Bonjour everyone How are you?   The garden is beginning to look quite autumnal, leaves are falling and the mornings are cooler. The sedum is in full flower now, adding beautiful pink swathes to the garden. It brings such a great splash of colour in the autumn and is a great source of food for bees, butterflies and countless insects as other flowers fade. The weather here has been quite lovely so we have had the chance to have a swim or two. The plan is to keep the pool open through October – we’ll see how that works if it gets too cold. Cold water swimming is supposed to…

This week to coincide with our first wedding anniversary, I thought I would recount a love story between Max and I and a run-down old house in the French countryside. Like all good love affairs there are highs and lows, good times and challenging times, times when you feel like this will not work out, other times when you know it will. This house, or rather the village’s petit château, is testing us but also allowing us to tend to her. I am sure I have told you that we put this house on our viewing list for fun really, a wild card, a quirky different addition to a list…

Hello Everyone We are all finally out of quarantine post-Covid, Max is regaining some of his ability to taste but not his sense of smell, apart from petrol when he is strimming! I thought the spicy courgette chutney might be something he could taste so we opened a jar before it had matured. Strong flavours work for him at the moment, although he draws the line at Roquefort as he is not a blue cheese fan. Evenings are chillier and the mornings have an autumnal feel, there is mist rising over the lake at sunrise and each night brings quite a heavy dew. Often the day warms up beautifully, enough…

Hello again Slight chaos on the posting of updates of our life here in SW France – I will get back on track soon. Life in isolation continues, no market visit this week, no dog walks anywhere but locally early in the morning or late in the evening. The PCR results came back confirming what we already knew – Max is contaminated! Our separate lives continue but as I said in the last post, we can’t complain (even if I do – often). We are so fortunate to be doing this in a spacious house with enough facilities (as in bathrooms) for us all and a big garden. As I…

Hello Everyone I hope you have all had a good week and weekend? The sun is finally shining here and the forecast is for warm weather this week – actually up to 36°C, so maybe quite warm!! I apologise for such a late post and a short one this week. We have had quite an eventful week, some of it lovely, the latter part quite unexpected. We started the week on work and the house – nothing out of the ordinary, so all good. We made one of our occasional (since the pandemic) trips to the supermarket for a big shop (encountering traffic problems on the way!), otherwise a regular…

Hello Everyone Another week has flown by, for me in a flurry of work and household chores. Another week lacking in time! Maybe I need to be better organised. Anyway onwards… It’s August and slowly France is going ‘en vacances’. This blog appears to be on a bit of a go-slow at the moment too. I will catch up! I wouldn’t mind a bit of time off myself really, but staying put is the only option at the moment. In true staycation style we may take a few days off work and renovation/gardening jobs at some point in August and if the weather sorts itself out, head for the pool!…

Hello from a very hot SW France Temperatures this week have been in the 30s, reaching 38°C on Friday – very warm! It is at times like this that an old cold stone house comes into its own! All that moaning during winter about how chilly it was. Now we can walk in from outside and realise why we froze in the winter – so we could be suitably cool in summer. This is also helped by the ritual of opening windows and shutters first thing to let some early morning air in, then closing everything (shutters and windows/doors) from mid-morning to evening. This may sound odd, but it stops…

Bonjour! I have made it to 40 weeks of blog posts, with a few delays here and there. I am really pleased. Not too long until I have been at this for a year! Are you enjoying the ups and downs of our life here in France? The renovation part is moving very slowly. We seem to do so much just to stand still. The house keeps on giving us more things to fix rather than finish! It can be quite frustrating at times as I can see how the house will look eventually and want it all done NOW! I am a total renovation novice with little patience. In…

Doors, doors everywhere with even some to spare! Hello Everyone Another week has flown by, the strange weather continues with thunder, rain, cool days and warmer days. Nothing like last summer. Some great skies though with stunning clouds: Did you enjoy the vegan cherry clafoutis recipe (see post: Seasonal Food and Recipes: July)? Do try the chocolate version – it is delicious! The front hall continues, not finished yet but I do now have the paint I need for the hinges. I think I am a would-be architect, as I may have mentioned before. I am fascinated by buildings and love different styles of houses and décor. When we were…

Hello to you all, In a week where the getting the car fixed saga continued (see post: The best laid plans) and we had our second Covid vaccinations, exciting news our vine has grapes! Obviously this is what you would expect, but last year we had none, and given the late frost this year I was expecting the same. Imagine my excitement when I saw all these lovely bunches of grapes growing. It’s the little things as I frequently say! We also paid a visit to St Antonin Noble Val market and had another coffee out! It is lovely to sit outside a café again watching the world go by,…