Last year was meant to be the year that Annabel Langbein set up a home in France with all that entails: centuries of history, access to wonderful markets full of nutritious and inspiring food, and a chance to indulge in her passion for taking long walks through interesting countryside.
Speaking to the Weekly as she headed off for her four-month trip, her plan to buy a home in France was very much a post-Covid one.
With both her children, Sean, 31, and Rose, 29, living in the UK and Portugal, Annabel and husband Ted Hewetson could spend more time on the same continent.
But one year on, there is no home in France and Annabel is happy to admit it was a nightmare four months.
“I could probably write a short story about the whole thing,” she says. “It was just like every single thing that could go wrong went wrong.”
Although she can laugh about it now, enduring eight weeks of 42°C heat meant she was often unable to do anything – and then there was the home they were supposed to be buying.
“Ted and I had slightly different views on the kind of house we wanted,” she laughs. “Ted fell in love with this property which was described to us as an imposing fort with seven cannons. It was in the middle of nowhere, so that was quite stressful.”
While Annabel didn’t want to break Ted’s dream, she could see some very practical reasons for not owning a fifth-century fort with nine bedrooms, each measuring 60 square metres.
“I knew enough French to ask the cleaning lady how long it took her to clean the fort, and she said 18 to 20 hours a week and 80 to 100 hours every six weeks!” says Annabel. “I could just see myself locked in the back of nowhere in rural France with all my friends wanting to come and stay, and if I didn’t have a cleaning lady, I was going to have to dust and mop. It would have been a folly.
“As much as I love having people to stay, it can easily end up becoming a noose around your neck with endless visitors and changing sheets. It’s exhausting. So, we’re having a rethink of the whole idea of a really big house.”
The couple ended up looking at around 80 houses, but couldn’t decide which one they both liked.
“We have agreed we both have to really like a house and you can’t have one person pressuring the other. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it.”
Annabel says the process of house hunting, enduring very hot weather and trying to have a holiday was actually quite good for their relationship.
“Our marriage is a lot stronger having gone through that,” she confides. “But at the time, it was pretty hellish.”
Winter’s a welcome relief for Annabel after France’s heatwave.
Which is just as well because Annabel and Ted have once again left for France to find a house.
“The mistake we made is, in the beginning, Ted was looking at these places that were just literally ruinous ruins and he got so excited by them because they were cheap compared to New Zealand prices. But I knew I would just end up feeling desolate in them and there is so much work to do on a ruin.
“I like the idea of somewhere where you know it has been cared for and somebody’s loved living there, and there’s a sense of all those nice memories there rather than being hard and imposing.”
Annabel is also hoping to find an area where she can live a chemical-free life, where the local market has organic food and vegetables, and the growers are people you can trust.
“I really want to be away from industrialised food processing and nearer something more biological,” she tells. “Somewhere I can go to the market and buy the most amazing produce, and then there’s somewhere nice to have a coffee afterwards. That’s not much to ask, is it?”
The couple also learned other good lessons on their trip last year, including how to buy a car in the UK.
“We thought it would be good to get a left-hand drive car in the UK and then we could drive it to France,” Annabel explains.
“We were going to these places with snarling dogs and high barbed-wire fences. The last one we went to, we’re walking down the road and there are bits of cars – like fenders and door panels – hanging over bushes. Ted said, ‘This is a chop shop,’ which means stolen cars.
“A woman arrived in a V8 and she looked just like Lady Gaga when she was playing Mrs Gucci in the movie House of Gucci. She rolled down the window and said, ‘Oh, darling, I think you might be looking for this car.’ She gets out. She’s about 22 and she’s dressed in a white dress, white coat, white boots, with white fingernails and these huge black sunglasses.”
Annabel then started worrying her brothers were in the bushes and were going to jump them. The car had different coloured panels, the tyres were tattered and it had obviously seen better days.
“Ted was wearing his nice Burberry jacket, and he gingerly lifted the bonnet to check the oil and it’s just like tar!”
They did eventually buy a nice car, which they left there.
“We rented a garage and it has a coffee machine in it, a rug and a Thermos – everything we’ll need for our next trip.”
Annabel’s on the hunt for a home that “somebody’s loved living there and there’s a sense of all those nice memories”.
While Annabel is on her second house-hunting mission, there is one thing she is sad to leave behind. This year, she has been studying an Arts Diploma in Ceramics in Dunedin.
“I go two or three nights every week and I love it. I get there and head straight to the pottery studio, and I don’t come out for a few days!”
Annabel’s mother was a potter and painter, and while Annabel says she can’t paint to save herself, she can work with clay, so there’s a wonderful generational tie there.
“I’m learning all about clay and how it works, and I can feel my brain just expanding, which is so stimulating.”
The experience has changed the way she looks at things.
“I’m much more aware of the beauty people have created, whether it’s in architecture, art or fashion. Suddenly I’m looking at things differently, which is nice.”
She’s also studying part-time over two years and loves it so much, she’s almost a bit resentful she has to leave it to travel to France! But in Europe, she’ll see her children again. Sean is a doctor who worked through Covid in London, but is now working as a business consultant in London.
“He has done a big pivot and has cleverly managed to get a job with McKinsey, which is a top business consulting company,”
she shares.
Meanwhile, Annabel and daughter Rose, who have already collaborated on successful cookbook Summer at Home, are working together on a Substack newsletter, which is attracting many subscribers.
“Rose has been planning this for quite a while because it’s a big commitment. It’s curated content, so every Sunday we give our subscribers a What to Cook Tonight newsletter, which has three recipes and then people who don’t subscribe get a monthly newsletter.”
When Rose was staying with her mum during Covid, they created new content and hundreds of recipes, as well as drawing on a massive library of Annabel’s work, so there’s a lot they have on hand.
“I absolutely love working with Rose,” she enthuses. “It’s bloody fantastic we can do this together.”
And no catch-up with Annabel would be complete without checking in on how her bestselling gin is going.
Last year, Annabel created her own Bella gin label and after much concocting, released it onto the market.
Annabel’s sideline gin business is going down a treat. “It’s got so much plum in it, it must be medicinal!” she enthuses.
“It’s a wild plum gin elixir and it has about 18 aromatics in it, and if I told you them, I’d have to kill you,” she jokes.
“I keep hearing from people who have tried the gin and they are raving about it, so that’s been nice to hear. And to be honest, it’s got so much plum in it, it must be medicinal!”
As Annabel looks back on her year of house hunting and car buying in Europe, going to university to learn ceramics, creating a gin and launching a successful Substack newsletter, she admits to learning how to be more curious and open to new ideas.
“Whether or not it’s because of having Rose around, or whether it’s because of going to art school, or whatever reason, I just feel re-energised,” she reflects. “Even my cooking is better!”
