Doing Their Thing

This section's articles

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  A Dream with a Date

  Tuesday 11 April 2006, by Juliette Lowe

  What is a goal? It’s a dream with a date! I like this definition. Dreaming is easy, but the real work is making fantasy reality. I’d wager many of the people reading this article are on a date with their dream - living in France or perhaps planning to come and live here.

  The trick is to have a dream and believe in it. The song says, ‘Nothing’s impossible if your heart is really in it’. I can’t say I totally agree with these words, but the longer I live, dream, and (...)

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  PROJECT RESTORATION 2

  Thursday 25 August 2005, by Theo

  A follow up to PROJECT RESTORATION (see below) with useful information about roof terraces (or lack of) ..

  PROJECT RESTORATION 2 As often happens, whilst I was grappling with the "des res" in the previous article, we were offered the even smaller house opposite at an affordable price. The house (...)

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  PROJECT RESTORATION 3 - THE BARN

  Thursday 25 August 2005, by Theo

  How to build a brand new house inside some 14th century walls ..

  This entire project is not so much one of restoration, more of building a brand new house in an ancient shell. We again stumbled upon the place by accident, as usual. It strikes me that property (...)

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  MISS PATCH

  Thursday 25 August 2005, by Theo

  Buy a raffle ticket and help raise money for research into Alzheimer’s.

  I wish I’d taken it up years ago. When we first arrived in Agde, in 1991, I quite soon became aware of the thriving local patchwork group by way of the annual exhibition of their amazing (...)

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  The Can-O-Worms

  Monday 15 November 2004, by A correspondent

  The odourless living composting kitchen and household waste System is now available in France.

  This exiting new composting system is the result of years of research and development, to utilize the benefits of worms - nature’s own recyclers. By putting the worms to work in this innovative (...)

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  ATELIER BONAL

  Wednesday 31 March 2004, by Patricia

  New Year’s Day 2004. At 9 o’clock in the morning, a work party of friends strolled up our drive in their oldest clothes. "Where do you want us to start?" they said. We blinked at them, put on (...)

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  PROJECT RESTORATION

  Saturday 17 January 2004, by John Platings, Theo

  When I first saw the house, I knew I had found my next project. A village house with a barn attached, with a little outside space where you can take coffee in the sunshine, and so close to the river you can hear M. Magret and his wives loudly quacking for their breakfast.

  It seems ideal, and one day it will be. For now, it’s a building site filled with rubble and potential. This isn’t the first time I’ve been here. I’ve endured the heartaches and triumphs, setbacks (...)

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  HEALING HANDS

  Saturday 17 January 2004, by Patricia

  Today she’s a qualified practitioner, but Ursula Mendelssohn began her career as a therapeutic masseuse with a small white lie and a large dose of cheek...

  "I had done a week-end course in reflexology. I was looking for work, and a girl friend told me they were looking for body shampooists at the local Turkish baths. So I went along there and told (...)

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  FRUIT OF THE VINE

  Wednesday 1 October 2003, by Patricia

  

  Tony on the Vine

  English man producing wine in Southern France.

  HOW DOES an English accountant from south west London end up on the shelf at Marks and Spencer?

  Tony Roberts came to this part of the world some 20 years ago, like so of us many did, on a simple three-week holiday. He picked courgettes for a local farmer. He enjoyed the sun, the wine, the people and the lifestyle.

  Naturally he came back again - and again. By 1990 he decided, again like so many of us, that a holiday cottage wouldn’t be such a bad idea. When he went in search of a little mazet, all he was (...)