Longest Day of The Year

Well I can't complain about the weather these last few days, warm and sunny, broken clouds, beautiful actually. Work has slowed on the entry as it nears completion, I need to make a 3/4 round moulding for the corner of the pillar the door is mounted on but that's about it. It looks good now and the dining room and reading room are nearly completed as well. Nothing seems to ever get completely finished as a myriad of details crop up, paint chips from the ladder, loose seams here and there in the cloth, sand/dirt on the floor...it goes on and on. Like any DIY project the satisfaction is sometimes greatest when you START rather than when you FINISH.
We're BAD at finishing.
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We are selling the little house across town, we loved the place for the last 6 years that we've had it but with this house needing a roof that will cost us nearly $35,000 USD to get done, I can't do it myself, it's too high and I'm totally unfamiliar with the materials and how they are used.
The little house is a charmer though, I wish we could keep it but someone will love it and realize what a great value the place is. It's a walled compound, walls on both sides and the back with a
lockable doored 30 sq/mt garage as well as a big barn (80 sq/mt + 30 sq/mt loft) to store things in. The house (88 sq/mt) is in wonderful condition as we repainted it and did a fancy paint job on both sides of all the doors, really French looking! The 120 sq/mt English garden was designed by a California landscape designer Marsha Pouget. It all works and we are including the refrigerator, dish washer, washer drier combo, and new oven/stove. It has city supplied water and sewer as well.

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The other wonderful thing about it is that it is HERE! This is The Berry, The Valle Noir, the REAL France! The big cities are certainly interesting and sophisticated and full of museums and sights galore BUT this place functions and IS the heart of the country. The people are extremely friendly and welcoming almost to a fault. The Tourist Board that we talk about so often has the most wonderful freindly and USEFUL staff, who translate documents, make phone calls, intercede on your behalf with officialdom, buying tickets etc. etc. They are most helpful to say the very least. We love our big city Bourges! It is but 45 minutes away across the valley and has a wonderful medieval core that exudes charm and sense of place. Small shops and a village-like atmosphere pervade the downtown area. It's outskirts contain the large mall-like stores we have all become used too everywhere in the world with easy parking and great buys. (http://www.bourges.fr/) . Our other large city Chateuroux (http://www.chateauroux.fr/) has many of the same services and is somewhat closer at about 25 minutes away. Lignieres (http://www.lignieres.free.fr/) is a market village, the confluence of 5 major roadways through the Berry region of Centre. We have an open-air market twice a week, Monday and Thursday in the 14th Century Hall downtown. Fresh local produce of all kinds, chickens, beef, and yes, horsemeat are readily available cut to your order. We LOVE the marche, it is a social event attended by most residents every week, people stop to chat and watch the scene. We have 3 boulangeries, two meat markets, two hardware stores, two florist shops, a shoe store, 2 real estate offices, a big Champion supermarket w/ service station, a car wash, 8 resturants, 4 bars/taverns and on and on. It seems impossible to our Californian sensibilities that this is all available in a village of some 2000 people, hardly a wide spot in the road in the US but it is so. The culture supports it and the society values such diversity of choice.

Here's the Listing on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130234244587&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=003

If the link gives you trouble just paint, copy and paste it to your browser. Thanks!