Stephen & Madeleine Kear's Holiday Gites In France

After Stephen's exhausting years and demanding schedules as a violinist in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra we left it all behind us to run idyllic gites in the Gartempe Valley, La Vienne, France.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

The Build

Our first year in France saw us with a fairly soft start to life here - we almost had the year off apart from settling in, Stephen's operation, setting up the potager and making decorative changes to our two person gite and running this gite plus managing four others for someone else over the summer. This new year sees an enormous change to all this as we commence the conversion of a granary into accommodation for six to eight people. Grange
This decision to do the build ourselves was precipitated by our reluctance to take on an enterprise to do the work as the costing of it was extortionate. We are still seeking more advice from other builders and workers to put it in some kind of perspective but the devis outlined to us by the building company recommended by our architects was very off-putting. Included in the quote were large sums of money quoted for removal of rubble to the dechetterie, and the washing of old stones to re-use in the build. We quickly realized if we were to get anywhere with this we would have to do the majority of the work ourselves. We started only a couple of days before new year by picking off the old plaster rendering to expose the stone underneath on the inside of the house. This job was made harder by the fact that we did not have quite the right tools. A friend was supposed to lend us an air compressor tool to speed up the process but we had finished the job by hand before they had a chance to get it to us!! Although a very messy and painstaking job it did come off fairly easily except for some tough areas where Stephen used the SDS hammer drill. The house already has some charm to it - the downstairs area is openplan with a large stone fireplace in tact and an incredibly pretty oak staircase in need of some repair but otherwise in excellent condition leading to the upstairs. In some ways the process of having to take on the build ourselves gives the entire mission an extra dimension. We can feel ourselves becoming consumed by this job - each day we imagine the house as it will be when it is finished and in the meantime we are very much linked with seeing the house emerge. There are times when even in this short span of days that we have been hard at work that I feel completely overwhelmed by it all. This has to be the most ambitious building work we have ever undertaken and I am terrified we can't do it. But there is actually a lot of things that we can do - and this type of conversion lends itself well to the would be do it yourself builder. Grange

There is a raw pragmatism to the construction of these wonderful houses - two hundred and fifty years ago methods and materials were simple but effective. Everything that has created the house has been forged from stone and oak and dirt. The house possesses atmosphere already. Without quite knowing how we'll get there I do feel we shall achieve it. Already we have taken trailer loads of gravel and plaster to the dechetterie saving ourselves much money. Also picking off the plaster is a saving of a few more euros. Our next plan is to clean the beams of their black coating - we were going to use a sandblaster but this is an extremely expensive tool. We have been told the cleaning agent SanMarco lessive works. We bought some today and will give it a go tomorrow. The black on the beams seems very stubborn and impossible to shift. It will be a miracle if this stuff works. This entire project will be made more difficult by the fact that Stephen will be going back to UK in bursts to bring in some much needed income.

Monday, January 03, 2005

Starting the 'Potager'

As an extra for our paying guests staying in our gites we decided to enable them to have access to our vegetable garden. The only problem was the area we wanted to have for a vegetable garden was thick with bramble and briar and nettles. Measuring around two hundred and fifty square metres this posed a huge challenge for us. We were further handicapped by the fact that we were late in the season for growing vegetables - Stephen had his operation in late March - it wasn't until easter time that we began the planting out of the crop. The main problem, however, was clearing the area without using the poison method that everyone advised us to use. We didn't like the idea of using such strong chemicals and also any such method would have delayed us using the ground. Stephen bought a brush-cutter and with it he cleared all the growth, burning the dreaded 'ronce' roots and plants on a huge bonfire. We asked our neighbour, Monsieur Giraud, if he would come with his tractor and dig over the patch. This he obligingly did - his massive tractor heaving through the soil lifting many of the weed roots to the surface. We then handpicked out every root we could find, turning over the soil and searching for these evil plants. Eventually we cleared enough to begin planting. Armed with our self-sufficiency bible - John Seymour's Complete Book of Self Sufficiency - we began the daunting task of setting out the plot. We divided it into four areas deciding to go for the rotation method. We planted first off potatoes and onions - red and brown - and garlic. The leeks, capsicum, courgette, lettuce, aubergine, tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage, broccoli, sweet corn - to name but a few - soon followed. It was a huge thrill to have such a production going - especially when it semed the land was so difficult to clear. Some tips we learned - use ash from the woodburner to deter the slimy snails and slugs - they can't bear the stickiness of it and soon learn to keep away. Use nettles in water soaked for two weeks then dilute 10/1 for fertiliser. Wash blackfly and aphids off with washing up liquid. We were lucky that conditions were quite good overall - few animals and insects causing damage. The worst offenders were our own maverick chickens who were not in any proper enclosure - running totally free-range they inflicted the most damage on our crop.


Madeleine in the potager



The satisfaction of eating from this garden both with friends who came to see us for a holiday and for those clients staying in our gites was absolutely wonderful. Using our food bible - Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's wonderful River Cottage cookbooks we made several wonderful recipes including his fabulous beetroot and feta cheese soup. In the end it felt as if very little effort on our behalf had yielded huge rewards. Plans for next year are to increase this project - to extend the duration of its produce and increase the variety. How long we have wanted to do this and here we were - harvesting our very own crops. In our barn we store the potatoes and onions harvested from our potager. We were also lucky to pick apples, pears, walnuts, hazelnuts and apricots and peaches from the abandoned gardens situated all around. It was, for us, a most wonderful experience to have had such an array of fresh vegetables and fruit all on our doorstep.











Sunday, January 02, 2005

Introduction

Eleven months ago Stephen and Madeleine Kear left behind them busy London lives to live in a remote rural hamlet running holiday gites in the La Vienne region of the Poitou Charente, in France. With them came their two daughters aged eight and nine, Stephen's seventy-six year old mother - and Maggie their Battersea dog. .
The change had been precipitated by many things. Stephen, a violinist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, had tired of a gruelling schedule of world tours and concerts in London and UK. Combined with terrible constant back pain his job was becoming more and more difficult. Stephen and Madeleine took the journey out to France to look for properties the week the Iraq war started. They spent five days looking at properties from the area of the Pyrenees right as high as the Charente. The tour did not yield much at all until they arrived at La Faye - a 17th century farmhouse set in rural heartland of La Vienne - the last property on their scheduled list.
Only three miles away from Antigny - a pretty village set by the river with a lovely church housing romanesque frescoes the property was beautiful and remote but within easy access to exquisite medieval towns and villages. They put in an offer immediately. Back in UK the housing market seemed to have slowed over night. It took them several months to sell their property and in the end they had to very much reduce the price in order to meet their deadline for the french property. In the meantime a MMR scan revealed that Stephen's back pain was due to a tumour in the spine. It was as if everything were conspiring against them and there were some very dark times. However, on the 28th of January the family complete with chicken house and dog left London in the midst of snow storms to start their new life in France. They took possession of the house on a Friday - the following Monday the children were attending the local village school this step marking their entry into the local community. A few British send their children to private schools outside the village - Stephen and Madeleine's decision to place their children locally paid off in many ways, the most profitable being the way in which the community welcomed them. Within days they had children to the house to play - and invitations to join in various local events. An evening at the Sal de Fete saw them playing loto - french bingo - a great way to learn those covoluted french numbers. However, there were anxious times to come.
In March Stephen had to return to Britain to have his back operation which carried possible risk of nerve damage. Luckily the operation done at London's Stanmore hospital went very well with very minor nerve damage suffered - nothing, anyway, that prevented Stephen from getting on his tractor mower when he got home. With the operation out of the way the family began their life in earnest in France - getting on top of the complicated health system, working out how to get french registration for the car and getting french architects on board to draw up plans for a three bedroom property to be let out for the summer. A year later and the work has not yet started due to the well documented bureaucracy the french so love. Also a challenge is finding the funds for the build as the family found their reserves quickly dried up. It will be difficult for Stephen to find the time to do some of the build when he is also returning to the UK for work. These are some of the challenges the family now face. However, even with so much still to achieve before they can truly feel at home here and as if they are secure they are happy they have made the move. They feel their quality of life has improved enormously and they are enjoying the opportunity to learn a different language and live in a rural environment. There is a lot yet to achieve but they are adamant they have made the right decision. 'It feels like home here now,' Stephen says, 'When I come back here having been in London I really appreciate how magical it is. I think we are incredibly lucky to be here.

La medos