Having seen, liked and paid the deposit on the Presbytery in Thézan les Béziers we then had to come up with the money to buy it.
The system in France is quite simple.
You make an offer on a property, if it is accepted both parties have a week to change their minds without penalty, then you pay a deposit of 10% and a Notaire, a state solicitor, is appointed.
This man works for both parties and it is he who organises the various surveys on the building.
Given that these are satisfactory then a date of completion is set about three months away when the deal must be completed.
This is the day the money must be produced and the keys are handed over.
We paid our deposit at the end of September.
Then we had to come up with the money.
Our incredibly cooperative bank here in Waterford jumped through hoops trying to persuade their head office people to produce a mortgage.
We are not exactly your typical mortagees, one semi retired, one close to retirement, heading off to France on a crazy whim…….
They refused, then dithered, in the meantime the Notaire offered us a sign date of the 22nd of November.
Knowing that there was no way we would be ready then, we stretched this to the 7th of December.
Our auctioneer in France said that we were lucky to be granted this extension, that it was a charitable gesture from the vendor, the Archdiocese of Montpellier(we were buying a presbytery)

Even though we could have given power of attorney to the notaire Sile and I decided to travel out for the signing and got our Ryanair flights to Carcassonne to be at the Notaire’s office on December 7th –all this before we were granted a mortgage.

In the meantime I had summoned up my best French-and my courage-and phoned up the local branch of the Credit Agricole which was in Murviel Les Béziers, just down the road from Thezan.
The lady there was très gentille and between the two of us we managed to establish an account, this involved me scanning in marriage certs and passports and a lot of emailing.

The mortgage was finally granted on Thursday last, November 30th and then had to be electronically remitted to our account in France.
At 5.00 on Friday the whole amount, plus the Notaires fee (but minus the deposit) went winging into the ether.
By close of business on Tuesday we established that it had arrived in Murviel, this was just as well as we were heading off at 4.00am on Wednesday morning to fly to Carcassonne and then pick up a rented car and drive to Murviel where we had an appointment with the bank at 3.00 to collect our cheque for the Notaire which we were to hand over on Thursday afternoon.
The lovely lady in the bank was desolé when we got to her but our cheque book hadn’t arrived. She could give us a bank cheque but this required two signatures and as M., the second signee, wasn’t in that day could we call for it on the way to the Notaire on Thursday?

We headed into Béziers, it was after all going to be our local city and so far the nearest we had got to it was driving around the périphérique en route between Carcassonne and Thézan.

It turned out to be a lovely little city, full of smart shops, a great Christmas market in the main square, a solid plain cathedral and a Musée des Beaux Arts with a stunning collection of old glass.

Sile had picked out our Chambre d’Hôte for the two nights, it was called La Chamberte and was in the nearby town of Villeneuve les Béziers.

It was a terrific find.
It is an old wine store converted into a restaurant with rooms.
It is run by Bruno and Irwin, a French Irish alliance, and is full of charm, bright Mediterranean colours and serves brilliant food.

They were delighted that we were buying in the area and are going to become an invaluable source of contacts for us in the future.

We reached the bank at 2.30 the following day to collect our cheque
Only to find Madame ,again, desolé because M. had forgotten to sign the cheque and he had to be summoned back from lunch to do so.

We arrived at the extremely anxious Notaires office about 10 minutes late and proceeded with the signing.
About an hour later having signed our names at least one hundred times and been read long tracts of officialese, some of it translated by Freddy Rueda our auctioneer who was also there, we were handed the keys.

We then headed to our local supermarket where we bought large quantities of wine and tinned food which we stashed in the house for the new year.(We will be arriving back in the middle of the bank holidays)

It was the most glorious feeling to sit out on the terrace-I wish I could say in sunshine, in fact it was in light rain- and look south on the Pyrenées, which had a light capping of snow, and feel that Le Presbytère was ours at last.

The proprietor at one of her windows.

Having had a good poke around the new property, and on Sile’s suggestion we went down to the Mairie and asked could we meet the M le Maire.
This request was not at all surprising to the ladies in the office there and a few minutes later we were chatting with M Duro in his office.

This old post-card of the Mairie, taken in 1900
shows a building still unchanged 107 years later.

He welcomed us to Thezan, was totally happy about us turning the presbytery into a Chambre d’Hôte, and advised us where we could go to find more information about our new purchase.
This is a most important meeting because the Maire in French towns has lots of powers and control of planning applications is one of his duties.

We drank champagne with Irwin in La Chamberte that night and then flew home from Carcassonne on Friday morning.
The nice bit is now done.
Next we have to turn the place into the Chambre d’Hôte of our dreams.