Our neighbors' summer place out in the country

Yesterday morning we went back over to the neighbors' maison de campagne — we used to call those "summer cottages" in North Carolina — to see if we could find the eggs and soup the neighbor said she had accidentally left behind when she and her mother left the day before to drive back up to Blois, where they live. I don't know how old the house is, but I know that the current neighbor's mother and father bought the place about 50 years ago. They told us that only have the roof still had roof tiles on it; the people who were moving out took the rest of the tiles with them. It also had dirt floors, at least in part. The house sits on some six acres of land, much of it wooded.

The current (part-time) neighbor has now inherited the house. She, her husband, and their their children and grand-children come down here maybe 10 or 12 times a year (more often in summer) and spend a few days here, or even a week or two, at a time. Her father died three or four years ago at the age of 94. Her mother doesn't drive, so since then  has depended on her daughters or grandchildren to drive her down to Saint Aignan. The house has a fairly big bedroom, a big eat-in kitchen, and a decent-sized living dining room on the ground floor. Also, the attic was long ago converted into living space. There's one private bedroom up there, but no plumbing of any kind. Most of the space is a dormitory where visiting friends and relatives can sleep when they come here. In summer, most of the action takes place outdoors. They often have big gatherings of friends and relatives out there, and large catered meals.

A few months ago, the family threw one such party (100 or so guests) to celebrate their mother's/grandmother's 90th birthday. We were invited, and when I was talking to the honoree she told me that this little house in Saint-Aignan is the one she and her late husband could really call their own, because they didn't inherit it but picked it out themselves and had it fixed it up back in the 1970s.

Just above is a Google Maps view of the family house where the grandmother lives up in Blois. She and her husband inherited it when his father died. It's right on the street but has a big back yard. The house itself is big — they raised half a dozen children there.