Mels&Duncs

Dear Garlic/Amanda Thanks very much for your advice- I have to say, I love your llamas! The website is great and the walks look terrific. The views from your gite/house just look stunning. Love the bit about three years on and you've just got a tub (very scary information to the novice). We are looking all over to be honest- we are becoming more and more flexible but know we cannot afford to restore a place. One property agent has just told us it would cost 50,000E to put central heating in a five bed home and also 60,000E to put in a pool - this sounds outrageous to us as organising a pool in the UK only costs around £10-15000K- and there are more suppliers in France...So it is a case of trying to work out what is feasible. We'll be looking for a base for our next house hunting trip - some time in November and if it is in the Tarn I'll be in contact - I'd love to meet the donkeys too. All the best Melanie    

Hi all Good points about return investment above- yes we'd aim at the toddler market but also have the standard stuff for teens. The extra stuff for small children is always appreciated - you'd be surprised just how many gites are called 'child friendly' but are not - I think what many owners refer to here is their attitude and not the layout/equipment available. Many owners are fairly mature and no longer have their own kiddie clobber to share - unlike Susan (AH) who does seem to supply all the right stuff! Most however do not have a changing mat (so baby gets changed on your nice douvet cover or worse...on the floor) ....and no cooker splash guard..no step ups for handwashing...no potties..no blender for mushing food for baby or a microwave to heat milk in the middle of the night. I know, it is a long list but there is only so much room in an estate car and if a gite has these things they are more likely to be booked if (and it is a big if) the price is also right. There's a company which seems fantastic for parents of toddlers called  totstofrance.co.uk....However I'm not sure who they are marketing to as their prices are utterley astronomical even if the buildings are pretty much magical. Parents who can afford these prices usually have a nanny in tow and don't really focus too much on the practicalities to make her life easier! We still manage to stumble across 'child friendly' gites with steep concrete steps to enter the front, with no handrail, more concrete steps to exit the back door, no fence for the pool as they have selected the alarm option, nothing to do when wet weather happens and yes books and films for adults but nothing for toddlers. I appreciate if your main market is couples then of course you're not going to wish to invest in these things! Good point about the taxi service Ejc - we are currently in a small village near Farnham, Surrey and everything is close at pre-school and primarey school age but changes once they hit secondary - but it is still only a maximum 20 minutes. Aveyron has been first choice because of the beauty of the area and the fact that it has been so under developed. However the latter is now becoming an issue as we have to remember that we will live there for 12 months a year with very little work going on for 8 months...We are now contemplating the unthinkable which is either Charente or Dordogne - which we know is saturated. We need to do more research with toddler groups/magazines this end to find out how/where they go on hols and how they choose ....to see if moving to either of these areas is financial folly. Congratulations on the imminent move to Deux Sevres- are you running a holiday campsite then? Many thanks to St Amour, Susan also for your comments. Melanie  

Dear Wen, Ron and Maggi, Thanks so much for your comments. Feeling not a little deflated this end! Wen - agree with you re dreadful kiddie items - fortunately these seem to have been outlawed in the UK. Ron of the Avey-ron- it does seem to be a retirement or life in the exceedingly relaxed lane, image that you portray- we hadn't really taken it in fully in our enthusiasm for the area. I know the clothes shop you describe in La Fouillarde, and each time we drove past it we wondered why the clothes were so conservative, shall we say. You have now answered this for us. We simply thought it might be that fashion sense needed a little updating- but it seems the owners have it spot on for the market. Maggi- really useful info on schools first of all. I agree the day seems incredibly long - part of the reason we wish to come to France is so that we can spend more time as a family - not spend more time apart. The loneliness factor is also key - we are currently in a small village but connections to towns are really good. Smaller gites - this is a great idea also. We could be flexible in our aims, perhaps providing some kiddie friendly spaces in the season and some couples slots. Our main reason for leaving the UK isn't actually to run gites - it is to escape the rat race and ride horses/do some work during the daytime and to achieve a less materialistic, less demanding lifestyle. We are pretty much sick of the 'buy it now', and 'you deserve it' type of approach that is now everyday life in England. The gites would pay the bills only and some kind of small business (tea room in a tourist area perhaps?) would fund extras. But the happiness of the children is the most important factor. Looking at gite complexes in the South of France this evening makes me feel bleak - we'd have to have a considerable mortgage which we wish to avoid and means the Aveyron gite complex makes more sense financially. Many thanks for all your comments and advice. If you have any further great ideas as regards gites/business locations then we'd be more than grateful. Melanie

Dear Maggi, Jon D and Cerise Thanks so much for taking the time to respond- huge food for thought all round. We were in La Fouillade (near Najac) in the third week of September - we didn't expect much sunshine as it was late season but it was still T shirt weather- however  your comments about freezing winters has hit home. The gite complex is in this area- you are right about lots of driving- I guess the glorious countryside made the miles seem to slip by. Likewise the point about local French families not having much disposible income- we were hoping to do an Adams or Mothercare style cost range (which is similar to supermarket prices) however I can see even this may still not hit the mark and leave us with few customers. Correct too the issue about things for families to do and proximity to the seaside- we had been wondering about going closer to the Riviera, but of course cost is a major issue at this point. We too have done the kiddie camp thing (Hoseasons) and I'd agree that it is not ideal - in fact, this is one of the things that spurred us on to find a middle ground for parents like ourselves. Sharing a pool with 50 other (usually bigger) kids, whose parents are happily snoozing on their sunlounger (lucky things) and trying to find a square inch of no splash zone is less than holiday fun all round..Likewise the child care on offer is either incredibly expensive or often far too scary to even contemplate. We had thought of buying a gite complex near a water theme park in the South West so parents could use the park but return to a nice home instead of mobile home unit..any thoughts on this instead? We are not easily put off, but would be crazy not to heed good advice. Many thanks Melanie

Hi New to this forum, so pls forgive any beginner's faux pas. Yes, we too are keen to move to France and run gites (despite having digested all good reasons not to). What can you do if you simply enjoy France, speak French and want to escape the relentless Blair debaucle? We are thinking of moving to Aveyron - mainly as it seems so under developed and beautiful. We hope to run two gites whilst also opening a shop selling children's products as there seems to be no mid-way product range between supermarket clothes/items and breathtakingly expensive children's clothing/product boutiques. We've been researching for around 2 years and know the market we prefer to aim at which is children friendly. Happily for us, many gite owners can tolerate teens, but some (very reasonably!)fear the mess/noise/insurance issues associated with tiddly guests.  We have stayed in gites for the past ten years, the last three taking our own babies/toddlers. It has been an eye opener understanding the concept of 'child friendly' in France ! Every year we encounter stair gates at the top of the stairs and not the bottom (??), gas cookers with rings situated so close to the cooker edge it makes you wince as they have no spill guards, concrete steps galore (with no handrails) and more often than not, no garden or house toys that a small child could play with or on. God help us when it rained! Most gites are fantastic for children 8 years plus, with bikes, table tennis, canoeing, karting etc but to prepare for the very small means investing in a huge amount of toddler kit which many gite owners may find one investment too far. Does anyone rent out gites in the Aveyron area - how are things going? The (very nice) owners of the gite complex we are interested in have a run rate of 20 weeks total on their two gites (10 weeks each). They currently advertise on two websites and have their own (very good) website. We believe we could increase bookings through our network and further advertising/marketing attempts.  Any thoughts? Or are you all recoiling in horror at the thought of multiples of under fours crawling (quite literally) all over the furniture and potentially peeing in the pool?! Thank-you Melanie