The backstory - more changes?

In 2011 we discovered that the Canadian authorities were issuing letters to people in our queue telling them that it was going to be 2 years minimum (given other communications you could read this as NEVER as it meant 2 years until they considered what to do about this bit of their backlog again).
We were both struggling a bit to enjoy (or bear) working in the city so we decided we were going to have to change the dream to somewhere else.
We gave the matter some thought and considered Austria, Italy, Spain and France. For all language was going to be an issue with French perhaps being a little easier as we had both done it at school (yes I know we should have learnt having had a place in Chamonix for 8 years... but we hadn't)

We looked some places in the Alps - mainly we didn't get further than the particulars as they just didn't have enough land for self sufficiency and horses (about 5 acres or 2.5 hectares) for example a place in Ivoray nearish to Samoens ski area. We really like the house and the location but it only had one hectare on a steep slope and the biggest issue was it was about twice what we could 'afford' (in quotes as that is all a bit relative and many people with sense might argue we couldn't afford to buy anywhere in France and leave IT)

We then started considering the Pyrénées as it is much cheaper than the Alps and still has skiing and the mountain environment we wanted. The skiing there is less good than the Alps but there had to be some compromise given that it didn't look like we were going to win the lottery any time soon...