Change

You decide that you are going to sell something, let's say a property for instance - so you obviously think I need to get this looking in the best possible condition and take some really good photographs that show it off to it's best and get all the details and information to hand ready to give to any interested potential buyer and employ a pro-active estate agent to act on my behalf who will insist on all the aforementioned things being done.

I can't remember how many properties I have looked at over the past four years but I do know that not one of the owners or agents involved had done any of the above but they had all consistently overpriced the property by at least 40%.

So it was that Debrah and I went to view an interesting property in Carcassonne this week. Ideas and plans and thoughts about how to do things differently and better are always part of our business thinking and it doesn't hurt to go and check some things out from time to time.

It has potential ... but it would have so much more potential if the price was lower and there was a scaled floor plan available and if the whole building wasn't so full of old stuff that you could actually see the fabric of the place, get a feel for the space and not have to climb over things to get from one room to the next. Just pay someone €500 to get all the shit cleared out, repair the roof tiles that have caused the water leak, get the rotten beam fixed cos you know you will have to drop the price for it anyway, take some measurements and make a floor plan. What's wrong with people - it's not that difficult.

We will see - it may be right, it may not, it may have the potential or it may not - it's far too early to say and there are still far too many unknowns. It may well go the way of all the others we have looked at - interesting but not practical or feasible. It may be the start of something new.

The weather finally turned this week and with the kids back to school (rentree) and the start of the harvest (vendange) and a drop in temperature comes a feeling of the end of Summer and the start of Autumn.

Yesterday was grey and dull and drizzly in all senses but today dawned with the bluest of blue skies with the whitest of white clouds scudding across it on a fresh breeze relentlessly pushing on towards the Mediterranean. It was a fabulous Autumn day and hopefully the first of many to come over the next two months. Not cold at all but without the searing 35 degree heat of Summer. The light was clear, not hazy and the air was fresh not sultry. I personally think Autumn is the best time of year to be in the Languedoc - we are not there yet but it is definitely coming.

Having been confined indoors all day yesterday under the grey skies, we decided we should take advantage of a free afternoon and get out of the place - we hadn't been out for a roof down pootle through the Languedoc countryside for ages and the new Audi hadn't been there at all - it was time.

Always inspiring, always breathtaking, always beautiful and always isolated, after just 10 minutes drive out of Carcassonne. The colours are still green but the dark bottle green of late Summer, the vignerons are starting to harvest the white grapes - the red will come in later this month, the roads are empty, the roof is down and the scenery and wildlife is spectacular - it is a wonderful way to escape.

Todays memorable sightings included ponies and horses standing stoically against the irritation of flies and the wind, a feisty mare not wanting to go into a horse box, a magnificent majestic eagle soaring not that far above us as we crested the top of a pass - what a wingspan? - a small group of deer rushing for cover from an open field into the gladed shade of a river, an eccentric black goat, a huge handsome bull in a field of cows and some very large (and some very tiny) fish in the River Lauquet, where we stopped for a walk along the banks in the sunshine.

And yes, it was all very romantic and very beautiful. Life is good.