Happy New Year from our house to yours

Et bonne année ! It was 22 years ago — Dec. 2002) that we first saw this house. I don't know what kind of house we expected to find in France when we started our search. As it turned out, we saw and considered 15 houses in four days back then. But we knew immediately that this house was the one we wanted. We hadn't even decided whether or not we would move to France once we bought it. We hadn't yet put our house in San Francisco on the market.

At that point, it only took us a few days to figure out that it was time for us to get out of California. By mid-March, our SF house was sold. In April '02, we paid cash for our house in Saint-Aignan. It didn't hurt that we sold the SF place for nearly seven times more than we paid for the St-Aignan place. In June '02, we got on a plane and, well, here we were, visas in hand. By July, we were all moved in, and by August we had bought a car, a used Peugeot that we still have. We were on our way. The two photos above show the back side of the house, which faces the yard.

You can vaguely see our house despite the fog we've been living with for the last week. It's at the end of the dirt road that runs through a vineyard. A paved road takes us to Saint-Aignan, all of 2 miles away. Today's weather forecast says to expect wind and rain now for a few days. We don't need the rain, but at least it will be a little warmer outside.

Coming to the house on the paved road that ends near our back gate, this is what you see.The photo on the right just above is our garden shed.