All about us at

“BEAUSOLEIL”

Privately owned by Di and Steve Roberts.

We moved to France at the beginning of December 2003 and saw “BEAUSOLEIL” on the day after we arrived. It was the first property we saw, a little clichéd but we fell in love with it as soon as we drove into the cobbled courtyard. It was just what we had in our minds, although we needed to get past the rubbish that was lying around, such as old hay in the barn and empty tin cans in their hundreds positioned on top of fence posts to stop the posts rotting, all of which you will be pleased to hear have now been removed.

For some reason our previous occupants had this odd fascination for collecting blue string. We have not learnt the reason for this but it has made us chuckle a few times as we are still finding bits.

Through all this and with a lot of imagination, we could see a home in need of a lot of love.

We had moved to France for a change of lifestyle as it says in all the magazines so we made our offer the same day and then it was no going back - another saying which seems to be well used. Now all we needed to do was to wait the necessary three months, which is a legality that has to be gone through if you are buying over a certain amount of land.

We wanted our small “Fermette” and with that came 4.4 hectares of farmland but with a lot of patience we finally signed for “BEAUSOLEIL” and, yes, now there was definitely

“No Going Back”

We bought “BEAUSOLEIL” initially to renovate and then to let out as a holiday gite, the renovation has been an ongoing project since we moved in.

We are now looking at other projects and Steve is using his French Degree, a language he has used thoughout his business life, as another service that we can include and he has registered with the French authorities as a teacher of languages.

He has a number of British pupils who live here and want to learn or improve their French and he is also offering a translation service, so if help is needed, maybe having the phone or electric connected or with the Notaire or Immobilier (estate agents) then Steve can assist.

We are also offering holidays with a difference, why not come and learn French whilst enjoying the relaxing and traditional surroundings of “BEAUSOLEIL” and sampling the local wines of the area such as Bordeaux and Bergerac.

You may want to learn conversational French or something more business orientated, but whatever it is, we will make it an enjoyable laid back experience.

Or if you are enjoying a holiday travelling down through France seeing the French countryside as you go and you want to break your journey, we can also offer a comfortable overnight stay with a traditional French breakfast, locally freshly baked croissants with homemade jam - a mouth watering experience.

Living in France was something we dreamed of years ago when we were travelling down to the south of France, at that time with three young children. They are all grown up now, visiting us whenever they can and loving it as much as we do.

Why not come and stay at “BEAUSOLEIL” and experience this for yourself. Steve and I are sure that you won’t be disappointed and will give you a warm and welcoming stay.

Update on our ‘Good Life’ – 7 years on and it seems as if we have always been here, as you will see “BEAUSOLEIL” has had a lot of work done on it although you will still find the odd tin can and piece of string if you really look.

We successfully finished the gîte and started letting it out in 2005. Our guests, by their comments in the Guest Book, have all been very complimentary, especially mentioning the comfort of the gîte.

We always take note of their comments and what they expect when they arrive, providing a Welcome Pack and a friendly face, and also we have tried to equip it with all the daily needs that we would expect a gîte to have.

It’s not been an easy 7 years by any means, once the gîte was finished.

We are still doing bits to improve it, recently we have had new windows put in to make it warmer through the winter months. We had to think about how we were going to earn a living, Steve’s teaching is still going well and he has done more and more translation work which he enjoys and hopefully this will expand in time.

Then purely by accident, through a friend of a friend, we were asked if we would be interested in looking after their property, and we immediately recognised that we would be able to make this into a business.

Once we sorted out the French bureaucracy, we started Beausoleil Property Services and this we have built up with a lot of hard work and recommendations over the last four years and we now have a good list of clients for both property management and gardening.

From the end of March right through until the end of September we are chasing our tails and, yes, sometimes it is stressful, but we can honestly say that we enjoy it and we have found our ‘Good Life’.