Life is better in Brittany and Normandy

....You bet it is!.. I'm starting 2016's posts off with a quick appraisal of a few properties that show what a stonking investment a house in Brittany can be... according, of course, to what sort of buyer you are... Don't be insulted, but some people are just nutters (in fact this is the category I probably fall into myself)... We, that's Micki and myself, in 1999, bought a dream of a house for just 12,000 of our English pounds (plus Notaire's fees of course). I know - amazing isn't it! We have since proceeded to visit the house 6 times each year for around two weeks each trip and, up to this point, never spent any more time than this over there together. On two or three occasions I have spent a few weeks more than that over at the house when major works were on the agenda - such as when two rooves were replaced... bathrooms created from scratch; including floors, walls, wiring (there's one bloody light fitting still doesn't work properly) plumbin...

12,000 English Pounds got us this place in 1999! Though, of course it NEVER rains in Brittany! But that's probably as true as the one about how it ALWAYS rains in Manchester! The first thing to say is... we have been very, very lucky with property over the years. I'm not sure that I should carry on buying lottery tickets... because I'm certain we have had a lifetime's luck in the surprisingly few houses that have marked out our lives. In 1999 we bought, in addition to our house in West Sussex, what is known as a 'Corps de Ferme' in Brittany, in the northwest corner of France. We had been on a couple of viewing trips and seen some frightening stuff, some total ruins where a complete rebuild would be the order of the day and, on one occasion, whilst holding on to the local Immobilier's details which showed a reasonably maintained and attractive looking property we drove round and round the village for so long that the locals were gathering and commenting...

So here's a mystical blog/post from Micki... My mum never came out to our beautiful farmhouse in Brittany. She always used to say " I’ve been to France” (with the implication that she never wanted to again!) …and would sometimes follow it up with "Anyway...I don't like the French!" at which Chris would often say... "That's great - because neither do the Bretons!" And, to be honest, Brittany is not at all like the rest of France and I think she realised by denying herself trips with us that she had missed out on many things that we are certain she would have loved. We used to regale her with stories of what we were doing, places we had visited and how lovely the lakes, the seaside and all the forests are.  When I was a child we used to live in a wonderful Queen Anne cottage in West Chiltington, in Sussex, with a beautiful garden & paddock and - our house in Brittany has a similar charm, feel and character and a wonderful feeling of p...

So... it's 'hats off' to Brittany Ferries!! We have been sailing happily to and from Portsmouth/St Malo to and from our house in Brittany for around 16 years now. Happily? Well largely, yes. But I've often banged on about "Two hundred crossings and never an upgrade... This would never happen on Virgin" and the usual 'my glass is half empty' moans. I always thought that nobody was listening or at least 'passing on the message'... After all Brittany Ferries and we (at A House in Brittany Ltd.) - well, we sing from the same hymn sheet. For us Brittany is one of the most perfect areas on the planet and... in a bunch, we like nothing more than to pass on the good news... "Selling the Sizzle" Back in March our trip was booked for the 2nd and, as we almost always did, we dropped by the nursing home where my mother in law, Sue, 99, was always pleased to know just what we were up to and always sat through my slideshows on the da...

A photo we took before I climbed in the window for the impromptu 'viewing'. When the plot was first hatched for us to buy a house in Brittany it was inspired by friends who had done just that. The subject cropped up on two occasions... firstly when we attended a Freelancers' Christmas Bash... (like a firm's Christmas Party but without the 'firm') where it seemed to interweave the conversation... Well, I do remember being very interested and wanting to know more... And then, at their Boxing Day "Let's eat all the leftovers" get together... another brilliant idea - when everybody takes a plate of something made up from some of yesterday's ingredients (preferably not turkey) and I think plenty of people went the extra mile because I remember the food being great and very un-christmassy. It wasn't long before the roof came off... and a dormer window was added to open up the loft space  Anyway, at this event you know most of the attend...

Resident Vole They think they own the place! And often spend longer around the house than we do. Some of them even make it inside and don't want to leave ... I'm talking about animals at our place in Brittany... We've had most species come to stay... Obviously there are cats and dogs. That's a given. Several generations of feral cats have been born in the barns... When the kittens have ventured out for the first time I have seen birds of prey doing a reccy swoop through the courtyard so they have been ushered back to their mum's safe keeping. Too dumb to know - too young to die! And next door's dogs treat our place like an extension of their own 'manor'...but there are also Barn Owls, Pheasants, Buzzards, Sparrow Hawks... Photo: Graham Hale Regarding the sparrow hawks...at breakfast one morning, Graham, a guest and something of a twitcher, spluttered into his cereal when he saw one swoop in and settle on one of the roof bars of the truck... H...

In the UK we have a town centre house on the Sussex coast. Life around us is what you you might expect from our position... articulated trucks make TK Maxx, Sports Direct and McDonald's deliveries at unsocial hours, revellers walking home after late licence bars fold in the early hours... We've even had inebriated folk nestling down in the corner of our garden to sleep it off. This is probably one of the aspects that makes our house in Brittany such an oasis by comparison. There you can hear a pin drop during the day in lulls between bouts of birdsong or watching the circling Buzzards, the murmurations of Starlings - I think that's October... and, of course the 2 or 3 tractors a day which seem to be far more plentiful than cars. I even saw Peregrine Falcon parents teaching their offspring how to hunt, plummeting down at 100mph and then pulling out to ascend and do it again... then their kids having a go... A magical day . All are a welcome alternative to the domestic UK ...