Yes we have actually made it and are now resident en france!
The end was messy and complicated but worth it in the end.
We eventually moved out of our house in Stoke on 15th July when our third potential buyer got the money together. By that time we had the house back on the market and had gone to France to wait for something definite to happen. By then the house we had hoped to buy had been sold but we decided not to look at any more until we had moved.
After much stress and several missed deadlines we eventually got the news that we were waiting for - our buyers had signed the contract after we had told our solicitor to give them a final deadline before we told them the deal was off. We went back to Stoke for just a few days to do the actual move and then the fun really started when the suspension on our car collapsed at our sons house that evening. ( Yes the car was overloaded AGAIN!) We ended up having to hire a car to go to France to keep all the househunting appointments we had made and go back again a week later. By the time we had been moved out 3 weeks we had travelled 4000 miles, crossed the channel 3 times, eaten more motorway sandwiches than is good for anyone and slept in 10 different beds! We were glad to get away for 5 days by the coast (Collioure), lock the car in the hotel car park and rest.
We did find a house and signed the compromis, the final acte de vente being set for 7 th October. In the meantime we are whiled away the rest of the summer in our holiday place. We made ourselves very comfortable, the weather was hot and sunny and we didn't mind being without electricity at all. We did get a telephone line put in which cost and arm and a leg as we had to pay to have a pole put upbut we could not have managed without it. The biggest problem was not having the internet and having to visit a cyber cafe regularly to pick up emails.
Our temporary address meant it was difficult to really feel properly "at home" as were to be moving again so soon - but we did get a lot of official paperwork out of the way. We bought a new car , got registered for healthcare,and managed to re-register TC's car.
6 weeks ago today we were reun
ited with our furniture and our new house became our home. The move went smoothly and we settled in very quickly and soon felt very much at home. Its hard to believe that we have only been here for 6 weeks, but at the same time the weeks have just flown and here we are with winter round the corner.So we have made it from 82 to 82. In fact our house is right on the border of Tarn et Garonne (dept82), the other side of the road is in Lot and our nearest big town is in Aveyron. It has been a strange year all round and one hell of a fairground ride at times but in the end we have found the right house for us and are looking forward to many years of Segala sunrises!
(the view from our bedroom window - can't be bad to wake up to this!)
