We really must be mad…

We’re doing it again and have no one to blame but ourselves. Or as Pogo said, 'we have met the enemy and they are us.'

More dank empty spaces, more musty smelling rooms, more broken windowpanes, scarred woodwork, lousy plumbing, ancient electrical cables.

Here and there one finds the faint memory of graceful 18^th century features, even two older (and monumental) Louis XIV fireplaces that would look at home in a fine chateau. There are interesting stone carvings, probably surviving from some former medieval structure, slit windows for shooting arrows (handy!) and a magnificent balcony overlooking a tiny winding street, paved with cobblestones.

But all in need of TLC, all in need of refurbishment, all in need of money!

This is #5 rue d’Albusse in the historic (and pedestrianized) center of Sarlat-la-Canéda, a long strip of a building with enormous old shuttered windows giving light and breath to the six apartments and a storefront that all face the street – the long back wall being shared with the elegant and important ‘Presidial’ complex to our rear.

Now our dreams include visions of carefully restored rooms, shining parquet floors, bronze & crystal chandeliers, spacious and luxurious bathrooms, beds draped in flowery canopies à la française.

We sold our lovely country property, with its 36 acres of woodlands and prairies, and are now installed in a building that has absolutely ‘zero’ garden – just that balcony for potted plants, and the large windows that will sustain household plants.

A sea change for us and for poor Arcadio who now has only city streets to roam instead of his forest haunts.