We found our ideal spot with associated ruin in the Creuse in 2002, and finally moved in permanently in 2004, after Steve had spent over six months of the year in a caravan making the place habitable, and I had moved into a job that involved travelling all over the world, which could be done as well from Limoges and Paris Airports, as from Heathrow. Once we had moved permanently we then had to decide how we were going to spend the rest of our lives in this beautiful place, without having to travel too far, or get up too early, particularly in winter.

The Lodges

We have plenty of land and stumbled (probably over a bottle or two of the red stuff) on building some log cabins and creating a holiday park – something a little less formal than a gite, but more sophisticated than camping. So after many problems with our Romanian supplies (swear word in our house now) the logs finally arrived in February 2007 (at which point I had given up luxurious hotels and airport coffee and opted for a varnish brush and a set of overalls) and we spent many weeks building "the sheds", furnishing them and getting them ready for our guests by the summer of 2007.

We managed to finish three and the fourth had to wait until after the summer season and is now also complete. The idea seems to have caught on and we are almost fully booked for summer 2008. We are providing a full self-catering holiday with swimming pool. At full capacity we would have 6 people in each lodge totalling 24 people in the park, which gives our guests a great sense of fun and the ability to socialise.

Holiday Park

The kids can get out and play in the fields and at the pool with other kids so the "I'm bored" factor is removed allowing the adults to relax more. Also because we are small, there is an exclusivity factor, and the kids have said they have more fun creating their own activities than having to join in set activities of the kind found in your larger holiday parks. You can find more information about the holiday park on our website.

What next?

So with that up and running – and although plenty still to do like installing solar panels for heating the swimming pool, and creating nature trails through the woods, we wondered what we could do next to keep us (well him anyway) busy.

With all the equipment we had to buy such as a mini-digger, road compactor, concrete vibrator etc we thought that we could put them to good use and we have registered a business doing terrassement (groundworks) and petit travaux (small works).

Additionally, while we were waiting for the logs to arrive for the lodges, we set one of our barns up into a metalwork and woodwork workshop, with the necessary "big boys toys" such as a router for carving pictures in wood, thus creating our signage business, and milling machines and welding sets for metalwork, thus creating our fabrication business for fabricating items such as railings for pool fences, and balustrading. You can find information on all our artisanal enterprises on our mini-diggers website.

Stiletto's to Wellies

As well as all that we have also managed to find time to extend one of our barns to house all the equipment, create some office space in the barn, and also build a greenhouse for growing all those plants that are needed to make the place look pretty, plus the required vegetable patch. Over the next few years I intend to extend the gardening effort and gradually create fantastic gardens throughout the park (although the other half reckons we should just concrete the lot!). I don’t know how we ever found the time to hold down a 7.00 to 7.00 job…

So gone are the days of the 5.30am commute and the late night TV dinners after work. Just keeping busy and enjoying a very friendly and quiet environment here in La Creuse.