What the well-dressed gîte is wearing this season

First of all, big BIG congratulations to Helen who is now an Account Manager at Richmond Towers, as well as being (in partnership with Hugh) a star provider of accommodation to transient parents.  So considerate of them to buy a flat near Stansted Airport!

This week, apart from the usual pursuits of woodcutting and anti-mole plotting  (see below), Eric and I have been furniture shopping.  Having watched someone on Grand Designs visiting a depot vente,  a fascinating warehouse for second-hand furniture and bric-a-brac, we called in at a similar place in Rennes, our nearest city.  Although tempted by a six-foot fibreglass bulldog (costing 790 euros), we didn’t find anything we really needed, so headed for IKEA instead.  This was, of course, exactly like the  IKEA in Warrington – but blissfully minus the crowds.  We came out with some proper ‘guest quality’ stuff – a chest of drawers, a bedside table and two new mattresses to replace Louise and Dan’s childhood ones, probably over 20 years old by now! – as well as various bits and bobs of kitchen equipment.  They do a mean Toblerone cake in the canteen as well.

Mole update (or, as we French say, mettre a jour des taupes):  Great excitement when there were no new molehills for THREE WHOLE DAYS!  Was it, we wondered, the clumps of cat and human hair inserted  into the tunnels as per online advice, that had worked this miracle – or perhaps  the stones and metal objects,  according to my own theories of What Discourages Moles?  Had Sooty carried out the perfect murder and hidden the body?  Or had the furry little excavator died  of exhaustion in its own catacombs  under the garden?  On Thursday morning, however, it was back to business as usual.

Cat update: Sooty is really getting into his stride and in the past week has bagged another mouse and, I’m sorry to say, a great tit as well.  So far, he doesn’t seem interested in eating  what he catches.  Circumstantial evidence, which I won’t go into for fear of turning the sensitive reader’s stomach, suggests he once swallowed a mouse whole, but it disagreed with him.

Language update: Through taking part in Brittany’s answer to the Big Garden Birdwatch, we are learning the names of a number of common birds.  Who knew that a French wren is a Troglodyte Mignon?

Grey hair update: Thursday is the day – my mum’s hairdresser has been booked to chop off (most of) the remaining brown.  This is the sort of result I hope for:

This, on the other hand, is what it looks like now:

So you see, whatever happens on Thursday can only be an improvement.

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‘But is it Guest Quality?’

As 2016 gets under way, Eric and I are reminded that  the New Order isn’t just about putting our feet up in front of the stove and catching up on box-sets; we are,  in a modest way, attempting to run a business.  The first bookings have come in for the summer season – a couple  even  before Christmas, which we put down to  good reviews  on Trip Advisor last year.  From May until the end of August, all being well, the camper van will be our main residence.  (We were a bit alarmed when the van failed to start earlier this week – but it was apparently no worse than a flat battery. Fingers crossed.)

So it’s time to cast a critical, visitor-like eye over Les Bruyeres, to see what may need to be repaired, replaced, added or smartened up before the start of the season.  Obviously we love the place and think it’s perfect just as it is – but when a guest walks in at the start of a long-anticipated holiday, their expectations are, and should be, a bit higher .

So it’s fresh paint and varnish for the woodwork, silicon sealant for the kitchen, out with the spiders and (once spring is under way) in with the bedding plants in the garden.  Time to check the crockery for damage, count the pillowcases , wonder where the two missing dessert spoons have gone, and make sure the instruction booklet is idiot-proof.  This week Eric has been re-papering a wall in the tiny downstairs bedroom, which features a  interestingly curved corner …

Between now and May we’ll keep asking the questions: ‘Will this do?’  ‘Is it guest quality?’ – and if the answer’s no, fix  it.  We’ll need to visit a local depot vente,  for some pieces of furniture to replace those that are past their sell-by date; get some bookshelves built; and buy a new frying-pan.  Plus, of course, lots and lots of cleaning.

Fortunately the setting needs no adjustment!

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Family (and cat) reunion

Ben and Kay are  here for the weekend, in the coldest snap we’ve experienced so far this winter, with  a modest snowfall that fortunately didn’t interfere with their flight from Stansted.

The reunion with Sooty went well …

… and temptation has already won the day, in the form of baked Camembert, baguette with jam, gin and tonic, pains au chocolat, wine, cider and the odd chocolate Santa.

Language update: For the first few months here, we felt the campaign to improve our French was not going badly.  We bought local newspapers and waded through a few of the shorter items with the help of a dictionary; exchanged un-fluent pleasantries with Sabrina in the cafe;  listened to some Michel Thomas learning CDs; and tried to follow  French TV (wildlife shows are the best – mainly the present tense, and lots of visual clues to help).  We also muddled through Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, dubbed in French, at our  local cinema in St Hilaire du Harcouët.

Then came WiFi in the house, meaning less need to visit the cafe; the new satellite dish, bringing us English TV, and various visitors who might not find  French lessons a fun activity.  Like healthy eating, language improvement has taken a hammering over the festive period.  Like healthy eating, it is due for a comeback in 2016.

Mole update: molehills continue to appear at the rate of about two a day.  Researching repellent solutions online, I came across some bulbs called Sork; it’s claimed that moles  hate them, and  move on when they’re planted in the garden.  They are much used by the Dutch, who obviously know a thing or two about bulbs.  Unfortunately the ones I ordered didn’t arrive during my January trip to the UK, so won’t be planted until February.  In the meantime, we are treating the critters to doses of human and cat hair – which apparently they also dislike –  and blocking their tunnel entrances with stones or metal spikes.  Castor oil is said to be another effective repellent – but where to buy castor oil these days?

 

Then and now

It was a pleasure to see  two of the earliest visitors to Les Bruyeres – Gill and Rollo Wicksteed –  and show them pictures of the house as it is today.  They remember it back then as  ‘a step up from camping’, which is probably on the generous side.

Gill has fond memories of seeing a kingfisher down by the stream ; as far as we know she’s the only person who ever did!  However, this was after sitting quiet and still for a very long time, as all successful birdwatchers must.

We also have the Wicksteeds to thank for transporting the historic tiger-skin to the cottage from Petersfield, rolled up inside a calor gas heater.  Rollo wrote a classic poem about it, modelled on  William Blake’s.  This is an extract:

Tyger! Shot in thirty-eight,

How rudely we humiliate;

What an end to his defiance,

Stuffed inside a gas appliance.

Gill and Rollo also recall some very good meals at an auberge in a nearby hamlet.  The restaurant is long gone, but Pont au Bray is still there, and in fact is home to the over-zealous dog that attacked me while I was cycling last year.

The Dewhurst family also shared  in the rough and ready early days.  The parents were particularly good at inventing games, which included damming  the stream (a neighbour told them off), water-games involving the garden hose and vacuum cleaner parts, and the Snufkin Letters,  messages from the Moomins’ wandering friend which were discovered hidden around the garden by  excited children.

The trees may be a bit higher, but the sunrises haven’t changed

Cat  update: there isn’t one, really.

Sooty continues to demonstrate the art of relaxation, as only cats can.

The only thing that’s new in Sooty’s world, he doesn’t know about yet.    He will be spending the summer season in Hertfordshire, while Eric and I live in the camper van and guests (lots, we hope) stay at Les Bruyeres.  Thanks, Helen and Hugh!

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More Les Bruyères nostalgia!

Another gallop through the back pages of the characterful hobbit-hole that is Les Bruyères.  More photos than usual, and fewer words.

January 1991 – Helen, aged one and a half, encounters her first European winter and isn’t sure she approves

In the early years, the accommodation was very basic and called for stamina and creativity…  

My parents slept on camp beds in the loft, nailing bedspreads to the beams to make a tented space.  Access was by a wooden ladder.

Eric and I slept on a mattress in the main room – occupied here by cousins Dan and Louise with a small, solemn Helen

The whole Paine family slept in the garage, the year the spiral staircase was installed.

The weather was (nearly) always  wonderful and there was lots to do outdoors …

The swing on the walnut tree was a hit …

Joan attacking a dead tree

Three Dewhursts and a crop of chestnuts, about 1998

Susie and Helen at the pool

Mum putting the garden to rights, as she did every summer

William Gaudoin log-splitting with Eric

Any excuse to play with bonfires

Perrys, Joneses, Mackarnesses – and many fetching pairs of shorts