One experience we like to share with you is how we bought our first property in France. Having experiences from Sweden we found that the French system was very much in favour of the buyer. Unlike Sweden the real estate agent has a very minor role in France. They merely find the objects and connect the buyer with the seller. In Sweden they also do all the legal stuff, which, due to a quite bad reputation among some of them, is not very safe for the buyer – or the seller. In France everything are taken care of by “le notaire” who is a trusted legal advisor without any stake in the transaction. “Le notaire” checks that everything is correct legally, like ownership, mortgages and debts. “Le notaire” also initiates certain controls of the property, which depend on the area and the age of the house. (When we bought our second French home in Corbières it was mandatory to check for lead in the construction and fittings and for termites). Off course “le notaire” charges for this service, but it is a set percentage of the prize and it depends on the age of the building. An older building means more work for “le notaire”. Our first home was a little studio with a fantastic view of the Mediterranean – it was just a fair drive from the balcony (golf drive). This was in 1991 and we went down to look at a different object that we did not like and found this new building just at the old fishing harbour, facing the pier with the light house and the guest harbour – lovely! The rules were that we could make a small deposit and reserve the studio until we had checked our financial resources with the bank. We got a few weeks to think it over and if we had not decided to buy or had got problems with the financing we could have pulled out, only loosing the interest on the deposit. They said this was the French way of dealing with the problem of people signing contracts on property without really thinking it over properly. Maybe the sun, the good feeling of being on vacation or a very smooth talking salesperson makes us a little irresponsible. This had resulted in quite a lot of legal and personal problems when the buyer “wakes up” and find themselves owner of a property they can not afford or do not like. This might not be the only possible procedure for buying. You can find more information on http://www.french-property.com/ which was the website we later used to sell our studio in Sète.
Anyway, we bought the studio, loved it and had many fine summers. Our friends and children spent time there with us (cramped) or by themselves and everybody came to love the fantastic city of Sète. We really bought the little flat just to see how we would like to be in the same place every summer and also try out if we would like to move to the area permanently after retirement. We kept the flat in Sète for twelve years and through friends we found our house in Corbières. We sold our flat (we got over 60 answers on our web add) and the money covered the prize for our house.

 I am sure that you now have understood that we have settled down in Corbieres, but how did we come to do that. This is how it all started more than 15 years ago.

Our first vacation home in Sète was quite small but had the most marvellous view of the Mediterranean. We and all our friends loved it. One reason we bought it was to see how we liked coming back to the same place every year. We were planning to get something more permanent by the time, but were not sure in what area or what kind of location we were looking for. We will share some of our experiences with you today.
Sète is lovely – one of the favourite places for French people to go on vacation. It has fantastic seafood, one of the best beaches in France and a lot of atmosphere and culture. And maybe the best, there are relatively few Scandinavians, Germans, Englishmen or Dutch people that has found Sète. It is very genuinely French unlike some places on Côte d’Azur. It is not that we do not meet people from other countries, but never in such masses that they dominate the culture. On the contrary, there are more and more tourists coming to Sète and we enjoy meeting, talking with them. Sometimes it is nice to talk to someone who understands every word you say. Coming down for a few weeks to relax from work is perfect. We experienced a lot of things in a short time, we always had people around us – summer and winter – and it was always something going on. We were really on vacation!
We became however more aware of the fact that living in such a place all year around would be different. It was very easy to go to a restaurant instead of making your own meals. It was more attractive to take a walk along the beach than reading a good book. Shopping was always an attractive option if nothing else showed up. We felt that we would like to live in a place there we would not be on vacation all the time. I should however not be too far away from all these fantastic attractions we got used to. So, whenever we visited places around in Languedoc we kept our eyes opened and asked ourselves: How would it be to live in a place like this? We knew we were looking for an old house and we were not afraid of doing some renovation on it. We rather preferred that than a house someone else redone in away we did not like. It took us 12 years to find our house!
We were lucky to become very good friends with three most lovely cousins that owned the local restaurant, ice cream café and delicatessen shop in our neighbourhood. These three ladies had a lovely old house in a little village in the Corbières Mountains. Their house was a part of the oldest part of the village that was built on the remains of a medieval castle in turn built on the same ground as a Roman fortification.
Their neighbour house was the oldest in the village and also empty since a few years. Unfortunately in a condition that worried some of the neighbours. We were quite shocked when they suggested we should buy that building and renovate it. No way! An old building, Yes! But that was too much.
Next summer we visited our friend again and they announced on the phone beforehand that they had managed to get the keys to the building next door. All the way down to our friends we convinced ourselves NOT to by that house. We knew that we needed all our talents to justify our lack of interest in the house to them.
It did not work out quite the way we had planned! When we entered the house it was love a first sight! We had a very good old lady friend with us from Sweden and the women were running up and down the stairs totally charmed by the lovely rooms, the old staircase, the original terracotta tiles from 18th century and how reasonably well everything was kept despite being empty for some years. I, being an architect, was more concerned about the condition of the floors, walls, roofing, plumbing and electricity.
To make a long story short – we bought the house and we will continue our story soon.

Tip of the day: If you are looking for a house for retirement. Do not rush, take your time, travel around and find out where and how you want to live and try to get French friends. It makes things much easier and nicer! They know so many things that you can never find out yourself. The way we did it, to get something small for a start, worked very well. And above all – have an open mind!

I took a long walk though the vineyards today. I picked some pears from a tree I found on the Garrigue[i], collected some laurel leaves, same thyme and a grenadine apple. I ended up in a dead end with a high fence and some farmers were harvesting their grapes on the other side of the fence. Now I had to exercise my almost non existing French.

- Ce possible a passé?, I asked, without knowing if it would make any sense to them. An old farmer with very few teeth and a great smile opened the fence for me and before I knew it I was involved in a conversation about the harvest. I had no idea I knew so many words in French. On the other hand, I understand French better than I speak and my experience from all over the world is that if you just listen and nod at the right place, toss in a few safe phrases now and then, they think you speak the language quite acceptable. Afterwards I realised I spoke some sort of pigeon French, but what the heck; it’s a great victory to be able to communicate at all, isn’t it. I learned that they harvest the grapes manually then it is not room enough to turn the harvester around in the end of the rows. This is mostly the case in the old field with very old vine. They also told me that the quality – meaning sugar of the grapes is very high this year but the quantity is poor. So – look out for 2007 wine from Corbieres in your local shop.

I started to explain who I was, which was totally unnecessary. They knew that we live in the old house of Mr Pistre, that we are from Sweden and have a fantastic terrace with the view over the whole neighbourhood and the Cevennes. Talking about living in a small village.

Being Swedish I am quite lucky as we are custom to foreign languages from non dubbed films and TV and also pronounce our alphabet as most people do in the world. That helps up the pronunciation anyway. I feel pity for the English sometimes that have to learn totally new way of pronouncing the letters wherever they go. I can tell you it is hard enough to have a wife who is fluent in French, German, English and all three Nordic languages and on top of that she manages to communicate in Italian and Spanish. You can imagine how long people bother to listen to my pathetic stuttering in French when they can get to the point much faster by talking to my dear wife. I have to get out more on my own!

Anyway I bought a bottle of propane gas for my grill today and started it up just to test drive it. One of our female French friends calls me Mr Gadget – I can’t understand why.

Tomorrow we will grill some confit de canard, which is the leg of a duck which I prepared in such a way that the meat just falls off the bone – so lovely and tender!! I hope? (Sounds like an old song of Elvis Presley)

 I bought myself a fantastic grill today. It is a Weber gas grill. Yes I agree – grilling on a gas is cheating. No real man would do that. It is for yuppies with no sense for tradition. I have always used charcoal in Sweden and my dream was to build a real genuine charcoal grill on the terrace – maybe I even could burn wine-wood down to a very hot wine smelling heat there I could grill my sirloins and sausages.

So – why on earth do I by a gas grill? The only reason is that my French friends are getting annoyed at me because every time I invite them to a grill party I complain about the French charcoal. Honestly, it is absolutely useless. It must be made from the most fast growing wood that they can find. Even if you load the grill with lots of charcoal and wait until it gets white and nice, I could sit on it with my bare bottom without putting my family happiness into jeopardy. No I have not done that as, at my age, I have to be careful with what I still have. If I look at our neighbour when she grills some sausages she puts them about 1 cm above the heat to get them ready. That’s the way they do it here and they do not know anything else. If I did that with the charcoal we have in Sweden the sausages would be burned to ashes before I could count to three.

The important thing is that French people do not like that you complain about anything in France as they are – just like Americans – absolutely convinced that however lousy it is in their country, it is far better than any other place. So – to keep my good relations to my neighbours I have got myself a gas grill. No complaining about bad propane gas – If there is something like that.

My new grill is NICE! I have put it on the terrace and next week I will build a pergola over it. I have already got a wine plant that should cover it. A little problem was that the plant had some decease – said one of our expert friends – so I had to spray it with some terrible sulphur smelling solution last Saturday. Hope it gets well so I can get some good grapes next summer. Maybe I could deliver a bucket to Le Cave Cooperative and get a bottle of my own wine back.

I have seen some families picking their grapes manually. A lovely picture seeing everybody from the 10 years old daughter to grandfather filling the cones they carry on their back with grapes. Most of the harvest is however done by machine. I was fascinated when I imagined a machine that could pick the grapes gently and put them in the tractor trailer to be delivered to the pressing. I am still looking forward seeing how this kind of machine works.

Today we had a cloudy day with a bit of rain which is very unusual. It is my fault as I washed my car yesterday.

 For the last 15 years we have spent every summer in our little studio in Sète in south of France. Four years ago we bought a fantastic house from 1762 in Corbières that we have been renovating. We are now living permanently in the village and we think our new life is fantastic. The village is quite small, very traditional and have a fantastic wine. We are not the only ex patriots in the village. There are a few British couples an Irish family, Americans who come here every summer, Norwegians who have bought a huge house with an even larger Norwegian flag and a few Belgians. During these years we have learned a lot about how to get the most out of life in another country. We will talk about food, wine, culture, outings, golf, shopping and good friends. We will also share a few tips and tricks about moving to France, the bureaucracy, how to find good crafts-men and much more. We hope you will enjoy our Blog.