To REALLY foul things up you need a computer and the internet*.
That's about as much as I'm going to mess about with that old maxim, though there's many a true word spoken in jest as we also say.
The speculative house hunt is continuing. In a way, I'm getting my foreign travelfix without leaving the country, though it's deeply unsatisfying but never the less better than nothing. There are many reasons for buying a house in continental Europe... and many for not doing so, not least of which is that we don't need to make life more complicated than it already is.
Just came across an advert for someone selling a portion of a farmouse in a hamlet. It's been redecorated & generally sorted out inside, lots of space, a terrace, gardens, 20min drive to the nearest ski resort, and 40,000 square meters of idle arable land and woodland. I've set myself a conscious limit not to become interested in anything that looks like a farm because I'm absolutely not going to start farming and it would be fundamentally wrong to leave the land idle. Yet here's a possibility where nothing would change if we bought the place.
No.
Nope.
NO.
On we go. ;-)
Tonight I did also find a place in a tiny alpine town near the Swiss border that's clearly an ancient building, seemingly not tumbling down and yet affordable. Requires refurbishment according to the advert, which can mean anything from just redecorating to basically pushing the whole lot over and starting again. You can even walk right past the place in google street view (I've used that a few times too - really helpful at sorting between the good, bad and the ugly).
*Or a woman who thinks you shouldn't look at her, regardless of what she displays.
This seems so exotic to me, even if it's just speculative.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know why you think it's wrong to leave land idle. One of my (pipe) dreams is to buy a quarter section of land (about 64x larger than the property you mention here), partially grass, partially forested, and create a network of walking paths, maybe build a cabin (or maybe a retreat centre?).
Nice to see you around still Marc. :-)
DeleteThe fault is mine for a lack of precision. This is agricultural land, historically farmed, probably for hundred of years. Europe needs to generate food locally, and simply letting the land idle away, especially if covered in olive trees or vines for example, doesn't seem right. Canada has many thousands of square miles of land that's never seen a plough, and I have no problem with that being left. Likewise if land were wooded, I'm happy to see that remain un-farmed.
ReplyDelete