Lou Recantou & L 'Ancien Pressoir
Lou Recantou: the cottage
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We (Tim and Susan Wallis) moved to the Languedoc from London, Canada in June, 1999, after more than 20 years of coming to Europe (mostly France) to travel by bicycle or VW camper. It was the superb four-season cycling that finally convinced us to settle in southern France. We brought our elderly German Shepherd, Tina (who died in November, 2002), and most of our bicycles and other belongings and settled into the 150-year-old crépi-covered stone house we'd bought in February. Two months later, we had the very good fortune to purchase an old stone house attached to the back of our house and our barn.
No one had lived in Lou Recantou for 60 years; the floors were either dirt or rough concrete and the roof must have been leaking for most of those 60 years. The renovations were long and sometimes tedious, especially for Tim, who spoke little French and had to learn the names and uses of unfamiliar building materials. He spent months replacing the entire tile roof (single-handedly), took down all of the interior walls and the ceiling, put up new walls, laid tile floors and built cupboards, closets and shelves.
Tangled weeds filled the space outside the house. After months of paperwork, we were granted a permit to put in a small swimming pool, drawing villagers out of their houses to watch telephone and electric wires being lifted to allow passage of the pool as it inched forward, swinging from a crane.
Lou Recantou opened officially in March, 2001.
(For anyone interested in the transformation, there is an album with 'before' photographs in the house.)
During the next four years, Tim renovated our house, then converted the upper floor of our barn into an apartment that opened at the beginning of April, 2005. For details, see:
Another major challenge was getting our French driving permits. While members of the EU and residents of Québec can simply exchange their licenses, we had to do about 35 hours of classroom study and then pass both a theory and a driving exam (after having had our Ontario licenses for 37 years).
Our move here was made easier by Tim's having British citizenship as well as Canadian. I found it frustrating not to be able to vote and to have to renew my residency permit regularly. Near the end of 2007, I was granted French citizenship, keeping my Canadian citizenship as well, of course.
We love living here. Our neighbours have all made us feel welcome, not just with kind words, but also with garden produce and homemade preserves and wine. The cycling is superb, the wine excellent and all we miss are our friends and family in Canada.
Thanks to Wilf Noordermeer, Mike Bedard, Mindy Gordon, Jedidiah Gordon-Moran, John and Joanne Thompson, Christine Troughton, Susan Davies, Jennifer Lacey, Dave Parsons and Don Wallis for the use of their photos throughout the website.
A grand merci to Jean Dextras of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec, for his translation of this entire website into French and to his friend, Jacques Marcoux, who helped him. I've been doing it myself since about 2004, with input from my friend in Olonzac, Colette Bessieux. If there are any mistakes on the French pages, they're mine!
If it isn't obvious already, no web-design software was used in preparing this website; it was done entirely with HTML code taken from HTML 4 for Dummies, Quick Reference and, more recently, the fourth and very much thicker edition of HTML 4 for Dummies, with lots of support and suggestions from Mindy Gordon, John Thompson, Wilf Noordermeer and Rich Jones. Suggestions are always welcome.
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