The Return Of The Honoured Guest

The bride et moi are very much looking forward with great anticipation to the return of our ‘honoured guest’ (see 17th May 2012 blog post, our most viewed) and his beautiful and talented wife in a couple of weeks time for a few days of frivolity. I’m therefore working particularly hard to get the place looking as good as it can. Having just completed the barn roof a week ahead of schedule, we’re due to start the external rendering to the gites next week and I pray that all goes well and the scaffolding will be down by the time Alistair and June arrive! I’m also looking forward to finally being able to take some really attractive photographs for the website, as the courtyard will then be looking at its best since we started this adventure.

The weather continues to head from spring to summer with some splendid hot days over the last two weeks, often in the early 30s and it's only just May! My favourite sister and brother in law were here for the start of the good weather and Maggie gave me the shortest hair I’ve sported for over two years and Roger did so many electrical jobs, I lost count! I’m liking the new hair style mind you and it’s much cooler in this heat!

The front garden, bordering the street has now being planted with a mixture of carefully selected plants, including Paleine grass, from which we think our street name may well be derived. The bride carried out research on the street name and found out about the grass which turned out to be sufficiently interesting to the village historical society, that she was directly quoted regarding her discovery, in the president’s blog.

Molina Caerulea Moorhexe

We are now, unsurprisingly, on good terms with several local wine domains and have discovered that we can sell direct to our clients and have been offered supplies from one of our favourites (they all are really). We also want to provide accompanied vineyard and dégustation visits for those guests who speak little French, or may be daunted by the prospect of turning up at a vineyard expecting to be entertained . . . something we enjoy doing on a regular basis! I also intend to make good use of our Traction (as soon as it's French registered) in this capacity, to add a little nostalgic flavour to a vineyard visit.

All aboard for the wine tour, beep, beep !

Staying on the wine front, we are fortunate to be able to have a rare private dégustation, organised by some close friends, at the nearby Chateau de Passavant, where owner and wine maker Francois, who speaks perfect English, will be able to talk at length about organic wine, the terroir and also the local history behind ‘Fulk Nerra’, the Black Falcon. It sounds both intriguing and interesting and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to meet Francois for a long time now. We may have to buy a few bottles, such a hardship!

May has seen a rise in the number of gîte enquiries and we've just taken a booking for early June, so I now have even more incentive to make our little slice of village life and tranquillity truly memorable for our visitors.

Tonight's dinner

More soon, including the newly rendered gites and lush grass in the orchard and gardens and the move into the depths of the barn  . . . watch this space . . .

A bientôt,

LC

Another Year Older

Timeline: April 2013. April is always a happy time, as the bride and moi celebrate another fabulous year together and this year, we're 36 years old. Not bad considering we married in our early 20s, teehe.

After a happy week in the UK, I returned to prepare for my sister and brother in law and the bride's return, just a few days later, the car loaded with yet more gite paraphernalia and curry sauces. Roger and I also had birthdays during the week, so we set about working during the day and socialising after the sun started to dip. The sun however was working overtime and daily temperature soared into the 30s, a fact recorded photographically on sis's Facebook page.

The barn roof was completed this week and we had a BBQ to mark the occasion with nine of us around the big outdoor table and six smaller people playing hide and seek around the grounds, but they were all found when the ice cream was brought out.

Roger fitted two new outside lights for the occasion and I got a new lawn mower in the pre-summer sales in readiness for our swiftly approaching new lawns. I'm under strict instructions from our head gardener, not to use it without her express permission and in the meantime, I'm figuring out how to make it go faster.

Emma and Andre, two new stable mates at La Clos de la Rose

We also took a drive up to Normandy one day to collect our old Citroen, following a thorough going over by a friend of ours, who is also a specialist on these cars. It was good not to be the oldest of our group any more, as Andre Citroen has a few years on me. The three hour return trip was a joy, as I hadn't driven the Traction since July 2011 and had almost forgotten how delightful this 63 year slice of history was to live with. It was the bride who insisted we buy it 15 years ago when she first saw it one cold December afternoon near Oxford, despite the owner not being able to start the engine, not even on the second visit, but he was an excellent purchase and has brought us more new friends and happy times in France than we could have ever imagined all those years ago.

One of many excellent front doors in La Rochelle

At the end of the week we took ourselves off to the coast and to visit beautiful La Rochelle, a first for me and the bride, but an old haunt of Roger's who knew his way around and we soon parked up and were walking through fine architectural streetscapes down to the old port and the many fish restaurants. After lunch, I concerned myself with the naval heritage and marvelled at the state of preservation of the port and defences to keep out  mainly the English. We will return!

The old port

That's all for now, but I'll be posting an update very soon, so don't be a stranger.

A bientôt,

LC