Bonjour A round up of our French life over the last week or so of August, which has included the sedum coming in to flower which is heaven for the bees and butterflies. After a week of temperatures in the early 40°Cs when no matter how efficient we were with the shutter and window routine the house heated up, things have changed completely. Last week the pool water reached 30°C and a late afternoon refreshing swim was a little akin to a tepid bath! A very first world problem as I appreciate that we are enormously lucky to have such a facility in the garden. Plants withered and the risk…

Bonjour! Wow it is hot at the moment, heading for 42°C today and tomorrow. I think we would all like to spend the day submerged in the pool, although it is only shady from mid-afternoon. I have been making jams and chutneys in the kitchen – not the ideal time but essential to preserve the huge amount of fruit our trees are offering. We will appreciate the compôtes of plums and pears in the winter, especially knowing the fruit came from our garden. On Sunday morning we had ‘Operation Pool Frog’ as we have a guest in the pool. You would think it would damage the delightful little creature but…

Hello to you all from the Tarn I hope you having a good summer wherever you are? A busy fortnight for us, hence the delay in posting. My Mother has had a friend staying, so there were lots of outings, as well as a trip to Plum Village, near Bordeaux, to drop my son off for a retreat and then collect him and take him to his next location, stopping off for supper with some friends on the way back. We did manage to finish a few jobs before the arrival of my Mother’s friend, including some gilding (see the post: Pétanque and Pastries) and the splashback for the cooker.…

Hello Everyone How was your week? We have had a really lovely week. As I mentioned last week, we were off to the village meal last Saturday. An annual event when the village comes together for drinks and a meal and this time some theatre, all outdoors, although the tables are under the cover of a very spacious open-sided barn space. Everyone brings along a starter or a pudding and the Mairie provides drinks and the local chasse (hunt) provides the main course. This year quite a lot of people came along, we stopped on the way to have a quick aperitif with some friends who were also going. The…

Bonjour to you all I hope you are all well? Living in the countryside has many advantages, the peace (most of the time), the space and being surrounded by nature. I have posted many a photo of the skies and views. We are also lucky to see a lot of wildlife and have had a few wonderful wild visitors over the last week, including a deer and a sweet young hare, I think. I took the hare by surprise when out watering the garden early one morning, ahead of a very hot day. It took refuge, rather scared, behind one of the plant pots on the terrace which gave me…

Bonjour to you all from a very sunny and hot South West of France. Today is a French national holiday, known in France as la Fête nationale or le 14 juillet.  It is often referred to as Bastille Day by English speaking countries but not really here in France. What does this mean? I am sure you all know but in brief, it commemorates the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14th 1789, which preceded the French Revolution. Many events led to this uprising, including food shortages and raised taxes following wars, all while watching King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette continue their extravagant lifestyles. The Bastille…

Bonjour everyone I hope you have had a good week or rather fortnight as I missed posting last week? We have had the usual array of the unexpected, some good, some not so good. We have also had a houseful of family staying which has been lovely, and also the reason for the lack of post. I hope you enjoyed the renovation update though? There is much more to come in that area very soon. In the last update, I mentioned that the plumber was coming to connect our gas supply to the cooker. Well he came, it is done and we are legal now! It is wonderful having the…

Hello again I hope you are enjoying the blog? It is great to be writing it a little more regularly again. I would love to hear your views and find out what you would like to hear more about. Our week has been filled with thunderstorms, sunshine, renovation work (more on that shortly) and of course regular work. We have to pay the bills after all! There are times when I would love to stop work for a while and focus on making better progress with the house, write more for the blog and get on with my upholstery course (there are a lot of upholstery projects dotted around the…

Bonjour to you all I hope you have had a good week. A brief update on daily life today as there are 2 posts this weekend. Please have a look at The Shutter post, part of the new All Things French section. But before I continue, firstly please excuse the Coffee and Chocolatines website for the moment – as they say in retail: ‘Please pardon our appearance while the windows are being dressed’. I am updating the website, learning all sorts of things as I go along having switched to what I hope will be a cleaner and more appealing style – eventually. At the moment it is a bit…

Bonjour/Hello It has been ages; I have missed writing of our tales (or is that sometimes trials?) from the Tarn. So much has happened, perhaps too much, so this blog took a very back seat for a while, as I tried to navigate my way through a mountain of things. As far as the blog is concerned, after months of disarray – perhaps exhaustion really – it is back. There is so much news to share with you all. Bits of renovation have been done, rooms have changed and some of the enormous pile of projects have been attended too. We finally have a new working cooker. We have even…