As it turned out, the places for sale was all adjacent to the river, and a bit out of the village. The place I saw in the papers had about a hectare under apples, and another under pears, and there were three buildings on it, but these were very dilapadated, and I knew that I did not have the skills to do most of the renovation myself, neither had I the money to have it done. I had also spoken to an old man working away in the apple orchard, and he was aghast that the owner, a mr. Cairncross could put the place on the market, as he and his son had applied for a loan from the Agricultural bank. The fact that he had worked for this man, and on this smallholding for many years, and so much wanted to own it, helped to make up my mind, feeling a bit antagonistic towards the owner, who had arrived, and stood talking to the agent.
When I saw this little stone cottage with its round thatch roof, I knew that it was mine! It was beautiful, although neglected, but it looked so friendly, and I was sure it was kind of winking at me from the two front windows. So we had a look.
Big rose trees were growing in front and on the side of this wee house, and they were in full bloom, and the bit of colour  gave the sadly neglected little house  bit of grandeur. The agent did not have a key for the main house, but we could enter the bottom, newly built on bedroom and bathroom.
It was the strangest room, the roof on one side about ten feet high, sloping sharply down to the other side which was about four feet high. It did make the room quite interesting, although the bathroom was the most hideous I have ever seen, with a bath that dated from the sixties, and this thing was the colour of khaki, but one very sickly khaki!
I think the basin stand was from an old plane or maybe a hotel or cinema, as this thing covered the whole wall, the top covered in fake green marble, with different openings, covered by metal plates  for hygiene cut into this, and in the front also some pull out holders, maybe for used paper handtowels and so on! It might have been useful, but goodness gracious, It was Ugly!
Irma and Hannes had a look at the house next doors, which was rented out, where they had to almost clamber over quite a few drunken bodies, as it was 'all pay' day the day before, the agent told us. All Pay means money paid by the state for not being able to work.
I was not sure that I was up to living here, but we went down to the river, where huge poplar trees of about fifty meters high grew in great numbers, and it felt as if one was in a green, quite surreal world.