Life has a funny way of working out...

 

Yesterday we completed the signing of the sale of the Old Walnut Mill, something we had hoped might happen once we put it on the market in the spring. As fate would have it, a neighbour in the village, had a friend who was looking to buy a house in the village and asked us if we knew if anyone who was selling. He introduced her to us and the house and she liked it enough to make an offer on it,which we accepted! We had always intended doing up the barn but arrived at  the point where we had enough to do with our project in La Guerche and perhaps more projects than we had time! We are getting on a bit!

Pauline and me on the day she first saw the house in 2005, I had bought it without her seeing it!

As it happens the Old Walnut Mill is the house we have had for the longest time,we have had 10 in our married life and yet leaving it holds only good memories and no regrets.

We popped over in January 2006 as we heard the weather had turned bad...it had!

We had a lot of fun working on it to make it an attractive rental property and it has provided us with an income as a summer rental for a long time as well as allowing us to have a great time meeting and entertaining so many lovely people from many corners of the globe. We managed to make a success of it despite recessions and increase in competition with large rental companies such as Air B&B changing the dynamics of holiday rental. It was the pandemic however that made our decision for us - it was time to rethink future plans.

It would be 2008 before we moved over permanently and started working on the house.

As our main home out of the rental season it also hosted some great get togethers with friends and neighbours and we have so many memories to cherish.

There  is of course a touch of sadness but we look forward to our future here in La Guerche and the good times ahead!