One of the many things we love about France is the slightly slower pace of life. However, at the same time our life seems more hectic than ever; it’s a total contradiction I know, but true. We have never been busier, but we also find more time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life! Continue reading “Finding Time for Oneself”
When we think of the word ‘renovation’ we tend to think of houses and buildings, but it can equally be applied to gardens. For those of us in the northern hemisphere it’s late spring and the whole show has moved outdoors. So I thought I would feature a garden renovation which is quite remarkable and is a complete transformation from a sea of earth and weeds to a series of spaces overflowing with roses and an enormous variety of plants. Continue reading “Could you create the Perfect Garden?”
May is a month full of public holidays in France. I admit that I get just as excited as the children at the prospect of three days without school, or maybe my excitement is just the fact that the children are going to be home for three days. Either way, the extra 24 hours is always an added bonus. At this time of year there is so much to enjoy in the Charente Maritime. This is how I love to spend a long weekend.
Far down the garden in the potager, I stopped digging and listened carefully. It was early evening. The first small insects of the season were swirling like dust motes in the dying sunlight under the blossoming horse-chestnut, back up towards the house. The noise came again, and I recognised the faint sound of jazz as it floated down across the lawn in the gentle breeze. Intrigued, I wandered back up toward the house with a clutch of eggs from the hens and realised that our guest in the gîte was making good use of the new bluetooth-speaker. Continue reading “An American Dream”
A lot has happened in our sleepy little corner of France this past week. Or at least a lot for a place where life ticks along at a slow pace that’s remained relatively unchanged for a century. On Thursday we had an earthquake (yes, a real earthquake!) measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was in between Rochefort and La Rochelle. There was some slight damage and schools were evacuated but there were no injuries. Continue reading “Breaking Ground”
This time last year I chatted about our summer kitchen and I asked your advice about what to do with the ugly, falling down, insulated ceiling. You can read the post here if you missed it. You may also remember I promised you an update in a couple of months time.
Several unrelated comments from around the globe have got me thinking recently about idyllic lifestyles. It has set me thinking that what is one person’s idyll is most likely not another’s. How does one clarify ‘idyllic’? Can life be idyllic in the cold and rain, or does there have to be sunshine? Or perhaps everything needs to be calm and perfectly peaceful to be idyllic? Continue reading “This Idyllic French Life”
These last few days everything has felt slightly different as the sun streams in through the windows, and although the mercury is definitely nudging upwards a little there’s a cold easterly wind which is banishing all thoughts of bare arms and legs. Along with the week’s slow change in temperature, there’s also a subtle change in the light and despite the lingering smell of winter woodsmoke in the air there’s now a welcome new scent, that of freshly mown grass. Continue reading “Brocante and Chocolate”
Oh my goodness we’ve packed a lot in so far this weekend. It began with one of those early Saturday mornings when you wake up with the sun streaming in through the bedroom windows, and even though you’d dearly love a lie-in, you just know that you have to get up; it would be a criminal offence to waste such a beautiful start to the day. And as the forecast yesterday had promised much warmer weather and plenty of sunshine, there was much to do and no time to waste after months of winter and weak sun. Suddenly everything felt so different! Continue reading “Finding brocante in the attic and an ivy update”
Across France it’s now the two-week autumn school-holiday known as “Vacances de la Toussaint”. So far we have enjoyed fantastic weather with warmish sunny days; ok, not exactly swimming weather, but perfect walking weather, perfect playing-in-the-garden weather and perfect weather for exploring near and far.
The children take a huge interest in this little blog of mine; indeed frequently they are my inspiration and so as we were kicking about in the falling leaves, they asked what I was going to write about this week and that’s when it came to me. “This”, I replied, pointing to our autumnal shrubbery and falling leaves,”a tour of our garden in autumn”,
“But it looks a mess!” they chorused, adding “and it’s not exactly pretty at the moment,” but that’s when the fun started. I fetched my camera and we wandered around, stopping to take photos, and suddenly what they had taken for granted as red leaves clinging to an old stone wall, took on a new form as they turned russet orange in the afternoon sun.
The Japanese Anemones are still flowering, self-seeded in places, and with the protection of a north-facing wall they are still in abundance in many corners of the garden; and the Salvia Grahamii have been in bloom all through the summer and continue to provide colour.
Roses are once again flowering as they have their last flurry before winter takes its toll, and the Pampas Grass is looking fabulous. There are tiny hardy Cyclamen all over the place in shady spots, poking their heads up between the fallen leaves.
The vegetable garden has been dug over and the autumn kale has been planted. The roses down there are a stark contrast to the plainness of the bare earth. However, the aubergines, peppers and chillies are still going strong and producing as fast as we can eat them.
Our Persimmon tree is quite literally groaning under the weight of so much fruit, so much so that a huge branch broke off one afternoon with a quite frightening crack and a subsequent thud. This has made us look at seriously pruning it back this winter to a more manageable level. In the meantime we have yet to see if we can get the fruit to ripen enough before it gets too cold, I am told they sell for a pound each in England so we must have at least £200 of fruit! Last year winter came far too quickly for the fruits, and I fear it will be the same again this year.
We don’t have any apple trees but a friend has plenty and she is constantly providing us with box loads of fruit. Sweet and crunchy they are perfect in cakes, tarts, compotes or just eaten straight from the box.
The chickens are hard at work enjoying the cooler weather. I was digging up some of last years well rotted leaves as mulch for a new shrub I had planted and they are never far away from my feet, searching for grubs and worms. In turn they are rewarding us with more eggs than we can eat and it’s been a very long time since we saw a tick on the dogs. After a summer fraught with chicken problems we are back to a healthy flock, so our fingers are crossed that Roddy can take off his veterinarian’s coat for a while.
Fritz the bantam cock has turned very dark, quite suddenly, and Constance, our only Silkie, is quite a madam earning herself any number of nicknames from visitors this summer! Gone are the long lazy days when our flock rested in the shade of a tree for hours on end; now they are on the move from dawn until dusk, constantly scrounging tidbits from anywhere they can get their feet and beaks into. They are very opportunist feeders and we have seen some surprising items disappear into frenzied craws, including half-consumed cat leftovers….. no more details needed..
It seems as if we have been clearing leaves forever, but in truth we have barely started, many are still green and there are plenty more to come down !
So it’s just as well we bought ourselves a new leaf collector that is towed along behind the mower, it is certainly making life much easier this year, I won’t have the arm muscles of last autumn but it will be done in a quarter of the time instead and anyway I always have my little helpers!
Our French Oasis 