Estate agent day

I had a lovely day today. Mme Remblier picked me up and we chatted about the world, the people on the dole and the French workers who are more interested in their pay, holidays and knocking off work at 5.30 than in doing a good job. Then she told me about her childhood in Les Petits Plats -she was the youngest of 11 children and has blissful memories of her childhood - putting on plays in full costume no less on the high ground behind the two lime trees. She said she saw that the hook for hanging the wire that held the curtain is still there, and the whole village came to watch! And there was an old man who had a hangar full of toys, enough for all the children: bicycles, scooters, go-carts, see saws, swings and roundabouts, all of which he had made himself. There was enough for all the children in the hamlet. Then as we got closer she started pointing out "this is the way we used to go the long way round to collect chestnuts and arrive at school with our pockets bulging!" Then she rather wistfully said what a shame it is that children today don't have such opportunities. I spent the rest of the morning with Dawn and Joe Rogers, who have lived in arid Spain for the last 11 years and in their early 60s feel that they have one more adventure left in them. They loved the countryside and the lush greenery and were really sweet. she'd like to have a horse so they need a bit of land. they liked Les Petits Plats but would prefer a house that was detached, and they also liked Viviers but the field was a bit too far away and they were worried about the cost of clearing it and fencing the whole thing. Then they brought me home and Richard was here- he is Alan's brother-in-law and our latest recruit so I took him with me this afternoon to do a mandate. It was for Mavis in Chez Renard and when we arrived Gill And Mike were there. Anyway, it was quite a sweet little house in Chez Renard but the granny annex in only half finished as poor old Bert dies of cancer before he could get it finished - She said at the beginning that Merry had been there this morning and she didn't like her, but after I had given her my price I found out why: Merry had told her 40,000€. I told her that I couldn't put it on for more than 50,000€ and she just shook her head. Poor thing, it is such an emotional investment for her as her lovely husband has done so much work but they bought in in 2011 for 30,000€ And I explained that I had lots of properties for 30 and 40,000€ that were just as good or better. I asked her if she ever wanted to come back and she said no and her daughters didn't want to come for holidays either so I said that in that case she would be better off just putting it at the right price and getting shot of it. Anyway, it is in Bert's name so Robineaud needs to do the succession and I think another good reason for fixing the Price low is to avoid inheritance tax. I think that the threshold is 50,000€ so that's in our favour. The problem is that Gill had said 80,000€ ! No way! Tonight I watched a documentary about Rio Ferdinand being Mum and Dad to his three kids after his wife died of breat cancer which was very thought provoking.