1) We have arrived

There's snow in France too

We have been in France just one week but have already nearly been killed by a crazy woman in a Renault Espace who obviously had a death wish (ours as well as her own), turned up at our first night’s stay only to find no-one there and the place all locked up, battled with blizzards and snow drifts, and discovered £134,000 from the sale of our house had simply gone missing in the ether. 

We are, though, still alive and already we have looked round six different properties.  Several have been pretty derelict but full-of-potential (as well as mice, bats, rats, hibernating hornets, enormous araignées, and even termites).  Yesterday we went to a house lived in by a plainly barmy woman from Spain who had decided to live like Barbara and Tom in The Good Life.  It was freezing cold and the place was full of apples, dried beans, jars of brown gooey stuff, dark grey shrivelled things and bottles of liquid that even Oliver Reed would think twice about drinking.  But, as our charming estate agent, Barbara, pointed out, it did have much potential, ...but pher’apse eet eese not quite right foure yu M’sieur Keenge?

Plenty of potential