The very last house we saw before moving to farms had a great courtyard. The house formed one side, and three barns formed the others. It was in a very quiet area in the southern Gers. This was before Minty started school so she came along, with Lamb.

There were vines and cornfields outside the property, which looked pretty in October. The farm came with a few hectares of cornfields but not the vines, which were kept with the owners other property.

The house layout was unusual for Gascony. The central corridor was there but it was longer than normal with three or four rooms each side. This made the long axis of the house run North-South rather then the usual East-West. The second floor of windows are in the attic – the same footprint as the entire ground floor but one huge room.

The courtyard looked great, but in hindsight I’d rather the kids were facing out towards the fields than in an enclosed courtyard.

This house faced had some water damage, but it was a colombage house – wood posts filled in with all sorts of junk. On one wall someone had stripped off the layers of wallpaper to check out the damage underneath and the wood was entirely rotted away. Maybe the damage was limited to one wall but the combination of the water risk plus the colombage interior walls put us off.

Nonetheless it was a pretty location, busy with the vendange. I hope someone bought this place, fixed the wet wall and raised a happy family there.