Hello Countryside

The new digs.

This summer we rented (for 8 weeks) a lovely house in the country about 15 minutes from our village.  It was perfect for the business and the kids and the dogs.  We also rented it for our culinary retreat too.  It's not cheap and we still had to pay rent at our house in the village, even though we weren't staying there.  And we had to basically move out of our old place and move into the summer house, which was a pain.

We decided to approach the owners about renting the house year-round.  It made sense, will save money and we were itching to get out of the village.  Not that our village isn't beautiful, but we are always out of the village, either hiking, climbing, running or biking and being in the country makes up happy.  The house had been on the market to sell (out of our price range) but after some discussion the owners decided to take it off the market for a year and rent it to us at a really good price.

We moved in the first week of November and are really happy up here.  I say "up" because we are on one of the highest points around "haute" is part of our hamlets name.  We have 2 other houses around, but not next door and it's quiet and peaceful.  We have a big fenced in yard for the dogs and hiking trails all over too.  We close up most of the house during the winter (4 bedrooms upstairs and the gite next door) because it would cost us a fortune to heat.  We've spent the last few weeks making our mark on the place, putting up our pictures/Bruce's paintings, bringing in our furniture, etc...

Do I miss living in the village?  No.  The only thing I do miss is being able to walk to our little market when I realize I'm out of something, but I'm sure I'll get over that fast.  We love it here, it already feels like home.

Kitchen area (my new piano de cuisson too)

Living room

Looking into the living room from the outside

From our yard on a clear day we can see the Pyrenees.