Now for the proper update.

I decided that I was sick of Corporate life, the travel, the international conference calls at all times of the day involving multiple continents...... My wife and I had separated and both the kids had left home.

So I started to put in place my early retirement pension plan :-) This involved going to look at various properties near one of my favourite places in the World - The Nurburgring in the Eifel in Germany. :-)

I looked at quite a few places with the help of a couple of friends who already lived there - Roy and Kim Hastings (DoogzanFlo Hastings). Some were just too much of a project and therefore requiring too many repairs or remedial work before you could even move in. :-(

The estate agent - Tobias Waltermann (excellent chap who speaks very good english) came up with a property in Boos. It was a four bedroom detached house in the center of the village opposite the large church (the bells the bells - more later) It had a large double garage with a courtyard in front and as you can see gates.

It was structurally sound, the roofs are good and in good repair, the windows are all double glazed and it has a typical German coloured glass porch.

Inside on the ground floor off the entrance hall you had a large lounge on the left and a basic kitchen on the right. From the kitchen you can see the doorway into the rear hallway which takes you through to the large utility room and then through to the garage complex.

A typical traditional German kitchen with the L-shaped breakfast seating.












The kitchen came with a cooker and a wood burning Kamine. The units were all good but very dark and there was no hot water? You can also cook on the top of the Kamine.















The rear hallway to the Utility room. The doorway is low and the steps are high! Given my ability to bang my head constantly on familiar things this will need to be added to the list of things to do.



















The utility room - it really is large!











It came with some racking and a pedestal for the washing machine and freezer. The window looks out onto the courtyard.




This is the doorway through to the garages.























Chopping block for kindling "creation" a new skill I was going to have to learn :-) Bought a new axe in preparation.

This is one of the oil tanks - the house came with 3,000+ litres of oil. Another item for the todo list. Beside the tank is a large supply of brickets for the kamine in the hallway.

the mezzanine area above the 2nd garage

the supply of wood that came with the house also

The 2nd garage came with a pit and a toilet! 3 phase electricity  - some lighting - water and a very high roof.

Back in the house - there is a doorway in the hall which leads down to the two room cellar which has an original bread oven installed. In the other room there was also three lots of storage racking. Both cellars are dry and in good condition with windows for ventilation. I will add pictures later.





To the left is the lounge which has a huge front window and a small rear window - in the picture you can see the old oil fired kamine, which I am not allowed to use.

There is a fantastic hand built stairway to the first floor. Also there is a feature window made with shaped bricks of glass.

Every stair is unique in shape and dimensions a masterpiece of carpentry.

This is the first floor and you can just see the doorway to the 2nd floor. It is another masterpiece of carpentry - it is cut and configured into the shape of the stairs and the lock on the doors dates back to 1928 or earlier.

Here you see the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. The 3rd bedroom is going to be my study with my desk and filing, There will be a fold up bed if I have a lot of people staying with me.

To the left in this picture we have the bathroom.

The tiles take a bit of getting used to - a bright turquoise sea green.

Finally got through all the Google security to open this up to update it - difficult when the recovery information required is a phone and email address you no longer have!