The phone burst into life with a sudden jolt of energy, and picking it up, I heard a voice, "Susan? Susan? Is that you? I think I may have found something...". My heart gave a lurch of excitement, the dread I had been feeling for a week lifting off my chest. There were more words on the other end of the line, but I was already gone, drifting back to France and the sound of cicadas.
With five children at school and a house to pack, we'd decided it was my husband’s turn to go house-hunting. We’d lived in France before, we knew what we wanted this time, going back to a country we loved so much, and we'd drawn up a check-list of things that were vital to the purchase, along with a second list of things that would be 'nice'. We'd already chosen the area, the Charente Maritime, for the prospect of living in France's second sunniest region appealed to us greatly. The seaside, figs, lemons, olives, grapes and melons all drifted in and out of our conversation, as did mutterings of beach life and coastal marshlands. So, he packed a small bag one late June morning and I drove him to the airport as we discussed gardens, rooms, schools and resources. We were confident enough he would find something from the list of properties we had booked to see.
Except he didn't.
For five days, he drove his little hire-car back and forth across the corn-studded hinterland of the region, and down dusty little coastal roads by the sea. He sent nightly reports from a remote chambres d'hôtes via intermittent internet, and he slowly whittled down the list of appoint-ments till they had finished. There was nothing that matched our list of require-ments; certainly not for the budget we had in mind, anyway. Each house he visited had a problem with it, lack of schools, distance to a town or distance from the coast; there was always something out of kilter. The one house that had seemed ideal was signed away the day before he was due to view. We talked late into the night as our dreams grew dimmer and dimmer.