In September 2003 we had a fabulous holiday in central France. We made all the arrangements for this holiday and property buying trip while Gavin was living and working Jakarta, Indonesia and I was living and working in Aberfeldy, Scotland. This is when you realise what great developments the world wide web, internet, e-mail and msn messenger truly are!!

We spent the first ten days of our holiday touring different parts of Limousin (our chosen area of central France). In fact, we drove about three thousand kilometres visiting and inspecting barns for conversion, houses for modernising as well as taking time to be tourists and getting to know the area better. As each day passed we liked the area more and more and decided that if we found somewhere we really liked this would be the perfect area to settle in over the coming years for our home together and for our retirement.

We had talked to Laura on e-mail and on the phone for a number of weeks and it was good to finally meet her and to visit the northern part of Creuse with her. When all of a sudden we rounded the corner on the outskirts of Naillat (between La Souterrraine and Gueret) and there was OUR barn!!