflets. As we had thought, we had enough paper to wrap a fish and chip supper for an entire regiment of Royal Marines, but nothing of any real interest, that is except for an Asterix club key ring that BamBam fancied for attacking our local family of red squirrels, a beer mat for a Dutch lager (don’t ask) and a couple of freebie writing instruments..you know La Pens.
The single big surprise, in this entire venture, came two days later, in the post. It was a letter (legibly signed) and an assortment of properties from my favourite sales man, you know the one “a small district in a very small part” etc. The properties were a good range, close to our price range and, of course above it, and correctly positioned in and around the ‘Imaginot’ line devised on the Isle of Blight.
We checked out the offerings, looked at the web site, arranged an appointment by phone fax and e-mail with OUR agent, sent the brood to my parents and jumped on a ferry to the land of our futures.
Well we actually drove onto an expensive ferry to Portsmouth then another more reasonably priced one to France, shame they don’t call in at Cowes or Ryde on the way it would have saved us a fortune. It is cheaper, per mile, to fly to the moon than it is to cross the Solent on a commercial ferry and that does not take account of a cup of tea and a slice of toast, you could probably do Mars if you counted subsistence.
Almost exactly five hundred miles or eight hundred kilometres south of the concrete jungle that is Le Havre is the Tarn et Garonne. It is without doubt a beautifully proportioned and picturesque province in south west France and it was there on that fateful Monday in “a small district in a very small part of a region in a very small department” of France we drove eagerly to the appointment with OUR agent. But it was Monday, and France closes on a Monday and our agent had two diaries, and our agent was somewhere else and our agent didn’t have his mobile with him and, and, and…Oh well lets go and have a coffee at the brasserie over there and see what transpires.
Two very cold and very welcome beers later OUR man arrived and the adventure continued.
It was raining stair-rods the next morning, rain drops the size of quails eggs and it didn’t look like stopping, so we donned our Isle of Wight yachty gear, similar to the clothes that nice television gardener Mr Titchmarsh wears and set out from our Chambre d’hote. Wrapped up like Sainsbury’s chickens in our wet weather clothing we met up with OUR agent and headed off to see our first property.
Now imagine the scene, the heavens downloading their entire liquid content, the wind whipping the leaves and branches from the trees, the roads and fields turning into boggy marshes and our first appointment, to look at a falling down ancient farmhouse…well barn plus a couple of equally rotten woodworm hostels or outbuildings in estate agent speak. You should have seen Elaine’s face peeping out through her Helly-Hansen with the sheets of water blasting at her and this dilapidated dump, just about, still standing in front of her. It was a face that could have sunk a thousand ships.
The place bore very little, if any, resemblance to the description we had been given, it was miles away from anywhere or anything, with the exception of some very wet, very smelly and very noisy cows and it was weathering before our very eyes, as chunks of roof dropped at our feet. I felt gutted and believe me I had no intention whatsoever of a rebuilding project, the size of Wembley Stadium .
The disappointment was palpable… you could have cut the atmosphere with a soup spoon. My immediate thoughts were
1) I need a drink
2) I need another drink
3) Lets go home
We had planned, organised, travelled and dreamed, and like a couple of idiots, made a huge mistake.
