Hello Everyone Happy New Year again. I hope you all had an enjoyable start to the year? We had a very quiet evening: supper, a movie and then toasted the New Year in with Chateau Bourguet’s ‘Bulles d’Alayrac’ (sparkling wine from our local vineyard), while watching fireworks at Chantilly (the armchair version for us). On Sunday we had our recently widowed neighbour for a belated New Year’s lunch, which I hope she enjoyed although she says the portions I serve are too large! I have decided to take a little time this year to reflect on the last year and work out my resolutions for 2022. Last year was quite…

Hello again Everyone I hope you are all enjoying the last day of 2021. As I, and many others, have said many times, what a year! There is no sign of the pandemic easing its vice-like grip on the world for now. At some point the vaccine needs to be made available to the whole world to try and stop new variants emerging. Perhaps 2022 will see that happen. For now a round-up of what December has had to offer us in our little world tucked away in a beautiful corner of the Tarn in South West France, including a beautiful full moon, known as the Cold Moon. Early December…

Dear Friends I hope you are all well and had a good Christmas? I realise that it is a while since I have posted and the last couple of months have not been my best blog-wise. I hope you will stick with me as I get back on track. When I set out to write this blog about our life in France, I didn’t want it to be an ‘Instagram perfect’ view of life here. I thought my approach would be an honest view of starting life in a new country in a crumbling old place in ‘la France profonde’ (literally deep France, but means provincial France, sometimes loosely translated…

Hello everyone I hope you are all well? It seems like ages since we last met up. Writing once a month about what is going on in our life in the Tarn feels very odd. I have missed regaling you with tales of our misadventures each week. November has been no exception! Time I started writing about some more things that might interest you – promises, promises I know. Where has the year gone? Here we are in December, the last month of 2021. Like everyone, what a year and now a new Covid variant to worry about. In France face masks have remained in place for many places and…

Bonjour to you all The beginning of November here in the Tarn has seen a dramatic end to the balmy warm days we have experienced through October. The sunny days with the thermometer hovering above 20°C have been replaced with an almost 10° drop overnight and regular downpours of rain. We can’t complain having had several lovely warm weeks, with enough sunshine to ripen the second batch of figs, but weirdly and perhaps worryingly it also encouraged my strawberries to flower for a third time! We have frost threatened towards the end of the week so I hope the plants will be OK. I have managed to plant quite a…

Joyeux Anniversaire/Happy Birthday! Coffee and Chocolatines is one year old today! I can’t quite believe it is a year since I dipped a tentative toe in the blog water! Thank you so much to everyone who has followed our journey over the last 12 months and even more so to those who have promoted it, commented on posts and interacted with Coffee and Chocolatines on social media. It makes it all worthwhile for me knowing that someone out there is reading this. I have really enjoyed sharing our escapades with you, although as you will know I have gone a bit off schedule over the last couple of months for…

Hello Everyone Well I am back in la belle France, greeted by gorgeous sunny days, quite warm (18-20C) but goodness the nights are cold, between 2°C and 5°C at the moment. Why so cold so early on? The journey back was long, the weather kind and I did have a welcome break and delicious supper at a friend’s house near Tours, completing the drive across two days. Max had ordered a couple of CDs which were delivered to my Mother’s so there was lots of singing en route! It is lovely to be home, back in the countryside (I never thought I would be such a fan of the peace…

As I sit on the ferry watching the south coast of England gradually disappear through a rather grimy window, I can’t quite believe that my trip is over already. While I was there, someone asked me if I still felt at home in the UK and I have to say home for me now is France. What a week it has been, seemingly non-stop with a trip to see my son in Manchester, time with my mother and a very brief hour with a couple of friends. I spent a lot of my time working, as the charity I work with had two grant applications to submit during my stay.…

Hello everyone Very late this week – sorry this is becoming bad habit! I have been travelling – more on that shortly. The last week has sped by in a complete rush as I decided to return to the UK to see family. My eldest son was due to return to university in the UK but has postponed his return until November. Early one misty morning, in spite of some trepidation (I have got used to low Covid numbers in France, living in the countryside and am possibly becoming some kind of recluse) in a moment of decisiveness I booked my ferry crossing! I requested a list from my younger…

Hello everyone Another fun filled week here at le petit château, as usual not quite doing what we had set out to do as yet another unexpected occurrence pushed our agenda aside! You have to laugh as this seems to happen virtually every week.  Still worse things happen at sea as they say, which was actually what a couple of our rooms almost turned into, but more on that shortly. A highlight this week was a fabulous meal, a wedding present that we hadn’t been able to enjoy due to lockdowns. As time was running out for the gift voucher we decided to book. On Tuesday evening we had the…