We chat to expats Louise

We chat to expats Louise Elsom and Dave Pegram who are finding success with a pop-up vegetarian and vegan restaurant in their home in Haute-Vienne and find out their top tips for creating a catering business in France

How did you come to be in France? I'm originally from East Yorkshire, England, UK. There seem to be a lot of us "Yorkshire Folk" out here. Either I'm being followed or we all have the same great idea to move to the Limousin region! Back in 2008, I finished University and wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. My family had holidayed in Southern France throughout my childhood and my late dad had always dreamed of retiring here. Sadly he never got to live out that wish, but my Mum and I (after a lot of dithering), decided to go for it and move to France. We moved to Carcassonne and I had six happy years there. I met my Fiancée Dave two years ago and we've just bought our first home in the lovely Haute-Vienne region. My mum has moved to this area too. I bought a lovely, but unloved, two bedroomed house with a barn, a little stable and a bit of land – I just fell in love with it. Dave wasn’t quite so impressed when he saw it but I convinced him of the potential. It had been left abandoned for 15 years but Dave is a builder so we’ve done all the renovation work ourselves. It's in a great area just outside the village of Saint Laurent sur Gorre. It's very peaceful with lots of lovely lakes and great for walking our two dogs. But if we want a bit of city life, Limoges is just 30 minutes away. I can spend hours walking around the cobbled streets, visiting the churches and dragging poor Dave into the many shops. Other highlights in the area include Saint Junien, Rochechouart, Chalus, Segur le Chateau. The list is endless... What it inspired you to create a pop up restaurant? Well I must admit to being a hopeless cook for many years. I had lived through my university years on takeaways and had never bothered cooking. But then I met Dave and found that he was a vegetarian, so I couldn't get away with shoving chicken Kiev and chips in the oven, I had to learn to cook!