Our journey began in 2003 when we decided that we wanted to move to France to make a new life on our own small holding. After 3 years of searching for the right property at the right price we found our house and land in Voulons, and just fell in love.
We haven’t really made our lives easy by choosing such a major restoration project, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
We purchased and signed the final paperwork in Sept 2006 and began works clearing the site immediately, little did we know it was going to take 6 months to get a builder started on the work required. During which time the house deteriorated quite badly, (rear wall fell down completely and roof caved in). We eventually managed to get a builder to start in April 2007, which were scheduled to be finished by end of July latest, so that we could start all the interior work. This unfortunately was not the case, we hit problems with the builder and by the end of September we still didn’t have a finished job and the builder client relationship had broken down completely and he just disappeared leaving many things undone.
We have overcome these issues now (at huge expense and inconvenience) but it’s been a long hard slog.
Now we had time to concentrate on the main objective of moving to France, The small holding, Chambres d’hotes and Falconry experience, hunting holidays were also a plan at the beginning but we have had to rethink due to the huge amount of red tape and regulations, but it is still something we hope to do in the long term.
Firstly came the Chambres D’hotes and the small holding, investing in some pigs, lambs and poultry, We registered the business in October 2008 and quickly realised that we should have waited until the following spring really, as by the end of 2008 we were looking at cotisation bills for more money than we had actually earned mainly due to the time of year and the global economic situation.
Also not really a good time to get pregnant but when is there ever going to be a good time (and I did say that we don’t like to do things the easy way).
We started the falconry in February 2009 with our Harris hawk JADE and a fantastic write up about our falconry experience here at L’Ancien Presbytere. After a few months, some good responses from the article in etcetera and bookings throughout the year for falconry, disaster struck on May 20th 2009, JADE was electrocuted by an un-insulated power line and died instantly.
We were devastated, especially Tony as she had been his baby he had raised her from 16 weeks old and the bond was very strong. It totally knocked us sideways and we really had to think seriously if replacing JADE was a good idea, but after all Tony’s passion for falconry won through.
Tony had become inspired by falconry when he was just a 10 years old on a trip to Windsor safari park, after watching a falconry display. He was amazed that such a wild and majestic bird could be trained to come back and work in harmony with humans.
Since that day he pestered is parents to let him have a bird of prey, which they flatly refused to do, which went on until Tony left home and got a place of his own.
He volunteered for a local falconry centre and finally got his own Harris Hawk. After a while of being a volunteer Tony became very confident that this was the way he would like to progress with his career and bought into the falconry centre becoming a partner.
Working as a service centre manager during the week and at the falconry centre doing displays on site and at country fairs and agricultural show at the weekend and during his holidays, it soon became very apparent that if we wanted to see anything of each other something was going to have to change. So we moved in together and this allowed Tony to leave his fairly well paid job at the service centre and work full time in falconry (very poorly paid). The falconry centre seemingly went from strength to strength with more and more outside activities being booked and a new injection of labour and renewed enthusiasm.
They managed to pick up some TV work with the Midsommer Murders team and a book launch for Harry Potter at Canary wharf, along with other bits and pieces of film work for the birds, but it was just not enough financially to keep the centre afloat.
Looking back over the years and browsing through the photos of these days reminded him of how much he loves falconry and what fun the challenge of new birds would be. So in June 2009 Tony returned to England to pick up COSMO a male Harris hawk who was only 5 weeks old at this point and 2 european eagle owls- SAPPHIRE and SCOOBY again only babies at 8 weeks old.
We have been working with the new members of the family since day one, manning them so that they become soft and friendly and are now at the stage where they are able to be flown and worked with the public.
And why not book one of our Falconry experiences for an original gift idea or just a really nice interesting day out.
Editor’s Notes: We were recently invited to spend a morning with Tony & Lisa to share the falconry experience. We started with an introduction to Tony's love of falconry and an indication as to what we could expect from the session, then, it was on to meet Cosmo. After some demonstrations from Tony & Lisa, it was our turn to have a go. It was something none of us had ever done before, but was a fantastic experience for all of us. To be that close to Cosmo was amazing, especially for the children when he landed on their arms and proceeded to stare at them! It was hard to be sure if he was weighing them up as breakfast or not! Following Cosmo, we moved onto Scooby. Despite his increased size both Rhys & Kiera were able to fly him, although the additional size & weight was obvious. He, like Cosmo was fantastic and flew to all of us without trouble (as long as we had food....). It was the same story with the bigger still Sapphire, though Rhys & Kiera's faces were a picture with a bird of that size on their trembling arms. During each exercise Tony talked us through some interesting facts about each bird which added to the whole experience. The session finished with an exercise to demonstrate just how quiet an owl really is! It is undoubtedly an experience we would recommend to anyone, Tony & Lisa have created a welcoming environment and a fascinating visit.
Thank you both!