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(A quick note - I’ve not yet managed to tackle the gremlins that seem to have stolen my audio recordings over the last two weeks. Hopefully this coming week I’ll have a little more time and the audio version of my journal will be back next Sunday.)

Sunday 19th July

We stand side-by-side, looking down at the collection of newly framed artwork on the floor. Pictures of the house drawn by guests at various times, drawings given to us by friends, old botanical prints, watercolours and oils; art that we’ve collected over the last nine years, carefully stored away in a cupboard in our bedroom for just this moment.

I pucker my lips, pulling them to one side and biting the inside of my cheek as I stare at the pictures and ponder the layout. We shuffle the frames around one more time, moving them into perhaps their tenth iteration, trying to make sure there’s an even mixture of colours and shapes, using the old rug on the floor to mark out their positions on the wall. “I think that’s it,” I say, wondering out loud how on earth we transfer this arrangement on the floor to the big pink wall behind the sofa?

Tim takes over, carefully measuring the distances between frames, the height and width of the wall, drawing out a map of the layout in his dog-eared notebook. It’s all too mathematical and precise for me, so I fill a bucket and find a scraper, squatting on the floor to clean away the tiny splatters of paint from the old floor tiles in the library end of the room.

It’s almost impossible to see now where the wall came down, the hole in the floor neatly filled, the tiles Tim found in a dusty outbuilding blending in neatly with the original ones, set in place and grouted in with a little added sand and dirt so the new grout doesn’t stand out too much.

After an hour or so of scrubbing I give the floor a final mop. We’ll clean and seal it properly next winter, but for now the bits of old mortar, paint, filler and plaster have been scraped and scoured away, all evidence of old walls and doorways rubbed out. The wall is hung with pictures that are reflected prettily in the mirror on the fireplace, the shelves are full of books, the boxes and tools that have been stacked in this room for months have finally been cleared away and for the first time we can see our sitting room as it’s meant to be.

It’s a “for TV” finish, we still need to find a rug, the mirror is smaller than we’d like and I haven’t even thought about curtains, but it looks beautiful and so so different from the rotting, crumbling chaos that we started with. Evening light is flooding in through the front window, reaching all the way to the back of the room, where the new-old doors open out onto the terrace, no rough block wall to get in its way.

The crumbling plaster walls are gone, the rotten panelling and the damp cupboards replaced, the original doors and mouldings carefully reused where possible. The weird, Romanesque arch is hidden away by the new chimney breast, the log burner cleaned and waiting to be lit on the first evening with a chill in it. The pink walls are a neutral backdrop now, their pinkness pushed back by shelves full of books, walls full of art and some comfy green sofas and armchairs that mean there’s finally enough room for all of us to sit down comfortably.

As I look about I think about all the work you can’t see; the heating pipes that had to be squeezed past original mouldings and up two floors to the attic tank room, the metre of mud ceiling that had to be drilled through to make way for the stove pipe, the hours and hours spent recreating the panelling. Every bit of work done to make it look like this room has always been like this, so much more than just a lick of paint.

It’s been hard, it’s been thankless and long, Tim has done much of the dog work himself, with me sweeping up behind him and keeping everything else going around it all. Unlike every other room in the house so far though, this one is just for us. We stand with our arms around one another, happy that it’s finally pretty much done, eagerly looking forward to the winter and time together in this room.

Monday 20th July

Finely diced fennel, onions and garlic are softening in butter until they turn sweet and soft. Gently I stir through some drained flageolet beans, coating them in the sweet fennel butter. As I scrape the grater over the zest of the lemon the citrusy oils spritz over the beans. A sharp tap on the side of the pan sends the fine yellow slivers of zest to join them, I add a sprinkling of chilli flakes, the juice of the lemon, salt and pepper and some good olive oil too. Then right at the end some freshly chopped garden herbs, parsley, mint and basil.

I nestle a pan-fried chicken breast on top of the herby beans, a few shards of smokey bacon, a basket of good fresh bread on the side to sup up the juices. An old favourite that I haven’t cooked in a while on its way out to our guests who are relaxing on the warm terrace.

My evening in the kitchen is almost over, almost time for bed. Monty is capering at my feet, ready for a walk. I tell him it would all happen a lot faster if he could wash pans and wipe down the hob. It doesn’t take long though and we’re soon out into the evening, the sun beginning to set, turning the wisps of cloud pink before the colours start to spool out of the sky, back into the sun until the morning comes again.

Tuesday 21st July

The morning is cool enough for me to pull on a jumper, a keen breeze turning my legs to goose flesh. It feels delicious, the air light, fresh and clean, the heatwave heaviness a distant memory. I crouch in the grass and pull weeds until my knees start to complain and then I sit, then kneel, then stoop, changing my position each time something starts to ache, carefully reaching between the cosmos plants to scratch out bind weed and grasses.

The light seems to have shifted in the last few days, it’s tinged warmer, more golden in tone, slanting through the trees at a slightly different angle. A sign that summer is moving onwards, encouraging the dahlias to stretch upwards and bud up, the petals slowly untwisting in shades of pink, burgundy, apricot and cafe au lait.

A young fox keeps appearing in the garden, creeping out of the undergrowth by the farm yard, slinking under the cherry plum tree, scavenging for fruit, darting away in a flash of sandy red if I get too close.

I glance at my watch, time passing too fast. We have a full house to clean today, guests checking out and then more checking in again. Tim and I divvy up the chores between us, working to our own rhythms, ticking off the jobs in the way we like them done, both feeling relieved that nothing has to be done twice.

Wednesday 22nd July

The “for TV” finish involves pinching the big rug from the guest salon and a side table too, both of us hoping that the guests don’t come back to see the messy jumble of furniture we leave behind us. I stack a few final books on the shelves, we unroll the rug and position the side table next to the armchair, all while the camera looks on. Looking at the rug I think I might need to search for an even larger one, just by a few more inches, just so it pulls all the sofas and chairs together, but other than that it all looks beautiful.

We call the boys in to see the finished room and even they, teenagers that they are, manage to look impressed. There’s instant discussion about where the Christmas tree will go and how lovely it will be to have a cosy space to be together in the winter. All entirely unprompted, just them unable to be adolescently nonchalant about us having a room of our own. My heart hurts a little bit at that, my eyes prickling as I blink back tears, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed.

I can’t quite believe the room is finished, the final jobs left to do all nice-to-have rather than essentials. Rugs, curtains, side tables, we can add those as we save up for and find them, but for now there will be no more squeezing in little DIY jobs between guests arriving and leaving, no more painting, it’s all done, our spare time left now for other things, a little bit of the pressure eased.

The camera captures every detail, taking everything in. We all answer a hundred questions about the work done and what the room means to us all. A room just for our family, which means an awful lot to us all it turns out. The final shots taken we say goodbye to Ben and Sam, waving them off to their next job, their next château. I feel suddenly weary, as if the last few months are catching up with me, my limbs heavy, my mind foggy. We go out for pizza to save cooking, sitting outside on the quiet sun-baked square, the warmth of the day slowly ebbing away as we eat, then home for a much needed early night.

Thursday 23rd July

I wait in the dark for the sun to rise, my early morning flower picks getting a little later as the days start to shorten minute-by-minute. The rising sun glowing behind the trees on the drive, the light catching in the leaves, dappling and twinkling as it grows in strength.

I’m trying to cut strategically, cutting deeply now so that there are more flowers in a few weeks time for our retreat, crossing my fingers that I’m cutting the right things at the right time. My flower buckets fill fast today and I heft them heavy with stems into my trolley and we rattle our way back to the house.

All morning I watch the clock, making beds, washing vases, arranging flowers, excitement bubbling in my stomach as I feel Mum and Dad get closer. I can’t wait for them to see the sitting room. It’s been four months since they were here, the paneling was up but there was no paint on the walls, the French doors weren’t in, the book shelves weren’t built. I’ve sent no pictures for weeks wanting to keep it a surprise.

There are only a handful of people who will truly appreciate the transformation of this room, who understand where it started, put up with bits of wall crumbling onto their shoulders as they sat trying to get comfortable in the cold on a sagging old sofa. The lucky few who knew the true decrepit state of it in the beginning. I let them have five minutes for hugs, let Monty stop yelping with excitement at the sight of my Dad and then I usher them in to the sitting room.

Their faces make it all worthwhile, I watch them take it in, notice how big it feels, all the little details, the new ceiling mouldings, the terrace doors, the pink. My favourite view is the glimpse of the bookshelves you get through the kitchen door, the cosy armchair in the corner, it’s all just so different from the grimy old wall full of coats, piles of laundry and old washing machines, and Mum and Dad both notice it and remark on it separately too. It really is going to be a special place to be, worth the nine year wait

Friday 24th July

The gnarled top of the farmhouse table has been scrubbed, baguette crumbs swept from worktops and cobwebs caught in the corners. Everything is as it should be. I give it all one last look before I pull the stable door closed, leaving the key on the kitchen table. The gîte belongs to someone else now, their home-away-from-home for a week, just until next Friday, when I get to look after it again and enjoy its peace for a few hours.

Back in the house Mum and I unpack boxes of new bed linens and towels, all bright and white, unfolding each pillow case, duvet cover and sheet and writing “La Ruche” on their labels in black ink to mark them out as ours at the laundry. We’re replacing a few old tired sets and adding a few extras so that we can stretch the time between laundry visits and make our new check-in days and minimum stays work for us. Carefully we refold every sheet and bag them up to go off to be washed and pressed.

Our jobs done we drive into town. Laurie will be 14 on Sunday and we have the evening off to celebrate with dinner and drinks. The streets are full of life, every restaurant busy with people, tables spilling out onto the cobbled passages of the old town, laughter bouncing off the timbered walls, waiters weaving in between all the people enjoying a warm summer night out.

The pockets of liveliness buzz through me, making me smile; when you live in sleepy countryside it’s easy to forget that this energy exists, it’s lovely to see the city thriving. I’m grateful to go home though, to the rural quiet where I can sleep with just the sounds of hunting owls, the calls of a deer and the morning chorus to wake me up.

Saturday 25th July

My figs are a good two weeks early this year, hanging heavy from the tree in purple-brown clusters, so ripe that their skins are starting to pucker. The velvety rough leaves scratch at my arms as I reach through the branches to pick, listening for a buzz of a wasp close by, hoping not to wrap my fingers around one.

I hold a fig to my nose, I love their jammy, musky coconut scent, but I don’t like to eat them. Mum and Dad though are snacking as we pick, tearing the figs in half and sharing their fleshy red centres. Carefully I lift each fruit upwards until its stem releases from the branch with a soft click, nestling each one between its fellows in my bucket so they don’t get bruised. It takes all of five minutes to fill two buckets, each weighty fig adding to the kilos we’ve already picked. There will be more in a few days, but already I have enough for several batches of fig confit.

There’s just enough time before guest dinner to get the preserving pan out. Mum and I stand at the island, chopping figs, our fingers sticky with their sappy juice. I clip a few sprigs of rosemary from the bush at the front of the house and tuck them into the pan with the diced figs. A little red wine, a good amount of sugar and I set it to bubble away while I wash jars, slipping them into the oven to sterilise as the figs come to a boil.

I’m just ladling the fig confit into the hot jars when Alain pops in for a chat. We take him into the sitting room too, proud to finally be able to show him the finished room. He is quietly impressed, his face reddening a little, his eye sparkling with a little emotion as he says “Bravo Rebecca and Tim, bravo.”

You must be nearly finished now?

June 19, 2024

As I walk across our bedroom floor it creaks ominously, the perhaps two-hundred-year-old oak parquet panels are loose and uneven, there are gaps between them where they’ve been lifted many time for repair work underneath or for the passage of electricity cables and water and heating pipes. I walk gingerly, picking the path that avoids the old iron nails that stand proudly above the surface of the wood, waiting patiently for the misstep that will allow them to tear the skin of my bare sole. I walk with my ears, following the sounds of the old wood, making my way to the bathroom in the dark. I’ve covered the most rickety areas with a large vintage rug, if only to protect my feet from my night time wanderings. One day it will be a beautiful floor again, fully restored, gleaming and hazard free. But I do wonder how long it will take me to learn to navigate the room in the dark once the floor no longer speaks to me?

From Our Kitchen

Fig leaf crème brûlée - a recipe

August 3, 2025

The figs in the château garden are just starting to ripen and when the sun hits the trees in the afternoon a musky, green, coconut scent catches on the breeze. It’s a scent you can capture in a custard or a sugar syrup and it works beautifully in a crème brûlée.

Garden Notes

July Garden notes

August 6, 2025

There’s a mellowing in July, the brighter colours of early summer fading and softening through the long sunny days. July swept in over hot golden fields and mercifully blew out again on a cool northerly breeze. The temperatures dipped down to a normal Sarthoise summer and both the garden and I were grateful.

A TV finish

You must be nearly finished now?

Fig leaf crème brûlée - a recipe

July Garden notes

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