Grange de Rive is the newly appointed name given to our barn that we purchased in November 2007. The property is located at the end of a small 'chemin' (road), at the bottom of a valley in a little comune called Busserolles, in the Dordogne region. The property sits in 9 acres of woodland, it has half a mile of river frontage and a natural source fed lake, the size of a football pitch! 

Put simply our aim over the next six months is to renovate the existing barn into a 5 bedroomed, open planned living area with 300+ square metres of accommodation. We will be building in phases and aim to ave the first phase ( a three bedroom, 2 bathrooms house ready in 6 weeks) - ambitious you may be thinking..... Miles agrees but NO.... I can't think of anything worse than living in a Caravan for longer than that! Our goal is clear get cracking on and have phase one done by end of August and the entire project by end of December. Grand Designs here we come!! 

As the barn is no where near ready to live in , I made the decision to buy a caravan, complete with flushing "chemical" loo, much to Soph's disgust !!! I have been nominated VP of slopping out each day.!  I will post some pics when we are in and settled. The caravan is 15 years old, clean, has all mod cons and sleeps 2. I personally can't wait and don't know what all the fuss is about and what's more the wagon only cost us a grand !!!!

We have NOW lived 6 weeks in the caravan and Sophie IS GOING MAD......Never again!! I tell you you have done a full days work before you even start any building work! Flushing toilet I don't think so! I have given ourselves 3 more weeks and NO MORE!!

A further 6 weeks on and we have NOW moved into a 3 bedroomed Gite with TWO flushing toilets and WIFI!!!! Sheers luxury and we can finally feel warm again and connected to the outside world!!!