Rivington
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Posts posted by Rivington
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Hi
We have a place near Crozant which is close to Eguzon. A couple of very good restaurants there and stunning views of the gorge and ruins. Also Gargilesse - it's one of the beaux villages de france and has a very good restaurant also. There is also a pretty chateau there in the centre of the village with an art gallery which is worth seeing plus the scenery is lovely. Can't remember when the chateau is open though, it closes part of the year and is only open in the tourist season, you'd need to check.
Carole
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We too were about to bring two Franco Belge woodburners over with us in a furniture van when we bought our house about 5 yrs ago. However, whilst having a telephone conversation with our English builder in France about whether he could install them for us, he happened to mention that the French electrician he had hired to rewire the house, was in fact the Franco Belge rep for the area! He had the same catalogue we had and we chose them with him on the phone. The saving in price was fantastic and by the time we got there a few weeks later, they were both installed and have been wonderful ever since.
I wonder if you can find out if there is a local rep, I don't know if you know any builders/ electricians? or perhaps by looking in the phone book?
Carole
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Hi - we have owned our house for about 5 yrs now and are very, very happy with it - only for holidays at the moment, but in about 3 yrs, I hope to spend much more time there when I retire, possibly all the time when my husband also retires!
There is a piece of land adjacent to ours which we would like to buy, simply because we don't want anyone else to buy it and be right on our doorstep as it were. It is landlocked, except for a path that runs along the top of it, but only up to the boundary of our land. Our neighbours tell us that they know the owner of the land and would we like to meet him? Well we would, but we want to find out more about the land first. Our land and this, are partially covered with trees and are near to woodland. It seems to be split into perhaps 2 or 3 parcels according to our cadastral. Part of it is used to graze cattle - we don't want to buy that bit - and the rest about 1000 sq m has at one time had a small stone house on it, which burned down about 30 yrs ago and now has a huge tree growing up inside where the house used to be. It has a kind of concrete portakabin on it, which has an old bed and a cupboard in it - perhaps it was used as a temporary shelter after the house burned down. The only access to the road is across our land, which is why we want to own it. Questions are, will it be viewed as agricultural land or residential? what is the going rate for either? is it true that the authorities are trying to get rid of all the tiny parcels of land by insisting that they are merged together and sold as a large lot? How do we find out more about he land, before we ask our neighbours to set up a meeting with the owner? - we would rather know all there is to know about it before that! Can anyone help with any of this?
Carole
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We live in 36 - but about 3 km away from the border of 23. We had plans drawn up by an architect in Argenton-sur-Creuse, to convert the roof space, place 2 lucarnes and 4 velux in the new roof we were having put on and plan how we could put the staircase in. He was very easy to talk to and spoke some English, He changed one of the velux and suggested we had a window put into the side wall of the house instead - much better- especially when we found the cost of doing it was'nt too prohibitive. He prepared all the copies of everything we needed to take to the mairie in 3 separate bundles, as well as our own large A3 copies which included an artist's impression of the finished house which looked very impressive indeed! He charged us 897€ which we were pleasantly surprised at, as our builder, who is English, but properly registered and established in the area, (we did have the roof done by a French company) had spoken to him and had been told it would cost more like 1500€ -we kept waiting for the rest of the bill!
Carole
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Hi Anita
To answer your tile question, there are lots of good places around. There are two in La Souteraine, the Bricomarche, and the Leclerc and also the Briconaut in Dun. Personally we like the Mr. Bricolage at Argenton-sur-creuse best, about 35 minute drive, but a nice town to visit anyway.
I know I asked you to email me if you wanted details of where we aryou find it's there, but I didn't realise our email addess wasn't on our details! sorry, if you want to check again, you'll find it's now there.
Carole:
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Hi Anita
sorry I haven't replied before, been busy at work. We will indeed be there at the end of August - 23rd to be precise. I will be there for 6 weeks, my husband only for a week or two at the beginning and end. We would be interested to meet you, but I think we need to send a private email to give address details etc. so I will try to do this.
hope to see you in the near future, Carole
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Hi Anita
My daughter lives in Wellington, but as I write she is actually at Auckland airport leaving for the uk! She will be in France with us from the 14th - 21st April and she seemed quite interested in your purchase. If you were interested, perhaps could meet up if our dates match. We are on the phone in France so if you reply to this, we will email you our number.
regards Carole
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Hi small world isn't it? we have a house about 5 mins from Crozant and we will also be there in April. We live in England, but our daughter lives in NZ and is coming home for 2 weeks holiday and will be coming with us to France for a week or so! Haven't seen her for a whole year so we are really looking forward to it. She loves our French house so much, she insisted on spending a good part of her holiday there. Hope this puts your mind at rest about the area - it's wonderful, but don't tell anyone - it's a secret!
I don't know which side of the gorge you are - we are on the Indre side, just up the hill past the Hotel Du Lac - if you want a wonderful meal that's the place to go (book for the weekends though, I usually go in and ask - my French isn't quite up to telephoning and they are very nice) Or you could go to the lake (Lac de Chambon) for lunch, superb! or the auberge in Crozant - the choice is endless. Hope it all comes up to your expectations!
Carole
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Can anybody help? Last September my friend rented out her house to a family who were looking for a place to buy and the agreement was that they must leave by the 1st of April. However, I have been told by another friend who lives nearby, that there is likely to be a problem in getting these tenants to leave.
She only uses the house for holidays at the moment, and is staying with me for a visit to the area next week. She is meeting the tenants by mutual arrangement and at present knows nothing of any impending problem. I am in quite a dilemma - I don't want to worry her unnecessarily if there is no problem, but on the other hand forewarned is forearmed.
What I really need to know, if anyone can help, is - what rights do these people have? I assume she had them sign an agreement, or at least I sincerely hope she did! I know that French law can favour the tenant in a lot of cases.
Please can anyone give some useful advice?
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thanks for your prompt reply teamedup. I hope that my fears are unfounded, but from what I have heard about the tenants and their apparent unwillingness to socialise with both the French and English neighbours, I fear the worst.
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Can anybody help? Last September my friend rented out her house to a family who were looking for a place to buy and the agreement was that they must leave by the 1st of April. However, I have been told by another friend who lives nearby, that there is likely to be a problem in getting these tenants to leave.
She only uses the house for holidays at the moment, and is staying with me for a visit to the area next week. She is meeting the tenants by mutual arrangement and at present knows nothing of any impending problem. I am in quite a dilemma - I don't want to worry her unnecessarily if there is no problem, but on the other hand forewarned is forearmed.
What I really need to know, if anyone can help, is - what rights do these people have? I assume she had them sign an agreement, or at least I sincerely hope she did! I know that French law can favour the tenant in a lot of cases.
Please can anyone give some useful advice?
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Hi
Sorry to hear of your problems with the bamboo and hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we too have been waging war on bamboo for the last three years! I hat it - I cringe when people talk about wanting to put bamboo into their gardens! What you have to realise is, that it is intelligent and EVIL! You can stop its progress if you are constantly vigilant and douse it with the strongest weedkiller you can find - we asked in the bricolage and were told which to buy - as I am in England at this moment and the weedkiller is in France I cannot tell you exactly which it is! but it is a Bayer brand and it is for killing bushes and saplings.
We started to do this and were getting results, in that it killed the new shoots, but when we returned 2 months later it had taken its revenge by coming up between the paving on the patio (which is laid on concrete)and the shoots were a good half metre high!
Our neighbour has cut back all the invasive stems in the garden and tries to keep on top of it, but we cannot see how we are ever going to get rid of the woody rhizomes. Bamboo, as you will know, does not only shoot upwards, but also sideways, just under the surface of the soil, this turns into solid, hard wood and is impossible to dig out.
I'm sorry that I can't give you a good solution, but thought that I may as well share our experiences so that you don't waste time and go for jugular immediately! I have considered a flame thrower - but there are too many trees around!
Bon chance! Carole
Loirs??
in Gardening
Posted
To say that loirs are detrimental is something of an understatement!! We are blessed with them in our loft and have tried everything to be rid of them. We had a new roof and converted the grenier a couple of years ago and we thought the upheaval would see them off - no such luck!! I think you have to understand that they are a little bit like the BORG in star trek - you know - they adapt and assimilate! We've tried traps and poison, lots of it, and I know you'll think I'm mad, but I'll swear they warn each other of impending danger! there was the most almighty kerfuffle last summer when we put new poison up there - but we didn't find any corpses. We put traps up - big ones - and we did catch a few, but then they screamed a lot and then we didn't catch any more, they seemed to have learned about the traps!!
I have heard that they are protected, but I don't know if there's any truth in that. I want to know who's going to protect me from them !- I just want a good night's sleep!!
Carole