Sunday 26th July
“Are you making jam or do you want to eat them?” the man behind the market stall asks me. I tell him they’re for a compote to eat with yogurt and he carefully sorts through the crates of apricots for the best unblemished ones until he has five kilos in a wooden crate.
He looks at me with his head on the side, smiling, “you look like someone I know,” he says. As he searches through the melons to find one just right for eating today, he taps his fellow stall holder on the shoulder and asks his opinion, the other man looks at me and nods in agreement. I wonder who she is, this other woman?
He hands me my melon and a bag of dark red cherries and Dad hefts the crate of apricots, they are Mum’s really, she was just too nervous to ask. I wish him “bon dimanche” with a wave and we walk through the lanes of stalls to find the white-haired man and his goat’s cheese. I love watching him wrap the little fresh cheeses, carefully folding the waxed white paper around each one, creasing the folds with his fingertips and tucking the loose ends underneath.
I slip the cheese into my basket with the melon and cherries and we head home ready for lunch. I need to eat something, my head is spinning after a tiny, stiff black coffee at the cafe on the market square, its bitterness only slightly tempered by a sachet of sugar. I scraped up the half molten granules in the bottom of my cup with the tiny coffee spoon, letting them dissolve on my tongue as we chatted and people-watched our fellow market shoppers.
At home we eat the goat’s cheese with fresh bread, cherries, slices of melon and fig confit, smearing our bread with the fresh, creamy cheese. My head settles, my heart stops pounding and with full tummies we head into the garden to weed the raspberry bed.
Monday 27th July
Across the golden stubble of the hay field I see a dark shape move, I squint into the setting sun trying to decide if it’s Margot? I call her name, clicking my tongue, the shape sits back on its hind legs and then leaps away, Monty in pursuit. I shout then, calling him off and for once he listens, racing back to my side and the treat bag in my pocket. Not Margot then, but a hare, I turn away in disappointment, walking on, calling her name.
Margot is off on one of her jaunts. Today is day five, the day when I start to worry. She’s been gone so long that she missed Mum and Dad entirely, they left this morning, taking the boys with them back to England, to their cousins and friends, their aunts and uncles. Back for fish and chips and sweet shops and a little bit of English summer while we get on with the second half of our season, the pressure eased a little by their absence, though I know I’ll miss the hugs.
Down the drive and through the woods I go, calling in all the usual spots, the gaps in the hedge that Margot often appears from, the edge of the field she usually comes meowing across, but there’s no sign of her. My feet ache after a long day, I do one last lap of the cutting garden and then go home, crossing my fingers for better luck in the morning.
I’m just leaning out to pull the shutters closed over my bedroom window when I see her wandering down the drive with the guests, slowly and nonchalantly making her way back towards the house, drawn home perhaps by my calling or more likely by her hallow belly. Home and safe though, until she next needs a holiday.
Tuesday 28th July
The clean herbal scent of lavender is everywhere in the early morning air as I cut back the long stems, tracing each one down into the plant, searching for the right place to snip it off. I lift up the bulk of each lavender bush, searching underneath to pull out the roots of the bindweed and potentilla that are determined to keep growing through each freshly clipped plant.
Bundles of lavender stems line up on the drive, a snarled tangle of more piled into the wheelbarrow because time and my patience are running out. I will have a scant 10 minutes to shower and get dressed before I need to set the breakfast tables. I push the wheelbarrow into a gap in the flower bed to stop it blocking the drive and go back inside.
It’s late morning before I can retrieve the wheelbarrow and start on the roses and hydrangeas, cutting away dead heads and shrivelled petals, pulling off sun crisped leaves, working in the shade until the sun gets high enough to steal it all.
The storm of two weeks ago feels like a distant memory, everything is dusty and dry, the wind a desiccated rustle through the trees. I am longing for clouds and some rain, the blue skies and sunshine are becoming monotonous, the heat simmering away day after day, not brutal anymore, just boring.
Wednesday 29th July
With my finger tips I tease open the papery nigella pod, shaking the round black seeds out onto my palm. I do this time and again, the seeds gathering in my life lines and heart lines, queuing up in my destiny line. I tip them all into a jar in my workshop, listening to them tinkle and tap against the glass, then I do the same with the ammi majus, the tall stems of which are now dry and golden.
The nigella is chained in a cage of bindweed, each stem choked by its thuggish tendrils. I cut back and pull up everything, clearing the bed as much as possible. Already new nigella seedlings are setting, next year’s crop already at work. I may have to sacrifice them to tackle the bindweed.
That’s a job for another day though. It’s Tim’s birthday today, he’s finally catching me up. He is not a birthday person so coaxing him into any sort of celebration takes effort. We settle on lunch out and an afternoon nap, the only and maybe the perfect use of another very warm day, a blip of heat in an otherwise bearable summer week.
Thursday 30th July
A growl of thunder wakes me, I wait for a flash of lightning, it’s a long time coming, the dark clouds hang low on the horizon. I hurry out into the garden to pick my flowers, the thunder rumbling intermittently, circling us, promising rain but not really delivering.
I bend and snip, fill my buckets, toss deadheads into my overfull wheelbarrow, and feel the first drops of rain on my stooping back. It’s not until I’m back in the house and setting the breakfast tables that the telltale wind blows in, bringing with it the heart of the storm and a delicious down pouring of rain.
I stand at the open back door, my shoulder leaning against the old stone wall, watching the storm, breathing in the salty, mineral tang of rain on hot earth, listening to the raindrops rattle on the dry leathery leaves of the trees, wondering if this will be enough rain to swell the soil and close the cracks in the parched ground?
The lamps and candles glow in the gloom of the morning, the air is cool and the sky is dark, making me long for Autumn days. I feel my energy surge with the wind, a gleeful joy at rain and wind and weather, finally. Not enough of course but some, the sun back again an hour later, steaming away the storm into another blue sky day.
Friday 31st July
I wish quite often for magical powers, usually for more time to get all the things I’d like to do done, more hours in the day for writing, more moments to deadhead the roses, or an extra long night to catch up on all the hours of missed sleep. Today though I wish I could predict and control the weather in the way folk seem to think I can.
Countless times in the last few weeks emails and messages have arrived from people wanting to book to stay with us but only if we can tell them which summer month next year is least likely to be hot or have a heatwave in it? It’s hard to reply without any hint of exasperation but I try. Politely I explain that this summer has been unprecedented Europe-wide, that this extended period of heat is not usual for us, but that the heatwaves started in May and have continued to come at us all summer long. In other years we’ve had to run the heating in a June, May has been perfect, or it’s poured with rain, August has been hot and stormy, July everything in between, September wonderfully warm or delightfully chilly, it is almost impossible to predict.
As a red-headed Englishwoman I say, I would love nothing more than the ability to control the weather. I would love (I don’t write) to make the days sunny and warm and the nights cool, with just enough rain in the early hours of the morning so we wake up everyday to a perfectly green lawn. But as yet I sadly haven’t worked out how to do it. I resist the urge to suggest that if I did have these powers I probably wouldn’t be running a bed and breakfast.
I sigh and close the laptop, knowing that my reply won’t be what they want to hear. I won’t make false promises though, the last thing I want is to tell them next June will be perfect weather only for them to arrive and be grumpy when it’s not. The reality is that none of us know what will happen next, we will all just have to adapt. All I do know is that my old house with its thick stone walls and heavy oak shutters is far more likely to stay cool in a heatwave than any modern semi.
Saturday 1st August
Sugar bubbles and chars under the heat of the blow torch, slowly I move the hissing blue flame back and forth watching each crystal slowly melt and caramelise. Caramel fills the air, the burnt sugar fizzing and popping before hardening into a crisp, thin layer on top of the lemon cream. I saw Erin making a lemon brûlée the other day and thought I’d try brûlée-ing the tops of my lemon possets and it works beautifully, the bittersweet caramel and the bright creamy lemon.
I leave the sugar to cool and set while Tim serves cheese and Monty, Margot and I go for one last walk, drawn home by the lights on the terrace sparkling through the trees in the dark woods. My friends Leanne and Jules are here, sitting on the terrace eating and chatting with our other guests. We haven’t seen each other for perhaps 17 years. We met in London in our early 20s, living in grotty flat shares on tiny wages, trying to get our careers started and make the most of a big city life. Leanne now lives in Australia, Jules in another part of France, me in this crazy château life.
We sink into the sitting room sofas after dinner and talk until way past my bedtime, catching up on over a decade of missed news, swapping stories of life away from home, the strangeness of living in different countries and where we might all end up next. Tim ushers us all to bed in the early hours, reminding me that I have to be up to make breakfast tomorrow morning. I yawn and stretch, reluctant to leave, but very aware that he’s right.
Note - I hope the audio works this week, it seems to be working for me but those of you who usually listen let me know is you still can’t hear it.
Previous posts you might have missed…
From Our Kitchen
Fig leaf crème brûlée - a recipe
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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.
The Back Story
Almost by accident
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November 30, 2022
I’m am still often in awe of how I came to be here. I never dreamt of France, nor of châteaux. I never imagined myself living anywhere but England. But somehow I am here. I’m not sure I ever really decided to come.
There are still moments, even after five years here, that I still can’t believe that this is where I live. There are days when I stand here, surrounded by ancient trees, listening to the birds sing and the wind play in the leaves and I can’t believe that I somehow ended up in this magical place.
The Back Story
The to-do-list of never
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May 10, 2023
I’m often asked where people should start when it comes to a renovation project. The sheer scale of some old buildings bring with them a hefty dose of overwhelm. The romance of them peaks your excitement, your dreams looms large and then the reality of making those dreams into something real, something tangible, becomes insurmountable. The answer I give is simple, you just have to start somewhere, any job is a step forward. But sometimes it pays to rip up the to-do list and start again, which is exactly what we had to do.
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