BUDDIES!!

Dun dunnle da dun dun da dun dun - so no-one told you life was gonna be this waaaaaay CHA CHA CHA CHA..

Yeah, enough of that crap.

It's been so long since we've updated our travelog that we have fallen well behind; THUS I am going to write a very short entry to bring us up-to-date. We will endeavour to report on our experiences in a more timely fashion, mainly for the 2 Romanians who are following us, as we have now set off again on our journey into the unknown. More on this next week.

Living in Spain has been amazing. The region we were in, the village(s) and the valley were an incredible place to be all set against the stunning backdrop of the Sierra Nevada, bountiful orange trees and blossoming almond trees. The weather has also been spectacular - patchy as you would expect at this time of the year - but there have been many short and t-shirt days, warm sun and clear blue skies - what a civilised winter they have down in Andalusia, something I've been looking for: bright, sunny, warm winter, unbelievable compared to what we have back at home.

Helen wrote about some of our experiences living here so I won't go over it again. I will just say that it's been a highlight of a journey already packed with incredible highlights.. what a year we've had so far. 

As if the experience of living here wasn't enough we've had the added bonus of sharing our time with friends both old and new, clever and stupid, clean and unhygienic..

First off: due to Tim Berners-Lee's invention most of you now know that 2 'daywewentto's' has become 3, I've fathered a dog - BUDDY!! He also has a number of other aliases, although there's reason he's called Buddy, so his name may change IF we find ourselves back in the UK. He is Spanish after all, has a Spanish passport, so we'll see. Calling out for my 'Buddy' in a darkened alleyway might not be advisable.
Loads of stuff to write about Buddy but as this will be a short blog entry we will keep it to this: things we have discovered about Buddy so far:

Likes - Jamon, chasing Ibex across dangerous mountain passes, rubbing his face in dung and/or dead animal carcasses, sunbathing and running after cars whilst barking and shoving his head just in front of the front wheel as the vehicle carries on at speed - suicidal.

Dislikes - Sensible/healthy dog food, heights/bridges (very strange), acoustic guitar (not just my dodgy playing either..) and roundabouts/bendy roads/speed humps..very pukey.

No need to say anymore about him other than he's a blast, was a local celebrity in the town we stole him from, a great man to have aboard and if you haven't already met him you will do soon. No doubt he will be living with you permanently when we decide we've had enough of him and want to go travelling again.

Next up, that other faithful puppy who likes to defecate in the street - Matty George, again, there's no shaking him off, even if you go away for a year, he'll find you..

Dear old Matt took the time to come and visit us over Christmas (free accommodation probably played a huge part in this) and we mashed it up big stylee, as much as you can in Acequias, a gorgeous little town although renowned for not having a bar or shop. As Matt, Helen and I all enjoy food and cooking we hit the local shops with a gastroenteritis inducing shopping list: a whole bloody huge Jamon, gigantic prawns, rabbit, lambs livers, 1kg clams, chorizo's, vast amounts of sherries, wines, spirits and other intoxicating liquors that as yet we're still not sure if they were to drink or put in your car engine.

Matt timed his visit spectacularly as the weather was incredible, 20+ degrees some days, and we took full advantage of the amazing local area by taking in some great walks - one of over 35k and up at about 2400 meters. Even at that height it was still really warm as you will see from the picture below of Matt stood up high on the Sierra Nevada (he now uses this as his profile picture on the 'Macho Man' website). Not only did we 'cliiiimb every mounting, seeearch hiiigh and low' it was warm enough to take to the beach and contemplate a swim. Beautiful sunny day when we left the village, not so once we'd navigated all of Salobrena's roundabouts and speed humps, cleaned up Buddy's sick, ran onto the beach and stripped off. Pretty grey and cold with sea water that at first numbed, then burnt your skin due to temperature; mucho frio!
Still, we did what all respectable Brits do in such situations - plunged into the sea (we got a cheer from local fishermen) swam about until lips were blue then headed for an ice cream - an awesome Christmas eve.

It was during Matt's visit that we finally found enough chloroform to put Buddy under, bundle him into a bag and bring him home. Matt was instrumental in helping Buddy settle in his first week so thanks buddy..

No sooner had we dropped Matt off at Malaga airport than we found ourselves back there to meet and greet Mike and Jo!!
Mike, the Essex boy with not, 1, but 2 PHD's and who insists his friends call him 'Dr' (he books his flight tickets this way, I've seen them) and his lovely girlfriend Jo who, poor thing, not only had to arrive with Mike but was also full of cold - this being NYE and all bless her. We were sure Jo was allergic to dogs but we brought Buddy along anyway, can't recall if he was sick or not, probably though! Having not seen Mike and Jo since we left we all decided that NYE would be spent at Casa Esquina with a log fire, good food (in particular a huge plate of a rather interesting cake we had made) and plenty of social occasion lubricant - plus a session of the brilliant game that they had brought over for us - Carcassonne! New Years Day, as always, was a write off.

Mike and Jo had taken the time to fly out to us for such a short visit so the next day it was up and at them and into the mountains: early start, let's get going, no time for slackers, hang backers or anything else that rhymes with 'ackers'.
Shall we take the young stray dog that's only been with us a few days on a 7 hour plus hike way up into the mountains and let him run about off the lead in territory that neither us or he knows? Yep. Why we did this i'm not sure, how we didn't lose him I don't know. Buddy ran, foraged and generally got lost. Where Mike, Jo, Helen and I covered over 35k, way up into the clouds, Buddy must have done 50k. Never have I seen a dog so excited by its surroundings, the mountains making a huge contrast to the streets of Durcal where we met. Mike was the same, coming from Essex and all; his big old face lit up as he ran through the snow, urinated against trees and drank dirty puddle water all the time screeching 'call me doctor, call me doctor' bless him..

We got very lucky that day with Buddy. About a week or so later he ran off across the mountains, chasing Ibex, until he was just a tiny little white dot scrabbling across a cliff face perilously close to falling off. When he finally realised his situation and turned back he slipped into a valley and couldn't get himself out for a while.

Anyway, these walks were pretty knackering. Fairly steep tracks that take you from 900m up to about 2300m to a mirador and lunch, about 3.5 hours before a break. I know that Jo is a fit and enthusiastic walker but, laden with a cold and hunger, I could hear just a tiny bit of prickliness in her voice when she asked 'Swag, how far is this mirador?' and I lied each time to try and help make the journey easier. 'Oh, er, you know..that line of trees, 2 corners more'.. although shot to bits by the time we got home we ended the day with a suburb roast that Mike cooked and he'd also bought the finest tart in the shop, that's not a reference to Jo of course..

I've been up into the mountains a few times now, always in hiking boots too tight and feet swelling up so badly, that despite a man who was the spitting image of Giuseppe, (Pinocchio's pop) stretching them for me a number of times I am now running at a toenail count of: 3 M.I.A, 7 still just about hanging on in there. The fallen were good soldiers to a man - lost on particularly harrowing tours of duty.

Buddy was still very new to us when Mike and Jo arrived but he fully enjoyed having two extra people to fuss and play with him, both of them made a huge effort to help him feel settled. He spent more time with them than with us.. little bugger.

Finally, as Helen has done previously, I have to mention Andrew and Eva (experts in where to get the best local tapas), a most amazing couple that we met by chance whilst discussing a mutually favourite - and hard to get hold of in Spain - herb of ours (coriander) in a local bar, La Osa. It's not often you meet people that you know instantly will be lifelong friends but we are sure this will be the case (not least because they've said we can stay at theirs whenever we want!). They made our stay even more special and we spent many a long afternoon in either the local bars, or at their fantastic house in nearby Niguelas hanging out, swapping films & music, getting drunk, eating jamon and playing the fantastic game of 'cornhole' in amongst rabbits, chickens and cats (big shout out to the rooster Wasabi who unexpectedly disappeared, not Buddy, honest)..

Our last week with them involved them making us beautiful Sushi one night and then on the day before we were due to leave we met for a quick last drink that lasted all day and evening and delayed our departure. Awesome. If you ever find yourself down in this region you can rent them both off of us as ready-made holiday friends for a fee, they are well worth it.. Andrew is American but don't let that put you off!
A huge thank you to you both - we hope everything works out for you and we'll see you soon - and to Matt, Mike, Jo and Buddy for making our stay in Acequias more than we could have hoped for.  We must add to this list also Inma, Eva's sister, a fine player of Jungle Speed another fantastic game, Maria, co-owner of La Osa, a great bar if you're ever in the area and all of the local mamas.

Right, van's packed, house cleaned, we've said our 'adios', got sick bags ready... let's go.

I'd had a pot of coffee before I wrote this, so not that short in the end, hasta Luego!

And here's what they all look like..

A bery bery fine country indeed

For a part of the trip that we had not at first given much of a thought to; this was supposed to be where we sat out the winter after we’d had all our fun already; we were completely taken aback at this little pocket of Spain we found ourselves in.  Sitting out the rains of early November and generally getting used to the extra stretching space out of the van (we’ve gone from hovering over a portable toilet with our knees round our ears, to each having our own bathrooms – what luxury!), we used the time to get settled in, and put in our order for some firewood from a local guy in the village – called Pepe of course.  Anyway, the next morning we waited with a couple of sacks in hand, expecting Pepe to trot up the road with a wheelbarrow at any minute.  Instead the distant putter of a tractor approached, and there was Pepe, towing a huge trailor piled high as the sky with our firewood.   Errrr we need some more sacks.  To make matters worse, as Pepe dropped the wood from the trailor he pointed to the sky, and even with limited Spanish I understood him to say “you better move this lot damn fast cos it’s gonna piss it down in a minute”.  Which it did of course, but thankfully after we had heaved in and covered up our heating source with some tarpaulin or thrown it into sacks.  We eventually got some pallets to stack a proper woodpile, but for a few days everywhere we went in the house there were logs, logs and more logs.

Part of settling in also included venturing out to the local stores to stock up on Spanish food, which didn’t disappoint.  The food here is really good quality; rosy red peppers as big as your head, and what’s more it’s an enjoyable shopping experience – the ‘fruterias’ are a bit like walking into the British greengrocers we had before supermarket domination removed much of them.  Someone actually selects and weighs your vegetables for you, and there are buckets of nuts and lentils and beans piled high with scoops propped in the top.  It’s like some vegan pick ‘n’ mix utopia.  What’s even better is that the food is really cheap, the cheapest we’ve found in all the countries we’ve travelled to in Europe.  And at last, we have an oven.  After 6 months of limited cooking facilities, we are now churning out pies and gratins and cakes, thankful of all the walking to do or this could be a weighty winter.

By now we were getting to grips with the woodburner.  It’s a bit sink or swim frankly as these Spanish village houses don’t have central heating; they don’t need to since most the time they’re sweltering in 30C+.  But unless you master the art of fire, you’re going to have a very cold winter, and actually it’s not as easy as you think unless you were lucky enough to have an open fire to hone your skills on at some point in your life.   Which we clearly had not, but we nailed it eventually. 

At last, after a couple of weeks of rain, the sun re-appeared in the sky and we started to get some of the weather we had expected of a southern Spanish winter.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not sunbathing weather, although we did go to the beach in November, but the days are bright and warm in the sun and best of all the sun stays in the sky for a good couple of hours longer than at home.  We got our hikers on and started to get out into the snow-capped mountains that surround us here.  The closest peak however, Corbello, still evades us.  In our naivety we had looked and thought we’d do it in a couple of hours, but have subsequently heard that it’s a 12 hour round trip…it will take a bit more planning, a 6am start and…goddamit – where’s the Kendal mint cake when you need it?  We’ve also had the running trainers out again, and against both our expectations, have actually been enjoying doing some hill running.

After all this healthy frolicking about we decided it was fine time we headed out for the night, which we anticipated being a rather tricky affair since there isn’t even a bar in the village we live in.  However, we read about a Sunday jazz jam session in a bar in the next village over, Niguelas, which was only a 25 minute walk away so we headed for it.  Not many walks to the pub include a stumble across the side of a valley in pitch black darkness, but it’s one of the eccentricities that makes living here so enjoyable.  Anyway, after a half hour of wandering around Niguelas we couldn’t find the place and had damn near given up when we thought we could distinguish the sound of jazz guitar far off in the distance.  Following our ears, at last we arrived at our destination, and walked into a great little bar, which oddly happened to be owned by a girl from our village who had been wanting to ask us along but had been too shy.  It was an awesome night, spent knocking back mojito’s and listening to great music.  Best of all, we got chatting to an American guy called Andrew and his Spanish girlfriend, Eva, who are right up our street (metaphorically not literally) and who we have spent a great deal of time with since, mostly playing the fantastically named game ‘Cornhole’, which I wont tell you anymore about as we think there’s a big market for it in England and shortly plan to make our millions….oh ah hah hah hah.

Through Andrew and Eva we’ve met some other people and it’s great actually hanging out with Spanish people.  Actually, it’s great to have friends again, as due to the rate at which we’ve moved around in the van, we haven’t had the chance to get to know anyone well enough.  Obviously it isn’t the greatest time for lots of Spanish people, many we meet are highly trained and smart people out of work.  It’s getting to be a common theme in Europe, but the economic crisis has definitely hit Spain hard.  Not that you would tell by the amazing generosity of the locals – we have been brought gifts of food from nearly every Spanish mama in our village – bread, membrillo, caqui fruits, coconut cake – all delicious and wonderfully kind.  The only sign of hard times in our little village are the quantity of stray cats and dogs around.  Spain has a reputation for strays of course, but the economic crisis has left so many more pet owners dumping their animals onto the streets.  It’s heartbreaking, and along with the rest of the English people in the area, we find ourselves separating our scraps (and even buying food, suckers that we are) for the poor blighters nearby.  There is one dog in particular that has charmed the pants off us, who gets a regular feed whenever we see him.  We’ve nicknamed him Buddy and if we could take any with us it would be him. 

So, as you can probably tell, we have fallen in love with our little valley in Spain.  Mostly, we are very grateful for the experience of actually living amongst Spanish people in a traditional village and being part of the community, which is not something you get to do on a conventional holiday.  It’s incredible, and we both like to think that perhaps we’ll live around here more permanently at some point in the future.  And now, we have visits from friends at home over Christmas and New Year coming up and many many more games of cornhole I’m sure…life is good, viva Espana…

a-walking we go

Gonna Ma-beya un it

‘I must remember to sit down and write the blog’ ‘don’t let me forget to sit down and wrote the blog’ ‘shit, I really have to sit down and write the bloody blog..’ 

Ok, so it’s been ages since we’ve had the chance to update our pictorial and worded travel diary.  This is partly due to laziness, having lots of other interesting stuff to do or a series of hilarious run-ins with our local Spanish internet shop which appears to have the gravitational pull of Hattie Jacques and has exerted such a Toulon-like grip upon me that I had find it impossible to avoid entering and have another fall-out with the proprietor – he really is a disagreeable chap and sold us a lie god dammit – so I enjoy our little get-togethers.

Anyway, after a few ‘discussions’ we have finally sorted out a net connection that isn’t powered by the local donkey and that allows us sufficient GB’s to kick-start our blog again.  Apologies to our four Caribbean readers about the lack of recent broadcasts but we’re back on air now so hook yourself up a hammock, grab a can of Lilt and join us as we continue our journey through space and time….ok then, just France and Spain.

We left off waaaaaay back in mid-October, as we were just about to carry out a load of second viewings of property dotted across Brittany and in differing states of repair.  We viewed countless property the first time around remaining open minded about all we looked at, despite condition or location, and found some lovely property in the wrong location or a dog of a house in favoured location, but nothing felt quite right.  Anyway, we whittled it down to a few decent ruins in our favoured location of south-eastern Brittany and headed out to see them again.

Before we go into how we got on something that we both began to feel as we spent more time in Brittany was that, as lovely as it is, it can feel a bit too quaint and quiet (especially coming from the mean streets of E’Dwich) and what we’d originally set out to find ‘wow, look at all this peace and space’ became a little bit ‘shit, look at all this peace and space’.  France – and Brittany in particular - feels like a perfectly safe and decent place to live, everything seems nice, quiet, clean, pretty damn near perfect… a bit like the Truman Show.   There just doesn’t appear to be that extra something exciting that we have found in so many other places present in Brittany.  But property is cheap, the countryside is really nice in parts and the people we’ve met have always been extremely friendly to us.

This has left us just mulling over if we would/could permanently live there, and we’re still not sure of that right now. We met a really decent bloke who was around the same age as me (still young, full of verve) who had moved to Brittany sometime ago, set up his own property investment company and was trying to sell us a house.  He took us around a few houses, really helpful, telling us why each one was the perfect investment opportunity for us and we all got on well so we took him for a coffee after completing our viewings.

No sooner had we sat down when he was suddenly like ‘look, I’m trying to sell you a house and all but do you REALLY wanna live here?’ and went on to explain how he’d moved out for the ‘better quality of life’ more space etc but that the remoteness/rural life nature & lack of City hustle and bustle can be very hard to adjust to, so he said he was moving his family further south and that we should give serious consideration to our plan of moving lock-stock to Brittany as it can be a little sleepy (not his exact words).  Either the best, or worst, Estate Agent going.  Good man. 

We’d also seen evidence of the risk of buying property and moving abroad in the form of a lot of half-renovated incomplete ‘dreams’ that owners were now trying to sell or property that had been bought from the UK and just left to rot, not something we want to end up with and doesn’t endear you to the local community.

Anyway, with all that in mind the properties that we went to see for a second visit turned out to be just too far away from life for us, too rural or in small hamlets with not much going on so we ruled them all out.  We’ve not searched for or bought property before but something happened to us during our search that I guess a lot of people experience; we found ourselves comparing everything against the very first place that we viewed and that we had found on-line whilst still in the UK, the mighty Lignol!  Not only did we find ourselves talking about it but also we’d find ourselves visiting it, again and again, countless times like it was our own. It’s not, but we want it to be.  So after an extensive search and a long drive back up from Italy to Brittany we’ve picked the very first one we saw over 12 months ago (luckily for us there has been four failed purchase attempts to date by others so it’s still available).

Awesome ruin it is, set into some lovely land and not too far from both the nearest small and decent sized town.  Anyone reading this (including the four Caribbeans) will hopefully discover all this anyway, as you will be helping re-build it.  There’s not the business opportunity we were looking for at the site, yet, but there could be potential to expand in the future and even though it’s not ours we do get that feeling of coming ‘home’ when we visit it.  Just most homes don’t have trees growing in the lounge.  So, easy part done, identifying the property we want, now we have the very difficult process of trying to actually make it ours by having an impending offer accepted and securing a modest French renovation mortgage, not as easy as getting hold of cash in the UK and a blog entry of its own.  Who knows if we will actually live there in the future, just getting it re-built will be enough to start with. However, anyone reading this (including the four Carribeans) will be expected to put us up for a while in April if none of this comes off, could go either way as it stands today.

Right, with that partly sorted it was time to leave Brittany and follow the sensible birds and retired cock-er-nees down to southern Spain for winter and to the house so kindly donated to us by Wendy and Graham. Located in the village of Acequias, not far from Granada in Andalucia, and at about 900m altitude up the side of the Sierra Nevada it’s a great place to head to for winter!!

Up to this point we’d done so much driving, so much travelling and spent so much time in the van that we decided to blast down to southern Spain as quickly as possible, sometimes at terrifying speeds close to 55mph.  Also, with the northern European weather beginning to turn on us and the relative sanctuary of open campsites with warm showers now few and far between we couldn’t wait to get to Acequias. 

So, not much to tell you about the trip down other than we passed through:

Biarritz - great looking place, even on a cloudy day – full of trust-fund receiving surfers.

San Sebastian - awesome place to visit, brilliant city in stunning setting – full of trust-fund givers and an elderly community not unlike that in the film Cocoon.

Other than some place in the middle of Spain that was it for major stops on our journey south, we really went for it and the bus is none to happy with us for it.  It’s a shame that we missed a lot of Spain on the trip down – although the middle drive from north to south is a pretty monotonous stretch of nothingness, nothing but whole loads of nothing, save a few ropey industrial looking places – but once we get settled we plan to head out and explore more, we also wanted to save something for the journey back north next year (if we don’t just keep heading south).

Arriving at Acequias was brilliant.  Mainly because the van took a beating on the way down, we’d really pushed it, but also because we’d been looking forward to the comforts of living in a proper solid structure ever since the summer ended and the great European rains of 2012 arrived.  Naturally, because we’d spent the best part of seven months in our awesome van and now needed to adjust to living in a house (we tried to drive it to BP and fill it up with diesel but we can’t get it started, engine trouble we suspect..) it felt a bit weird getting out of the bus knowing it would be for quite a while.  We also had the slightly unnerving sight of the lovely local Spanish mama’s lining up to stare through the windows at us for the first week or so, must be a local custom or something, but they are all proper old mama types, very umm, ‘curious’ for want of a better word but also very welcoming.

We arrived at the house quite late at night and a bit disorientated so preceded to get well smashed on cheap Rioja and rum.  Banging headaches we stumbled out onto the roof terrace the next morning to be met with a fantastic panoramic view of the valley that we find ourselves right next to, the Sierra Nevada mountains and farther beyond to distant villages.  It looks like a great place to spend time.

In return for the kind loan of the property we are undertaking some repairs so have spent our first week at the house doing one or two jobs, getting to know our immediate surroundings and just relaxing into relaxing, all the while looking up at the mountains wondering how great it will be to walk them, getting excited about getting out into the local community more, cycling the challenging looking roads and maybe even heading to the beach, in November.  We also need to source combustible material and get to grips with our wood burner as we suspect it could get cold around here.

More of which will be posted in a less shoddy time frame in the next week (or so).

Hasta bloody Luego!

No title no cry.

Full circle...back to Brittany

Last time we caught up we were at the Dutch run campsite near the town of Cordes-sur-Ciel.  This felt like a last few snatched days of holiday; we were reaching the end of September and this together with our climb northwards, would leave us preparing for some chillier climes.  Cordes-sur-Ciel is a beautiful town, dotted with wonderfully weird little shops - one displayed a full fighting scene of little plastic soldier toys - you're left wondering if they sell very much, or perhaps this is 'art', who knows..  Anyway, another hilltop town, but this one beautifully French, and a couple of hours spent pleasantly strolling (or rather huffing and puffing up steep inclines).  After three days relaxing in this area, we proceeded with our climb to northern France, arriving in the Dordogne and staying at an aire in Tremolat, not far from Bergerac.  By now we were getting back into this aire business - the Tremolat one by example being pretty much as good as any campsite, if you can go without electric and have your own washing facilities your stay in France can be very cheap and easy.

Onwards early the next day, and since we were heading that way, we decided to make our last stop before Brittany at Chatelaillon, just south of La Rochelle.  I'm not sure Michael and I have ever come to France together without ending up here at some point, and in fact it was the destination for our first ever foray into French camping many years ago, when it took a whole day and a couple of bottles of cider to even get the tent up straight!  Anyway, for some silly reason we're sentimental about this place as in a weird way it feels like where it all began.  On this occasion, we had received a text from a fellow weather obsessional warning us of the forthcoming gales, however still decided upon the aire spot directly infront of the beach, and therefore at the mercy of any weather coming in from the Atlantic.  A windy and rainy walk along the beach later, we shut ourselves in the van which swayed from side to side in the high winds through much of the night.

After a short drive, we found ourselves on the boundary of Brittany and in need of hot showers, so checked in to a campsite on the coast at Penesten, which thankfully had wifi to while away two more days of constant rain.  I suppose this is the point it hit us that our summer was over.  No more flip flops.  No more suntan lotion.  Not even shorts weather, and the thought of craving ice cold frappe's suddenly seemed both ludicrous and a million miles away.  Anyone who know's me well will realise it took me a few days to adjust to this realisation and come out of my stinking mood!  There was however house hunting to look forward to and much of our time was spent lining up appointments for the coming weeks in Brittany.  And we had a regular visitor to the van during this time of a cheeky little cat, who had clearly sussed us out as complete pushovers and the best place to hide out the terrible weather. She operated on the 'if I keep really quiet they wont notice I'm here' tactic, and then when we attempted to shoo her out the door that evening, switched to all out attack, leaving us both bleeding and zig-zagged with scratches...needless to say we lived up to our pushover tag and let her stay since she was quite nice company when not being forced out into the cold.

Due to the weather, this campsite was also the scene of mass death in the local pigeon population.  We arrived back to the van one afternoon to a birds nest and dead baby bird that had obviously been dislodged from the tree in the winds.  The campsite owner removed the bird and told us in broken English, and mock splatting noises, that many had been falling over the last few days.  This was evidenced an hour later as a second baby pigeon, who had clearly been clinging desperately to the branches above since his nest fell an hour before, gave up and fell within a metre or so of us standing by the van.  Poor thing made a noise like a deflated football as it hit the ground.  Anyway, it made walking under the trees quite tense for our remaining time there...and was the first time I missed my cycle helmet.

So, now we were in Brittany, our intended future home.  We had plans to explore some of the regions and pockets of Brittany that we had not been to, before our viewings started in few days.  This began in La Gacilly, a town right on the border of the Morbihan which hosts the largest photographic exhibition in France every year.  Fortunately, the exhibition was on when we arrived, and consists of open air installations throughout the cobbled streets, and several large format photo's pinned to the side of buildings and businesses throughout the town.  The aim of the exhibition is to make people think about the future of the planet, and this year's theme was People and Nature.  Awesome.  And a good introduction to Brittany no less.  We pootled around some nearby villages and then ended the day camping at Port Foleux, a very poignant stop since this was where we headed off on our trip from five months ago.  It almost made us question whether we had dreamt it all...

Then of course the viewings began.  Which actually brings us up to present day, as over the last 10 days or so we have attended viewings with various estate agents and notaires (basically like local solicitors that manage a list of properties for sale in their area) in many of the regions within Brittany.  It's been a very strange experience in the main, partly I suppose as we have never purchased a property in the UK, let alone in a foreign country.  The serious nature of what we are proposing to do has definitely sunk in over the last week, sitting at our desks in London full of bravado talking of buying a property in France is very different to actually doing it, that's for sure.  There have also been fairly rude awakenings in terms of planning laws and land usage; any potential campsite or business we had in mind would need to be fought for tooth and nail in most cases.  In others it is simply not an option, or too expensive.
It's not all bad news and negative experience though; we have seen some lovely parts of Brittany, and naturally living over on the continent feels as though it opens up the whole of the Europe, but particularly the rest of France, the beautiful country that we love.  We have also seen some properties, which although in some pretty ruinous states, are definitely options for us in terms of having a home for the future, and let's not forget that it is a buyer's market at the moment here in France so what you get for your money is actually quite a shock when compared to over-inflated prices in the UK.  What we have seen however is perhaps the effect of the economic downturn in the UK, with lots of British bought and half renovated properties back on the market; financial circumstances have changed for some and their dreams will have to remain unrealised.  Of course, in some cases, these British owned properties were bought with no intention of renovation, simply as a 'sit on and make money for nothing' scheme, however with no rising market these people have lost out on their moneymaking schemes.  In these instances it's easy to understand some of the French animosity towards the Brits!

All in all it's been a great experience, and we are glad we arrived in Brittany early.  We are still determined to   have a stab at moving our lives over here, however not wanting to end up with a project we can't finish, we'll be making sure we get our sums right.  In fact we have some second viewings at the weekend so let's watch this space.