it is what it is volume one

'Located in the heart of the village of Sablet, Stéphane Plaza Immobilier, the Vaison-la-Romaine estate agents, are proud to present this exclusive listing for a charming, authentic village house. Situated a stone’s throw from the centre of the picturesque Provençal village of Sablet with its amenities, and only ten minutes from Vaison-la-Romaine, this beautiful village house marries traditional charm with modern comfort. Sensitively restored and tastefully decorated, it offers light and well-arranged living spaces.

On the ground floor, a spacious kitchen/dining room bathed in light is the perfect setting for convivial gatherings. And on the upper floors, two cosy rooms allow for perfect peace and relaxation.
The house has three bedrooms, ideal for welcoming family and friends. 

And you will have the full benefit of a charming terrace with an enticing view over the surrounding countryside, towards the listed village of Séguret in the distance. This is a tranquil spot, a perfect place for relaxing in the shade on a hot summer evening, or recharging your batteries after a long day in the sun. 

Completing the property is a private garage, a rare asset in the village centre.

This is a clean, unpretentiously maintained and cared-for property – very liveable and well laid out, it would make an ideal main or second residence.'

24 March: Our first meeting with our chosen immoblier here at 1rueFB. The time has come and this is the first move. Andrew is English, (obvs, with Hepplewhite as a surname) affable, realistic, enthusiastic, understanding of the turmoil making this decision places us in. Not to mention a record of successful transactions in Sablet and around. Above all Andrew speaks the mother tongue and has a sense of humour.

We get on well with him – he likes the house, especially the terrace room, and the views therefrom. He is not so enthusiastic about Fafner (oil fired CH) which although a bit noisy, gets the water hot and the house warm, provided one masters its variables. But generally these days, the République frowns on fossil fuel domestic heating solutions. The absence of much double glazing concerns him mildly I think, but it is what it is, I explain.

But the garage in which Fafner lurks is a plus and after AH has left us we set about clearing it of the clutter that has there amassed (mostly to the déchêterie no less) to prove it can accommodate a small to moderate car if need be. Ouch! The concertina doors are tricky and one is stuck just at the moment (no doubt it will free up in due course…)*. The advantage of having our house entrance on Montée-de-la-Grand-Font which is a cul-de-sac, where we park, usually unchallenged and always in concert with our uphill neighbours, is another plus.

So, yes, AH will act for us and is straightway on our side and enthusiastic to take it on. We shall need a diagnostic assessment and report, of course, as is the French practice and next time he comes, on 1st April he arrives with Sandrine who carries out this task in accordance with regulations and from which we will be awarded an energy rating. This is likely to squeak in at 'E' as we don’t sport double glazing on the ground and first floors and our insulation is perhaps a bit basic (it is indeed deemed to be 'E', not good but common enough in housing of this vintage).We are aware of an earth issue she inevitably unearths, and are expecting to get an electrician in to fix it (see below).

But on this second visit Andrew goes round the establishment and takes a series of sexy snaps in anticipation of putting it up on the internet in the next few days, perhaps. We settle fairly readily on the perhaps optimistic net gain we might make upon completion and of the other sums on top to go into what the house will be marketed at. The process is represented as being of almost no outlay to us which I find rather unconvincing, but it is true that the notaire’s costs are paid by the buyer as are the declared percentage of the house price which makes up the agent’s fee. Notionally that is. The diagnostique fee we certainly pay as well as the recently introduced grey water test (to ensure that it goes into the sewers and not the drains or elsewhere!).

Andrew is with us for over three hours and as it is a sunny, cloudless and mild day, the process of making the visual record is quite fun. Not to understate our feeling of shock at the prospect of selling our cherished ugly duckling in Sablet: both of us feel rather sick about it at times, even miserable, you might say. Who will see its charms as easily as we do? Who will overlook and or cope with the propensity for salts and crumbling plaster on that back wall? Anybody? 

Well we shall see.

We claim that we are in no initial hurry to get it over with, we are expecting and planning to be here again in September this year… just now, as the first martins zoom up Montée-de-la-Grand-Font to check out their homes and what repairs, replacements and rebuilds they need to undertake under our eaves to have a successful breeding summer. Could be though, that we won’t be here to welcome them next year, who knows? 

Meanwhile:

3 April: We drop by Andrew’s office in Vaison and by dint of a splurge of initialising and signing, activate a 90 day exclusivity agreement with Stéphane Plaza Immobilier, renewable if after those days have elapsed, 1rueFB is still unsold. It sounds grim but wasn’t, the doing of that is, just very formally wordy… none of which I can read of course (IBMS). We even met Delphine, Mme Hepplewhite. So 1rueFB is going, and on the market. We go off to find lunch at Villedieu…

But I can’t quite dispel the feeling that already 1rueFB no longer belongs to us. It is an uncomfortable sensation and it doesn’t stop me feeling personally responsible for every damned thing that is in need of attention.

4 April: By arrangement Andrew shows up around midday to take better pictures of the terrace and main bed-chamber as well as a movie utilizing a sort of digital tripod thingy. *After that we try again to open the reluctant garage doors and finally conclude that the far pair can’t open as they are no longer hanging from the runner/rail. The rail-runner attachment is missing! Gone. Just the connector rod hangs down.   

This focusses Mme Melling in particular so off we go to Alu-Vaison to get some indication of how much a replacement roller-door would cost. Not that I have any intention of replacing the secure wooden doors that exist at the moment. >sigh<. But maybe they could be repaired.

We are going to get a visit and a formal quote, notwithstanding. They are coming on Tuesday. Another 'touring' day lost. It won’t result in a sale either, leastways not from this party.  Who needs a garage when street parking is so easy? The selling price of 1rueFB can either include the garage potential or maybe an allowance for replacing the existing concertina wooden closure with something else. But in my book it is what it is, right? 

Now we await the sparks who is coming to see what he has to do to restore the electric circuit to fully earthed, and anything else we might indicate that needs his particular skill. Some of our fuses may be incorrect, don’t ask me how or why. We bought this gaff knowing full well there was an issue with the earth, a fact I can confirm as still extant by the kick I got when tidying up a corner spot in the guest bedroom years back, even with that ring fuse removed. Perhaps time to sort it. In good faith and all that. 

Said sparks has been and given us his assessment of our situation. Bloody hell! As expected selling a house costs. Of course! the electrics are not quite 2025. Here we go: waiting for the quotes.

7 April: Did I mention the failure of the flush mechanism on the bathroom loo? No? Well we had a new flush and flow fitted into our cistern a week prior to departure last autumn – the new fitting therefore malfunctioned after just three weeks of use. So Brando chappie returned with his superior this morning and got it to work again (a bit of plastic was jamming it: ‘it’ being made of the cheapest eggshell plastic known to man, of course). NB: we still have not received (AToW) an invoice for that October 2024 plumber visit despite numerous requests to ‘send us your bill’. It better not feature two call outs, or else we’ll be wanting to know the reason why.

Ah! Costs. As we have failed to get above an 'E' energy rating the house has to be 'audited', at our expense (a mere €700 to the Fr Govt for the priv.) to produce an estimation of what needs to be done to bring the house above the dreaded 'E' rating (like drag out Fafner and replace with an all electric heating/hot water system; add more insulation into non-existent roof space, double glaze the windows, insulate the floors – all that sort of thing). Not that you have to do it mind, it is purely aspirational. And obvs another lever for one’s potential buyer to extract a lower asking price…… tsch.

And now the electrics: what must be done? When? By whom? and at what cost? Another €830 and 21/22 inst. – that’ll be the fixing dates. M’God. Very reasonable I'm sure. Not sure I was aware that we had to start over buying 1rueFB again, before we could progress to flogging the gaff… but this is Fr and all we can do is grit the dents in the hope that someone out there will want the place as much as we did back in 2012…… go to it Andrew, find that buyer!

No rush……

thirty-three 2025

Visit number thirty three to 1rueFB and it is March 2025. Expect no great insights dear reader, this is a record of the outward bound journey, brief and simple. In fact, I’d skip all that follows if I were you, but you know your own mind, I’m sure: due warning has been issued. 

OK: off to Portsmouth. No sailings listed from Plymouth until April, you see. Something to do with quayside alterations or similar. I dislike the trek to Portsmouth, the lateness of the sailing, even the ship itself (Mont St Michel) which is a bit shabby in places and in need of a bit more tlc. As we don’t like driving much at night we arrived far too early, of course. In fact, we spent slightly longer sitting on the dockside than we did undertaking the journey to that dockside. I vowed never to do it again. 

On the other side, at Ouistreham, we were almost last off the barque but still within half an hour of dropping the gang plank to disgorge. Ages ago MM and self used to come this way across La Manche before Plymouth came to dominate our thinking. We returned from here in 2018 just so I could clock the hitherto disregarded phare on the portside… doubt we’ll do this crossing again though. So about 0715ish we took an almost deserted road through the coastal habitations to Ver-sur-Mer. Two targets: the recently completed British Normandy Landings Memorial (curiosity) and the previously undetected village lighthouse (passion) overlooking legendary WW2 ‘Gold Beach’.

Breakfast preceded this, en route, at a cafe in Courseulles where we were reunited with croissant perfection and very passable coffee. With jam. Not only that: we visited the very spot where General Charles de Gaulle landed back in France a week or so after the D-Day landings. History, he made France what it is you might argue, the Fifth Republic and all that, you may have heard of him. Deserted, bright and with a very stiffish zephyr buzzing round the jetty which we toddled along, notwithstanding. Lots of interpretation, old tanks, guns and other bits of junk around here. Redolent. One day someone will say: enough already.

I’m sorry: we did not acquire more than a glimpse of the Ver-sur-Mer WW2 memorial: deserted car parks, where one has to pay fgs, grace the top of a coastal plateau across which a gale force wind was making a scene, so we drove on, not tempted to trudge what looked like quite a distance to review the latest tasteful and timely addition to the various war reminders, remnants and markers along this troubled coastline. Target two: the Ver-sur-Mer lighthouse: also up the hill, set back a bit. No access of course but I am glad to have at last eyeballed this quite modest but elegant phare, it has been an omission I needed to address. I have updated the entry in my Pharesighted blog concerning this light accordingly. Madame Melling did not stir from the motor.

Time to get going south. A quick look over the cliffs at Arromanches to see how much is left of the Mulberry harbour constructed in 1944 to bring in materiel etc. (still quite a lot survives but it is slowly sinking and breaking up, big gaps: the sea slowly eating it all up). Then a fortuitous wrong turn in Bayeux brought us to a good postcard view of the cathedral (visited many years ago, of course, it is a gem, and what with the tapestry and all, well worth a day of anybody’s time). 

Hey ho to Saumur where we think we were assigned the room previously graced by Dr G when we patronised this Kyriad last and the motor got dusted with Sahara sand overnight. This time we ate out, very well indeed and in a restaurant I think we supped in previously, in a very distant past, when we came into town from some cheapskate accommodation we used before we realised that being comfortable overnight is worth the odd euro(s) extra. Here in the centre of town we slept well enough and it was surprisingly quiet.

The second day on the road was not particularly memorable but the weather was bright and almost cloudless again. Out of Saumur, breakfast Loire-side as oft before at the Lion D’Or cafe at Montsoreau, then motored on as defined by the itinerary described in my previous post for 2025, give or take. Having obtained baguettes we took our break at Exideuil, (completely off piste after diversion Route-Barée at Confolens then distillate wheedled out of a garage fgs, we didn’t see a supermarche with fuel facilities all day). Lovely riverside picnic in warm sunshine at last, with wine even, brought from the Bullsmead cellars (to save it going to waste). Mme Melling’s comprehension of the road network once more proving without parallel.

Thereafter we made good time to our usual haunt in Périgueux, slap bang through the middle of town with nothing remotely like a wrong turn, Mme Melling’s bloodhound tendencies leading us unerringly to the riverside gaff under the brooding presence of the cathedral, currently being refettled under the customary scaffold and plastic shelter that indicates serious and probably lengthy remedial work. That blackbird which woke us at some god-awful hour last time we frequented this Ibis, was giving it out as per: terrific acoustics betwixt hotel and cathedral towers. We ate at chez Fred’s, our fourth visit and it was jolly alright (rice pudding) and not over filling. We retired.

On the third day we rose again (with blackbird accompaniment) only to find Mme Melling completely at sea with the onward direction. OK, so I had us arrive safe in Périgueux, any fool could see that I then planned our onward route from Bergerac, obvs. It is the downside of Michelin: sometimes towns straddle page turnovers and if one is distracted by some trivial domestic issue when planning a direction of travel, well, mistakes can be made. 

Fortunately, Mme Melling is up to the mark, and all would have been sweetness and light if we had not run into a shocker Route Barée some kilometres before finally taking breakfast once more in lovely Lalinde.  

No deviations were offered, roads we selected got smaller and barely featuring in the atlas. No matter: despite some unsavoury remarks we won through thanks to MM’s skill and conviction, and got ourselves into that rather sullen band of industrial untidiness and agricultural mass marketing where Tarn and Garonne rivers converge, unavoidable when coming this way, and somewhere east of it we sandwiched in an off-road bit of public park. Then on, into fairer rolling and lovely countryside until we eventually espied St-Félix-Lauragais on top of a very windblown hill coming almost immediately therein to our third hotel, the Auberge-du-Poids-Public. And at our customary arrival time, 1600 we clocked in. 

Just a minute: we are greeted kindly by the receptionist-maybe-manager and are offered some sort of upgrade from the bog-standard accom we have booked. Why, this person shows us to our room no less, and even offers to carry our luggage. I decline the offer. Hey up… we are shown to a suite the like of which just isn’t for peasant stock like us. All is impeccable, a sitting room with a dear little private terrace overlooking an 180 degree panorama of undulating ridges, woodlands and farmland; a perfect bathroom plus shower with similar views, a giant bed in a lovely room (more vistas) – brand new mattress and bedding (we learn later), separate loo, nearby tea and coffee facilities, two tellies (we never use them - but that’s not the point). After rather a testing day routewise this is just what the Doctor ordered. Mme Melling disappears into the bath and I just gawp at the view.

We are not done yet, either. We are eating in at this hotel because dear reader, Mme Melling has been at it again. She checked to see if the transport café down the road was open and found it not so (or so she claims, hmm) so to make sure we can get fed and watered she has booked us into the Auberge’s own restaurant. It has a Michelin Star. Being a Logis-de-France, we know the food will be good, but Michelin star good? 

It is. Lovely restaurant space, our table reserved within reach of a well charged woodburner, a bright, grand and tasteful interior, well peopled and perfectly served by attentive staff. The food is wonderful. We go for our favoured different wine for each course option. Lots of little extras and no condiments on the table. I look in vain for the HP sauce… no chips…… It does do you good to get out once in a while, don't you think?

Despite quite severe winds overnight we slept well and did a tour of the village hilltop before shipping out. The wind: severe, now very. Tiles coming off. And to the east a vaste duvet of grey cloud mush into which we would need to proceed. We left. The covered market illustrated herewith was snapped by Mary: I framed and recorded (I thought) works of unsurpassing art but my camera took against the place or the wind, may be both, or me,  so declined to copy my images to its itsty bitsy memory card. Do that again just one more time, box-brownie, and it'll be e-bay for you……

Apparently, regarding our experience here at St Félix, MM has since detected that we had indeed been accommodated  in the premier suite of the Auberge-du-Poids-Public, normally costing in excess of double the price of the standard room we paid for. Nevertheless, the final reckoning was still rather quite eye-watering enough,  but actually I don’t care, this time. A lovely experience, not really in tune with the Youth Hostel approach to overnight bed and board that once was my mode juste. 

Just 200 miles further on we report in at Sablet. Prior to our 1300 arrival we had once more been taxed in our efforts to find any breakfast refreshment on that route so often utilised onward from Castelnaudary via Carcassonne and on to Bèziers. Once more we tried to find just a cuppa in this little dreary village or that: they really do do rank stonework and shabby crumbling facades along the route in question – but we broke through (66 miles on) at the road junction into Bize Minervois. Here we got big strong coffees and we unwrapped our St Felix acquired croissants to complete the occasion. Snaffled a bottle of St Jean-de Minervois aussi, for those difficult days…… Under the greyness that now pervaded (with just the odd sprinkling of inclemency at times) we decided to press on at pace by employing the A9 auto route to conclude our passage to PACA84, and blow the toll expense.

The house is icy chill on unlocking the house door as all the windows are open behind the shutters! That’s right. Because you see our painter neighbour has been and painted the interior/exterior window frames plus entrance doors in bright white gloss: he left them open (not the doors!) to dry thoroughly. We will eventually get the cold stone walls warmed up with the jolly old central H, but it will take a day or two. Just now we are in receipt of strong southerly winds and further spatterings of rain… Le Géant is snow capped: it is colder here than in Devon, but we have expectations. It will soon perk up! And here we are, – that’s how we got ourselves ici; this is how we done it…

2025: chop & change – nip & tuck

If I am going to continue to plough this furrow (the jury may still be out on that) I have to warn any benighted soul who is cleaving to this dog's breakfast of a post, any poor being who is gagging for the continuation of drivel already dished out prior to the new year at hand, I have to warn you dearest 'fan', that this first (possibly only) rant of 2025 simply records our proposed itinerary or progress associated with our planned spring visit; doing in a manner so as to act as an aide-memoire to your author, should he be spared long enough to forget the actualité and yet still have a wish to refresh his creaking synapses at some future date: like next month, week or tomorrow. 

In short, there is little for you here, especially if you still fail instinctively to cross-reference the Michelin A4 wiro bound Road Atlas of France with the itineraries below when wasting your time herewith, and are simply trawling through this blog in the hope of some crumbs of enlightenment. OK, I'll slot in a few images to alleviate the frustration my prose may elicit ……

Obvs, if you are so minded, you can read on; you may even pause to marvel at the lack of graphic inconsistency illustrated in the two routes planted here below (there would have been stern words and raised eyebrows if some quivering undergrad had dared to demonstrate such lack of attention in their work, back in the day when I enlightened tiny tots on the vagaries of information envisionment). 

It was only after Mme Melling did a cursory check on one or two hotels and such like, that we discovered we had better be getting things sorted. What is going on? Obviously it is half term in France as usual but coming back has proved to be a little nip and tuck, nip and tuck I can tell you: Hotels on holiday FGS! However, all seems to be well (Mme Melling usually prevails) and if our hotelier colleagues are true to their word, we should avoid being bed-less-of-a-night in either direction, outward as well as return. 

As our preferred port of departure is not offering anything by way of sailings until April (port improvements or some such cop-out) and we want to be relocating in mid March, we are once again unfortunately required to be shipping out from distant Portsmouth, rather than our local quayside, Plymouth. This means, south bound, instead of favouring our original first choice Amboise shelter (as anticipated at stage one of this projection) we shall instead overnight in Saumur. That's OK, but a pity about Amboise. At least we will still have reached the Loire (where France begins properly I often feel).

Sharp eyed enthusiasts of this blog, those who trouble to trace in their Atlases the proposed route outlined above, will have noted that a variation from what would normally be the road south from Ouistreham (p33) is anticipated [NB: even more conscientious observers would have noticed the errors around Périgueux your author had allowed to slip into the itinerary above. These are now corrected, so it is too late to bring those mistakes to my attention, so if you were going to, your chance has passed]. This deviation is proposed simply to capitalise on this crossing to Ouistreham, the first in many years, by mopping up a missed phare as listed and described in this blog's sister blog, phares sighted. That entry has been subsequently updated, as you do.

In short, a diversion to eyeball Ver-sur-Mer, tick it off, and briefly visit the recently completed British Normandy Memorial thereat. 

After that we shall motor on to our first hotel in:

thereafter we set course to our second hotel (and supper at Fred's) in:

Note that the third hotel is at St Félix-de-Lauragais (p318): a Logis-de-France but apparently with a Michelin starred restaurant. Thankfully for our skeletal resources there seems to be a transport café down the road apiece so we may not be over embarrassed: we know our place. With the truckers, and we won't have to dress for dinner even if we could.

But enough detail: peruse the itineraries herewith, if that is what vibrates your coracle. I just point out that several hotels and the routes to and from them have changed once or twice – to accommodate our maturing aspirations, particularly on the return, when the son-&-heir will be travelling with us. He gets a bit sniffy if we simply trundle back on over-familiar roads to oft frequented taverns. Why, we've even slotted in an extra jolly, only hours away from Sablet just so the lad can fill his lungs with some good sea air on the Sète seafront. 

then it is generally northwards, up to

And he'll be doing that again (sucking in some more sea air, not romping in the Rochefort play area) before we fetch up, lodge, and embark at Roscoff where we will have our last overnighter and fish supper, because our barque does not slip its moorings until the morning tide is running. 

The contrast between the Med and the Manche may be sobering on past form: it doesn't always rain overnight in Roscoff, or so we have been assured, by gnarled and rheumy-eyed fisherfolk cowering under s'westers quayside, with long years of recall and extensive memories to impart to any fair-game that passes by…

I was making that last bit up of course, embroidering if you like, local colour – I'm just trying to spice things up to keep your interest: no one would reminisce free of charge these days – I certainly wouldn't be caught putting my hand in m'pocket for such blindingly obvious baloney.

Mind you, I do this blog for free. Up to now that is …