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| chambre d'hote halfway in france |
Hi! I hope you are having a great summer, wherever you are!
We are back from a 3 weeks holiday in France, where we hadn't been for a couple of years.
The first day we stopped near Nevers for one night. A beautiful chambre d'hôte, a large manor, run by a farmer's couple, who were so sympatical but had no clue whatsoever of cleaning windows, bathrooms or removing dead flies from the window sills.
Instead of cleaning, the farmers wife made her own elderberry sirup, there were big jars in the garden!
The house itself and the garden and the location: wow! The price of the rooms: low!
The next day we drove to our own house in the Cévennes. We hadn't been there for a long time, it was rather dirty, humid, dusty, lots of spider webs everywhere! It always takes days (of cleaning and airing the rooms) for me, to feel a bit at ease in my own place...
We did some gardening (my sons!), some cooking (me), some constructing (Peter) and some swimming too (all)...
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| my 'monks' at the river Cèze near our house |
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| the cross in front of our house protecting our hamlet |
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| the always stunning view from our terrace |
We visited my cousin Luc, who lives 30 km's down south. He was busy building a large military tent (48 m2) on his ground. With a wooden floor and great beds.
Luc took us to the market in St. Ambroix where we bought some veggies and oisters for lunch.
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| left: Eise (my eldest son), right: cousin Luc |
We did some serious hiking on the Mont Lozère, our guide was Ellen, a friend of my parents who has lived in the region practically all of her life. According to my boys it was 'trauma-tracking', because it rained cats and dogs and we became a little hypothermic at the end. Besides there was a dangerous thunderstorm going on while we were on the top of the mountain... I call it an adventure.
The last week of our vacations we rented a real paradise - an old water mill - in the Bourgogne. My parents came over (and fortunately paid a part of the rent ;-). The house, the garden, the pool, the privacy (the whole thing was ours, can you believe that?), the marvellous kitchen, it was so great!
I saw a lot of points of garden-maintenance for the to-do-list, but then I realised I was not responsible for it. That felt so good!
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| the entrance from the pool terrace to the living room: a bridge over the brook! |
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| a romanesque church, from the time that they knew how to 'build with light' |
