Not a year in Provence but a real life in the real France

Three years ago, Dubliner Sharon Winston gave up her life in Ireland and moved to a small village in the hills near Carcassonne, writes FRANCES O'ROURKE

DUBLINER SHARON WINSTON’S move to France began a few years ago with a Thelma and Louise-style road trip. She’d just bought a sporty convertible and suggested a driving holiday in France to a friend.

The two fortysomething women had a fantastic time. But Sharon couldn’t get France out of her head. “I just got a bee in my bonnet, I wanted to go back.”

But where to? “The place I liked best was around Carcassonne. It’s the real France, Provence without the prices, where life goes slower, revolves around family, where there’s time for two-hour lunches.”

And that’s why this sunny March afternoon – 19 degrees in her village – Sharon is telling me how she changed her life, without really intending to. In May, she’ll be celebrating three years of living in France.

She decided to retire early from her job in Dublin and went looking at properties around Carcassonne. What she found was a four-bedroom, three-storey maison de mâitre, built around 1808, in the old part of a village called Montlaur.

She redecorated the house and subsidised her new life by renting it out from June to September; in the peak weeks of July and August, weekly rent is €2,200.

Sharon plans to rent it out this summer too, although she has decided to put her house up for sale for health reasons. She plans to downsize to a more manageable house in the village.e

The 216sq m (2,325sq ft) house has 11 rooms. All four bedrooms are en suite and the house comes with a swimming pool and patio garden. Selling agent Elegance France (a sister company to the rental agency she lets thourhg, Pure France), is looking for €475,000 for the property.

She has no plans to leave France however – she and her little dog Ted (a Dublin rescue Shih Tzu) have settled comfortably, and it sounds like permanently, into village life.

She paints a vivid picture of life in Montlaur, a village of 600 people not much more than a half-hour drive from Carcassonne airport. “After you leave the motorway, there are only two routes to it, over the mountains – and when you get there, the valley opens out before you.

“I was fortunate in that this region isn’t packed with foreigners; it’s a wine-producing area, populated by French working people.” Sharon’s French – “it came from a year in the Sorbonne 30 years ago” – was rusty but the locals are friendly to foreigners, and she didn’t find it hard to get involved in village life.

“From May to October there’s always something going on in the village; even in winter, I’m never short of things to do.”

Are there any drawbacks to living out the Year in Provence-style fantasy that many of us have but don’t act on.

“Well, as a city person, I found it hard to get used to the birds – the swallows fight like the clappers in the evening.”

But regrets? No. Friends can visit easily (there are direct flights to Carcassonne). There’s lot to do, new friends.

“When I’m standing in the pool, I say to myself – did I ever think I’d end up here?” she says, contentedly.

Sharon’s house, Maison Charvin, is available for rent this summer through Pure France for €2,200 per week in July and August.

purefrance.com.

The sale of the house is being handled by Elegance France, elegancefrance.com and the selling price is €475,000.