Planning to Leave Home, Part 2

We found a place to live!!

After many combinations of Google searches, and checking out one or two relocation experts that also rent assorted dwellings, we have found our own little home away from home for our time in France. It is a three bedroom house, recently renovated, with a pool (one of the very few pools that are actually fenced), and only 5k from two small towns. Within these small towns are several schools for us to choose to send our children to, and all manner of shopping, and culture, and so on. Even better, we are a 30 minute drive from Toulouse on one side, and a 20 minute drive from Albi on the other.

It was an interesting experience, to find oneself a home across the ocean via the internet. Many hours were spent trolling through different sites, much juvenile giggling was induced from the errors of translation on some sites, and a whole lot of hoping and wishing was muttered under my breath. It was interesting, in that I started recognizing specific properties, and the names of some landlords or rental managers. I started to get a feel for the different classifications of travelers and tourists. There were places that rented only to adults. Others where children were abundantly welcomed. (And then there were some that were so far beyond any concept I had of spending money, that I realized again that there are some very rich people and corporations in the world. Wow!) And factor in the different types of holidays that people were looking for. Quiet, rural, isolated. Urban, hip, cultured. And then there was us - family, kind-of-private but we want to talk to some neighbours sometimes, schools. I knew we were not looking in perhaps the ideal online locations for a house to rent, but the regular sort of rentals would not have openings a year in advance, whereas a holiday home would. As well, some holiday homes do rent by the month, as well as by the week, and we needed to determine these, as well. In addition, we had to watch because some holiday homes did not rent through the winter months. But we persevered, and we sent emails inquiring after a few specific properties, and finally found our home! Contracts have been signed, the deposit has been sent, and the house is ours for September of 2009 through March 2010.

"Le Cottage Fleuri" is lovely, with a generous yard, and outdoor living space that we will be sure to take advantage of daily.

Situated at the end of a pretty lane in a very small picturesque hamlet, « LE COTTAGE FLEURI» sits in half an acre of beautiful trees and lawns. It is only 5 km away from the pink-brick market town of RABASTENS which offers all services (shops, supermarket, restaurants, cafés, cinema, banks, post office), as well as being a charming and interesting place to visit with its small cathedral and the Saturday morning colourful street-market.
(From the website.)
(I am still looking through rose-coloured glasses at the entire experience. Reality will set in later, I'm sure.)

Our Landlady is remarkable thus far. She has been very helpful with respect to enrolling the children in school for the duration of our time there, and so on. Our eldest will be starting Grade 2 in the nearby town of Rabastens, and our middle child will be starting Kindergarten at the same school. The youngest is too young for school, although they start enrolling them at the age of 3 in France. (The boys are enrolled in the same school that our landlady's son attended.) School promises to be an interesting experience, as the students attend school from 8:30 am - 5:00 pm, Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Lunch is provided (3 courses, I think) over an hour, with another hour? maybe, for the children to play. Food and eating and digesting is a serious business in France, apparently, even for children. ;)