… more ruins visited today. One at Carolles-Plage, one at St Pair sur Mer, and the third God-knows where out in the sticks somewhere and I’ve no idea where.
The first was right on the beach in a former hotel, but the building was falling down and the apartment was on the ground floor alongside a public car park in what had been clearly, despite the Estate Agent’s denials, a former shop premises. And badly converted too.
The one at St Pair sur Mer was also a former hotel, and there were several rooms combined to make an apartment. but it was filthy, disgusting in fact, and there had been a water leak (“the Insurance will fix this” so the Estate agent assured me, but we’ve all heard that before, haven’t we?).
But two things, apart from the disgusting dirt, turned me right off this place.
- the bedroom was right underneath the stairs going up to the next floor. I’m a light sleeper as you know.
How much sleep would I have? - The building was so badly converted that the waste pipe from the next-door toilet passed through into the kitchen of this apartment. That would make for a lively situation if ever there would be a problem.
We shan’t mention the dreadful tiling (or lack thereof), the abysmal plumbing, the damp stains underneath the windows – all of that.
It was a disgrace.
As for the one out in the sticks, that really was out in the sticks. and the yappy dog barking in the garden underneath told me straight away that this was a waste of time. The building was falling down too and there was no co-propriété – repairs to the building would be “by negotiation” and we’ve heard all of this before.
The kitchen was nice in this place, but the finishing was appalling (open chipboard on the worktop by the sink) and the tiling was even worse than I can manage to do.
Strangely enough, leaving aside the question of the estate agent leaving me waiting for 15 minutes, I mentioned to him that I didn’t want to see any ruins, any falling-down buildings, any dirty apartments and any where the vendors couldn’t even be bothered to remove the furniture. And so I got the lot today.
Mind you, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. I had spoken about my plans to my landlady here, and see took me to Bréhal today. There’s a new development of apartments there and several are still empty, either for sale or to let. One of her friends is the President of the co-propriété and she arranged to let me look round.
It’s not what I want and not where I want it to be, but it’s the best possibility yet, especially if I can make friends with the President. And so she arranged for the managing agents to contact me.
And as you might expect, I’m still waiting.
After my early night falling asleep during the film yet again, I was awake at 05:30 and had another early breakfast in the company of my landlady. a shower brought me back to my feet and then we went off to look at this place.
I’d forgotten my salad stuff and my knife and so on, so I ended up with a bag of crisps for lunch, sitting on the promenade at Jullouville (which I really do like). And then we had the estate agent.
I had to drop off some papers in Granville on my way back, and then came back here to sit in the sun and read a book for a while, with my mate sitting on my knee having a stroke.
Tea was more of what I had made yesterday, and now it’s an early night. I was too busy to crash out today, so I’ll sleep like a log tonight, I reckon.
