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Welcome to Le Panneau's mailbox - YOUR forum for any topics related to France.

A correspondent, who wishes to remain anonymous, shares the following description of an eventful house-buying trip made recently to Southern France.

"..........We finally signed on the new house, but the trip was pretty eventful.....we bought a diesel Citroën car, on the basis that French cars are easier to fix in France if anything goes wrong. Talk about the triumph of hope over experience!!!

In the last 2 years we have had 7 flat tyres in la belle France - 2 of them at the top of mountains (1 after a huuuge lunch), plus a blown head gasket, a sheared steering column on a narrow mountain road (scary one) and a blown exhaust. No flats this time but the transmission exploded (at the top of a high mountain pass) and the diesel injector is apparently on its last legs - needless to say all repairs in France seem to be about twice as expensive as in the UK, even on French cars. To cap it all, we had a hire car for a couple of days while the garage sorted out the transmission and a boulder came down a hill-side and mashed the side of that car pretty comprehensively. Avis were not too happy at that one!

When we got to the house the weather was glorious but...........

the car wouldn't get up the drive (due to terrain and incline) so everything had to be carried up the mountain (only about 400 metres as the crow flies but about 1.5 km along a narrow, windy path)....then there was no gas so I had to hump 2 empty propane cylinders down said path and then 2 full up same (those suckers are heavy).......then the water gave up and I had to trace 3 km of water pipe to see what had happened (some a****le had decided to let his cattle graze on our land and they had broken the pipe in 3 places AND they were crapping close to the water intake in the river)....then on the way back I decided to try the 'quick' way down, lost my footing on some wet rocks and fell/rolled about 12 feet onto the edge of a 30 foot drop onto more rocks (luckily some fallen branches stopped me on the edge otherwise this message would have reached you via a ouija board rather than e-mail)...then everything was okay until the blasted cows returned the next day and bust the pipes again!!!!

It really is incredibly beautiful there, the house is at around 4,500 feet and the surrounding hills at this time of year are covered in the most wonderful autumnal colours (I'm sure it isn't quite as spectacular as Vermont or New England but it must be pretty close). Every morning we had glorious sun-rises (we face SE) over the surrounding peaks and on the last day the clouds filled the valley below us so the house and peaks seemed to be floating on their own. Electricity is by generator but we didn't bother and just used candles - my wife is getting to be a real pioneer-woman!! There's no houses for a couple of miles and the only sound you hear is the trout rivers and the wild-life (birds, hares, marmots, wild boar, mouflon (a sort of chamois)). No-one's had a chance to pollute the air you breathe or the water you drink (once we get the cows back where they belong). I'm looking to install a photo-voltaic system to produce our electricity and composting loos to replace the current septic tank.

All in all it was actually a very enjoyable trip (made more exciting by trying to get back to Calais in a car which would only manage most hills on the autoroute at 30mph, due to injection prob etc) However we did get to spend our 24th wedding anniversary sitting beside the Med at Port-Vendres in a little fish restaurant, in our shirt sleeves!.....So here we are back in England and dreaming about our next trip to the PO which will hopefully be early-ish next year (unless we win the lottery) and hoping we don't get burgled over the winter! .............."