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EARLY DAYS
- So now we are the proud owners of a plot of land in rural France
- the hard work begins.........
From what we have been told no-one has worked on this plot for 15 years, it was originally
used as a family fruit & vegetable garden and rabbits were reared in concrete hutches in the barn. Basically
a very self sufficient lifestyle. We also believe that the previous owner was a blacksmith as we have found a few horsehoes
and nails which we have saved for good luck. When we finally received the deeds the whole history of the land was there to
read, former owners, their addresses, spouses, birth dates - basically everything except their inside leg measurement!!! this
document told us that our current next door neighbour also owned the land and prior to him the commune.
The small stone building housed a 'copper' which we think was used to heat the hot water for the boil wash as
the communual laundry(lavoir) is adjacent to us. Basically it was an ancient way of doing the washing. The commune have
recently renovated this building of which they are very proud and several visitors come to view this historic building to
see how life was before electricity.
 
  All these pictures show the property from when we first visited and
put the offer in to buy through to the dismantling and clearing of the existing buildings, renovating the stone building,
the barn and building a shower room. This took us through until March 2009 but despite the main works being completed the
electricity company let us down big time !!!!! As we had no electric we decided to channel our energy into a gravelling
the area in front of the buildings and attempt to tidy the land.
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