What are we aiming to do?

Over the coming years we are aiming to be as self sufficient as possible - it is a concept known as self-sufficient"ish" (or ishness/good life!)  It is a process that will take at least 5 years to approach anything like self sufficiency and in saying that, we do not aim to produce our own clothes and all of our own food but the majority would be nice. We have a sewing machine – is that allowed?!

Why? Well for a number of reasons -

The kids – we feel the kids are at the right age to make the move i.e. before they get totally involved in clubs, activities and friends in Chamonix. To leave it any longer or to procrastinate would probably have meant we never moved on (we have met people in Chamonix who want to relocate for various reasons but feel they can't because their kids are now totally attached to their lives here).

The idea of growing up on a working small holding seems so idyllic for kids that it is an opportunity we couldn't pass up.  Friends who grew up on farms often talk about the wonderful experience it was (not all admittedly, but most!) 

Perhaps most importantly, we have realised over the past few years that Al's relationship with the kids has become much stronger since he stopped working for his previous employer. He was suddenly at home virtually every time the kids came home from school.  They are already 3 and 4 years old and we have witnessed how time flies and don’t want to miss out on any more of their early childhood. We simply do not wish to miss this precious time with our beloved sprogs!

Health – organic produce – we don’t want to support polluting the countryside with chemicals, powerful supermarkets, poorly-treated livestock, the huge distances our food is transported (often decreasing proportionally in quality & taste the further it travels). It seems like a win win situation to produce it on our doorstep on our land in our own way.  We will never be able to produce all our own food but we hope to exchange our surpluses with neighbours and buy whatever we cannot produce from local producers or organic shops. We are not naïve – this is going to be a big challenge!

Finance - most people who know us would hopefully agree that our lives have never been ruled by materialistic goals in the never ending search for "happiness". If we had been, it is doubtful we would have settled in Chamonix (a low- wage resort town albeit very beautiful) and we settled here (admittedly more through luck than judgment) as we originally sought quality of life over high-flying careers. We do have a weakness for those vide greniers but hope that doesn’t count against us!

Having said all that, we feel incredibly lucky that we invested in property when we did and as a result we have been able to profit from rising property values to create ourselves a reasonable worth from a few projects over the last 13 years. Equally over the last few years we have felt more and more pressurised by large mortgages and the high cost of living in our locality to the extent that we might as well have been living a high pressure life in London.  Part of the reason for making the move towards self sufficiency is to clear our debts and live mortgage free (well almost).

Chamonix is cold! Life in a ski resort like Chamonix is quite tough - what with snow clearing, minus 10 to minus 20 degrees for long periods and very short summers, we are ready to move to a warmer climate and a longer growing season.

Finally, having built new houses in the past, we have always wanted to renovate an old house. The idea of a water mill renovation is just too tempting to ignore!