March 2022: How did we end up in the small town of Mazières-en-Mauges located on the outskirts of Cholet for a month? Even native French friends have asked us this very question. We needed a rental as close as possible to where we’d planned to look for a long-term house (hello, Nantes) that not only allowed dogs, but had a garden for them as well. We also needed room for our six suitcases and 10+ boxes that would be arriving within a week of our arrival in France. Shelly combed Airbnb for months before she found the flat. We have a tendency to set the bar low with Airbnbs. Will it be clean? Is it quiet enough and can we get a decent sleep there? Is it located close enough to what we need? Will the dogs be comfortable there? Can we cook there? Does it have a washer?**
**Yes, yes, it did have a washer, but without proper instructions, the washer didn’t drain water from our clothes. It wasn’t a combo dryer either, so hanging the clothes to dry throughout the flat took way too long. Hence the big bill for the weekly trip to the laundromat. Living with two dogs and weather means a lot of towels.
So, the place just barely hit the bar. But it sufficed and we managed. The best part about the unknowns of living somewhere temporary is getting to explore. Walks with our dogs were always new. We got rain, hail, snow, and beautiful sunny skies over the course of a few weeks. We learned that just because you live steps away from a bakery, it’s not necessarily a good bakery.
Highlights: a garden for the dogs, cows in a pasture, chickens, rabbits, hamsters, goats, and sheep we could visit on our twice daily walks. A surprisingly good lunch at Le Bord du Lac. A cool abandoned La Château La Durbelière.
Lowlights: the house itself. Dirty, broken furniture. Two floors with two bedrooms on the second floor. The very glossy painted steep stairs and two dogs who were too scared to use them. So was Shelly, but that’s another story.
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