BX Club Forum

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/26877426
Hopefully these will come out and show my 1990 TZD Auto that lives in France with the 'project house' that takes all my time and money for the moment.
edit; Still can't get my head around all this electrickery but I think if you click on the link it will show the photos..........worked for me.

Lovely, rare too!

The house looks very tidy Mike, how far from completion? Are you living in tha caravan at the moment? (You have my sympathy if you are!)

Thanks Tim, it's a 1.9D and in good nick with 210,000 kms on the clock. Its not as sluggish as some would have them....perhaps its the way that they're set up. This one is probably the best starting BX I've ever come across ....its almost as if it's started as you turn the key............and that's with a 4 or 5 month break; left in the field.....I do use one of those solar trickle chargers on the dashboard plugged into the cigar lighter.

Mat, the house is still only really a shell......we've put a new roof on the main house and the one storey bit you can see (behind the BX) that's going to be the kitchen. also put DPC and concrete floors (first proper floor for some 300 yrs in parts of the house). Water and electric connected and fosse septique installed. Also new windows to the house and the kitchen.
We've had the place for about 10 years; got a bank loan for 10 grand to buy it but only had the money to start to do it up when I retired from the police about 3 years ago now. Still got an attached barn at the far side (opp to mobile) to be totally renovated and a one storey single storey bit at the back of the house (house is sort of built back to front, as the front of the house faces the land; 2 1/2 acres with a 1/2 acre lake) and the back is to the road (tiny chemin rural).
Last trip, got the land and the lake cleared and dug out as it was like a jungle.
And no, we're not living in the mobile full time (brief sojourns for the moment) but its a great base for doing work from and quite civilised compared to the 10 ft caravan and tent we used to have there. Also got some great neighbours up the road from me who have been very kind when we've arrived to a bit of an emergency on occasions.
As for completion..............well it's all a question of finance really....if I was able to stop working and go full time over there with about £15 grand I reckon it could be liveable in about 2 months. (not this weather though, probably going to give it a break until the spring now.)

Whereabouts in France?

About 30ks south of St Brieuc and about 100 ks west of St Malo. Very rural farming community; mostly cows and merde.

The BXagon will be passing your way...

If you don't watch it we might all descend upon you in the evening of the 28th October looking to pitch up! (Only joking..)

No joking here...if you want to make it a stopover for whatever, be it lunch, overnight or whatever, let me know and I'll make sure that I'm there and provide whatever hospitality I can.
Looking at the map you must be coming up the Pontivy road and then on to Mur De Bretagne (I imagine) and we are literally 10 ks from there along the D 63.........you're more than welcome for a libation and a barbie.

Well, sounds like we could arrange a slight deviation then. Plenty of time to plan... I'll e-mail you in due course...

Great house! I was just thinking after looking at the map there, the route also gets near Rennes and if I'm not mistaken the BX was built at the Citroen plant at Rennes-la-janais.

Wondering if the BXagon cars could do a stop there?

Well I can't stop anyone visiting! Bear in mind the route passes - at its closest point at Dinan - 55kms from Rennes. At that point in the event I estimate most teams still en route to the Dieppe stop will be passing through Dinan at between 9hr30 and 11hr00 on the 29th Oct. This is assuming a stop over at St. Brieuc. A stop over at Mike's will add (with the getting up later factor too lol!) an hour to this maybe. So if a detour was planned I suggest leaving the currently planned route at the N12 to Rennes/N176 to Dinan junction. There's a very good chance of getting to Rennes-la-Janais (although I'm not sure exactly where it is) by, say 11hr30 (a pile of British BXs outside the gate may confuse them as the workers leave for lunch!)... A photo opportunity and taking our lunch locally still means a 485km dash to Dieppe. OK, it's do-able in probably a tad over 5 hours, but means traversing Normandy (of interest to some) a bit later in the day. We'd be crossing the Pont de Normandie in the dark. I think I would prefer to keep the route as planned and let individual teams make the decision which option to take.