“Several glasses in and one of us (we still aren’t sure who to blame) came up with the bright idea of moving to France and setting up a gite business. Brilliant. Easy. What could possibly go wrong?”
Rebecca had spent time in France as an au pair when she was young. Greg had been on a boys’ holiday to Le Touquet. “I had done French at A Level. My husband could order a beer. We were clearly well equipped to make an incisive, life-changing decision” Rebecca laughs.
They did though do considerable and in-depth research of the kind that involves holidays staying in chateaux, drinking wine and sitting by a pool. They decided that the Dordogne was the region for them and that they could afford to buy somewhere that needed a little bit of renovation. “We thought we could cope with maybe a new bathroom or kitchen, but nothing – repeat, nothing – major”.
They drove thousands of kilometres but there was nothing that got their hearts racing and butterflies fluttering. That is, nothing until a rainy, miserable day in March 2016.
“On a dull, wet morning we saw an incredibly beautiful house with a large gite. It was designed to perfection and we wouldn’t have had to so much as lift a paintbrush. I wanted it. In the afternoon, our agent persuaded us to go and see one more property that she had on her books. It was a Mill and she uttered the fateful words, “you need a bit of vision” - and my heart sank.
Nevertheless, off we went to see Moulin de Fontalbe. We got lost on the way and had a small marital disagreement. By the time we finally drove though the gates I was in no mood to have vision for anything, apart from a glass of wine.