Article 1 The Journey to Eden by Lisa Spiers

EdensLakes

Well it’s been over two years now. We have had a blinding first season and an even better second season, and are now working towards the start of our third season in March… we can’t wait! The bookings are flowing in and the year looks very promising indeed!
Being here, in France, still seems like a scary thing to do, even now, and the journey from dream to reality has been time-consuming, expensive, tough and eventful… to say the least!!

Eden’s Lakes started as a dream of Adam’s many years ago, although it didn’t have a name then! Even as a novice angler he whiled away many fishing hours dreaming of owning his own lake…like a lot of people do… little did he know!!
I had dreams too, but I never thought I would need to leave England to realize them! In the meantime I wanted to have a happy life, to be financially secure and to be with my family and friends, that’s why I remained in Bracknell, Berkshire for 25 years!!
But… 11 years ago I met and married Adam, and immediately became a fishing and football widow!!

bought a house and had four children… all girls! (They are now 5, 7, 9 and 11 years old). We improved our house by building a two-storey extension and thought we would be there forever.

The thing is, although Adam is a creature of habit and comfort, I need a challenge and lots of things to do… apart from running the house and bringing up 4 children that is! We had taken the house improvements as far as we wanted, and I suppose I got a bit bored! I had completed an Interior Design Diploma Course and wanted to meet my next challenge, so I looked for another house… don’t ask me why, it was just something I could research on the internet whilst the girls were in bed!

I dragged Adam round to look at properties, he wanted to stay put, he was more than happy with our house, in fact he loved it. But he humoured me, thinking it would soon be over!
As time went on though, he realised that it would never be over!! Poor guy!

After a while we found that, although our house was worth a lot more than when we bought it, we couldn’t afford a larger house in the area. (We, well… I, wanted a five bed-roomed house with an en-suite)!
Then the letters from the mortgage company started coming… interest rates were going up… I needed to get a job, but with 4 children the child care fees alone would take all my wages, especially in school holidays. I still wanted to move house. Adam got so fed up with me, he put a condition on the move, “My own lake or we’re staying put!!” A condition too expensive in England – So Adam suggested… not too seriously… that the only affordable place was probably France!!

I think he secretly hoped that would put me off! But… I got on the internet that very moment to begin a, not too serious search – which I initially found very interesting, and cheap!! It even had Adam hooked… please excuse the pun!
That was it… a not too serious suggestion taken up and an idea was born!!

The plan of running a Carp Fishery followed not long afterwards, when Adam pointed out that we needed to earn money to live in France and pay for our dream. Initially I had thought (or hoped) that we would find somewhere that we would not have to pay a mortgage on, but that was more of a dream than moving to France!!
Although properties were cheaper, they were not that cheap!

We also had to figure out where in France we would go. Adam wanted Northern France, from the sheer point of view that anglers wouldn’t have too far to travel. We soon found that, although this was a plus point, there was more than a little competition, especially for a lake trying to establish itself in their midst!
I preferred the idea of moving further south… what’s the point of making such a dramatic move only to have British weather with a different language?! In the end, the department of La Creuse, in the Limousin region began to stick out more than any other. Cheaper than the Dordogne (which, later on, would also be in the offing), just a few degrees cooler (which later turns out to be a good thing, in more ways than one) and nearer to England…a couple of hours nearer! It was the place that was to become a favourite, with both of us.
It may amuse you to know now, that neither Adam, nor I had any knowledge of France, the culture or the language! This was going to be a journey of many firsts!!

It was at this point, we decided, that we needed to slow down a bit, and really think about and discuss the consequences of a move like this on all of us. Not just on Adam, I and the girls, but also on our family and friends. The excitement began to give way to sadness and feelings of guilt at the thought of leaving all those that loved us so much. It’s not that we didn’t love them; it was just that it seemed easier to be the ones that were going, rather than the ones that were being left behind. The excitement and adventure was all ours, the caution and dread was all theirs.
We had many discussions with our friends and family. We weighed up the pros and cons and took everyone’s advice to the discussion circle! It was still difficult to be impartial seeing as we were both so positively charged up with the idea!

We sat down and separately wrote down five reasons why we wanted to move, in order of importance. After comparison we found that the lists were almost the same - some of the ordering was different, but that was a good thing. If we both thought that the same things were important, the least important issues would be in danger of slipping by the wayside. It’s good to have a balance… although I never appreciated how good - until nearly a year later!

The other things that came to light during discussions were our concerns over the girls… their education, their safety, their future… it didn’t look good to us in the UK at that point.
We were also concerned about finances, it was getting to the stage that we couldn’t afford the mortgage on one wage only… we made two decisions. One was to put a time limit on finding a property in France… we couldn’t go on looking forever… the other was that if we didn’t find a property, then I would start my own business, in Interior Design.
We gave ourselves until our eldest daughter was ten years old. We felt that beyond this age it would be more difficult for her to learn a new language and to be able to integrate into a French school… it was a personal choice.

The next step was to research prices and packages of up and running carp lakes in France. We needed to know that it had a potential of supporting a family of six. Adam researched this for hours; it was very enjoyable for him!
Whilst I concentrated on the family and its needs, Adam concentrated on the needs of the business. It was another good balance.
We drew up another list!! The requirements for the property…
It had to have a lake or lakes to accommodate a minimum of ten anglers to make it financially viable, it had to have water and electricity on site, or nearby, it needed to be well situated, easy to find but not too near main roads due to traffic disturbance, and it needed to have potential for growth. Ideally the lake also needed to be stocked with large carp!! From the family point of view, it also needed to have a habitable house onsite (preferably with five bedrooms) and be near enough to schools and shops and not too rural that there was no social life for the girls… or for us!
It took a while to get to the position of going beyond our initial excited search, to begin a search that was more serious and defined for all of our needs.

It was February 2003. Our youngest daughter was eighteen months old; she would go anywhere! Our three year old would also be accommodating; our five year old was beginning to make friends at school so it would be harder for her, our seven year old was established in school, it would be even harder for her. We decided not to say anything to them; it was early days… after all it may never happen!

“I’ve found a property!” I had phoned Adam at work and was very excited. The property was located in La Creuse. There were three lakes and two houses next to each other for renovation. There was also a barn. The largest lake was a reported ten acres. The other two lakes were three acres and two acres. It looked great.
We e-mailed the agent asking some questions.

The agency was a large online one based in the UK. It was working on the English market for a smaller French agent, in fact for many smaller French agents! We were delighted to hear that one of the houses was habitable, and the other was close enough to link to the first house to make one large home. We were assured that the roofs were sound and that the lakes were ideal for a fishery, although they knew little about the stock. The property was a massive fifty hectares!! It seemed like the perfect place, especially when a friend (who had also been searching online for us) came up with the same property, plus another one!

The second property was a little different. It was situated in the Dordogne and was a lake of five acres with gites. It was an up and running holiday site. It wasn’t quite what we were looking for, but it could still be financially viable if we lived in the largest gite, rented the others out and used the lake, which was separate from the gites, as a fishery. It also had a swimming pool and a lovely chalet by the lake. With two properties to look at, we made arrangements for child care, and set a date to go and view them. We booked a room in a travel lodge via the internet, just outside a place called Limoges, it was April.

The day came to leave on our first trip out to France. I was particularly nervous, I hadn’t flown since our honeymoon 8 years previously, and I had never been away from the children before. It was very emotional. Adam had organized a hire car at Limoges airport and we were off!

On arrival we collected our car… a little French, left-hand drive car… I hadn’t thought about that!! It had been all I could do to think about the flight and being away from our girls!!
We got in the car… it felt strange to be sat on the driving side, but not in the driving seat! We set off…
Now, scary is an understatement in describing our journey to the travel lodge! Not only was I giving directions – badly!! But I felt obliged to lean over in the car towards Adam, so that I wouldn’t end up in a ditch or on the curb!! I thought the journey would never end!! After several nerve wrecking incidents - going up the curb a couple of times, being beeped at for driving on the wrong side of the road…more than a couple of times, and nearly ending up on a grass verge…we arrived at the travel lodge! Me with an aching back from all that leaning! And Adam, probably greyer in appearance than before! Now we had to decide who was going to speak to the receptionist at the travel lodge with our vast repertoire of ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Au Revoir’!! – Not to mention ‘Mange Tout’ and ‘Baguette’!!

After pretending to fiddle with my boot, so that Adam would get to the door first, we both faced the scariest looking receptionist on the planet! I nudged Adam… “Go on…” I whispered… “Speak to the scary lady!!”

To be continued...

Lisa Spiers - 2007

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