Chez Freddie News

After months of waiting, the UK house is sold and our move to France is on. Three heart-stopping moments occur in the final 48 hours:
1. We take our two cats, Freddie and his brother Percy, to the vet for their final check-up and issue of the export licence, but are informed that the paperwork hasn´t arrived from DEFRA. No paperwork, no licence
– no licence, no Freddie so no Chez Freddie. After some searching it turns up, having been filed under a different name.
2. The day before departure, a Sunday, we discover that the brake-lights on Richard´s elderly Volvo, which will be our only transport to and in France, aren’t working. A panic search takes us to the only local garage open, where the mechanic makes it his life´s mission to fix the brakes. Richard gives him £30 for his efforts and he gives £10 back.
3. The morning of departure, we are up at 0500 for a 0800 sailing from Portsmouth. A sleepy Percy is bundled into the boot, but there´s no sign of Freddie. Another panic search takes us nearly to 0600, when he is spotted watching us crawling in the delphiniums from the front window. After a mad dash to Portsmouth, Richard makes the boat with 20 minutes to spare.

Ianthe stays behind to supervise the furniture removal, which by comparison goes like clockwork. On flying out later that week she finds Richard is still a nervous wreck from the journey, and the cats aren´t too happy either. With only a few words of French, Richard had never driven on his own through France before. The two cats howled for the whole 6 hour journey, and he had our computer on board as well.

The first few days seem unreal, as if we´re on holiday. We sit in the sun listening to the golden orioles and eating cherries off the tree. There´s not much we can do until our belongings arrive a week later.

We are invited in for an aperitif by our next door neighbours, a delightful, elderly ex-farming couple. Despite Ianthe´s reasonable command of French, the local accent proves challenging. However, our neighbours tend to tell us everything at least two or three times, so it eventually sinks in. They have lived in the village all their lives, are puzzled by the English mania for uprooting. They keep asking if we are homesick.

June 2003

Our furniture arrives in a huge van that practically drives into our neighbours´ front room trying to reach our house. They are quite unconcerned, and are more interested to know whether any of the contents are worth having. The first thing we unpack is the tool box in order to fit a cat flap. The cats can now venture outside and experience the local wildlife, which they find totally baffling. Even the French-English dictionary doesn’t help.

 

After three meetings we are now on first name terms with our next door neighbours and have sampled Aristide’s home-made ‘Pineau de Charentes’, which is definitely superior to sherry. He recommends a local plumber, who turns up promptly to give us an estimate on converting all 6 bedrooms to en-suite and extending the central heating to the back parts of the house. He looks every inch a professional, down to the blue overalls, but even he seems taken aback by the scale of the job we are asking him to do. After he has had a tour of every room, he cautiously asks: “C´est tout?”

Our first big purchases are a rotary lawnmower (in a fetching shade of yellow), and a large washing machine. It’s only when you find yourself washing sheets in the bath that you really appreciate such appliances. Getting the garden under control is a back-breaking job as it´suffered nearly two years of neglect. Mowing the orchard alone takes Richard 10 hours, which he does non-stop (clearly not into the French way of doing things yet).

After two weeks, Percy catches his first rat, which he leaves in our bedroom. Sadly, the following night, he goes out and does not return. Richard digs out a photo and calls on every house in the village. The maire’s wife helps him put up a notice on the village board, and at the same time teaches him a new word he’d rather not have learned: “perdu”, which means lost.

Meanwhile Freddie, not to be outdone, catches his first lizard and, finding it not to his taste, thoughtfully leaves the half-chewed remains in the downstairs loo in case it is to ours.

We experience our first village social, a Sunday walk or cycle-ride followed by an aperitif under the lime trees by the village chapel. We discover that such events are an excuse for a general booze-up, with home-made wine, Pineau and Cognac liberally passed around the table. It is a good way to get to know the neighbours if you can remember much about it afterwards.

July 2003

It’s not long before the offers of kittens start coming. After turning down one offer, another neighbour arrives. “Was your lost cat petit?” she asks. Ianthe explains that he was ‘tres grand’, (Freddie and Percy each weigh well over one stone, or 7kg). Nevertheless she is still presented with a tiny, tabby bundle from the car. The kitten is a bag of bones but has a look that would melt the hardest of hearts. Freddie inspects it with no more than mild curiosity, so the kitten stays, and a hugely relieved neighbour departs. She is named Fifi LaBelle.

The weather becomes seriously hot (over 40 degrees during the day). While we wilt, Fred decides to find himself a new home in the barn, making his bed in the old manger (thereby bringing new meaning to an old Christmas carol). Besides, being a dignified old gent of 11 years, he finds Fifi´s growing energy and enthusiasm for bouncing all over him is all too much.

Work on the house starts in earnest. Richard demolishes the wall separating the bath from the downstairs loo, the idea being to build a new partition to create a small bathroom and a separate utility room. Before the wall can be rebuilt we have our first visitors from the UK. They are highly amused by the al-fresco arrangements, and the need to climb over the bath to wash their hands.

August 2003

After a brief respite the heat wave returns, and we swelter for most of the month. The region escapes the disasters such as forest fires and overflowing mortuaries that affect other parts of France. The worst effects seem to be that our neighbour´s hens, from whom we buy our eggs, are laying smaller eggs than usual. She gives us extra to compensate.

Richard´s father arrives to help with the construction work, and amazing progress is made. Our downstairs bathroom now has a wall again, and five of the six en-suites have their framework in place.

To our surprise the plumber, who originally gave us a start date of late September, arrives mid-month and announces that he is starting the following Monday. So much for the whole of France being on holiday in August. The noise is deafening as his team drill holes though solid walls and floors for the pipework, but by the end of the month a complex network of pipes is in place.

Although our vegetable plot is fallow this year we are kept well supplied with fruit and vegetables by our neighbours. Our English neighbours supply us with so many French beans that we are obliged to go out and buy a large capacity freezer to store them all (our ‘cave’, which will be ideal for storing such produce, is currently full of half-connected pipes and plumbing tools) .

Our missing cat Percy is not forgotten. One day a couple arrive at the house to say they have had a stray tabby, “très grand”, living with them for a month. We show them photos of Percy but they are not sure whether it’s the same cat, so we follow them to their house in a neighbouring village to check. Needless to say it´s not Percy and we regretfully decline an offer to take him anyway – Monsieur and Madame are due to return next week to Alsace, where they live for the rest of the year, and Madame is getting somewhat emotional about the fate of ‘Fidel’, as they have called him. We part amidst tears and embraces.

Meanwhile Fifi grows from kitten into small cat, and, having learned how to use the cat flap and had all her inoculations, now spends much time out of doors. Fred is having to get used to her standard greeting, which consists of taking a run at him from a distance of twenty metres and launching herself onto his back.

Fifi is fascinated by the garden wildlife, and we too are fascinated by a colony of Elephant lime-hawk moths that visit the garden at dusk. They feed like hummingbirds, which they are close to in size, off the red flowers that the French call ‘Belle de Nuit’. We feel privileged to be witnesses to their nightly display, and do not miss television at all.

September 2003

The month starts with a distinctly autumnal feel: while the days are still sunny and warm, the nights are cool. Fred moves back into the house. It’s good to see the old codger back, even if he does occupy most of the bed. We manage to finish decorating the lounge, so at least there is one habitable room in the house. Fifi approves of our choice of furniture.

There is a change in the work pattern: Richard´s father departs and Ianthe’s parents arrive for a two-week stay. The plumbers also depart for the time being, leaving us to finish the walls and floors in three of the en-suite shower rooms before they return to install the showers and basins. They suggest an interval of two to three weeks, which is a somewhat daunting prospect given the current state of the en-suites.

The air of relative calm is thus tinged with a slight sense of panic.

Our next-door neighbour, Aristide, brings us a cornucopia of peaches, hazelnuts and grapes from his garden. He is heavily involved in the ‘vendange’, the grape harvest of the villagers´ vines which seems to be a communal affair and an excuse for much eating and drinking. Even the fact that he manages to slice off the end of one finger in the harvesting machinery does not prevent Aristide from hosting the annual ‘vendange’ dinner.

We subsequently pay a visit next door and ask solicitously about Aristide´s finger. The X-ray photographs are promptly whisked out, and we make appropriate tut-tutting noises.

After all Aristide´s gifts of food we had felt obliged to return the compliment, and decided that it should be something ‘typically English’. So after some pondering Ianthe and her mum concoct a treacle tart. Despite being made with French bread and ‘paté brisé’, it tastes remarkably good, and is very well received next door.

October 2003

In early October we receive our authorisation from the Maire to build our swimming pool. There had been a delay, owing to mistakes in the original application, and we had begun to give up hope of getting the pool in this year. We phone the swimming pool rep with the good news, and expect him the following Monday to tell us when work can begin. Instead, a team of ground workers arrive with a low-loader bearing a monstrous CAT excavator. Its manouevres into the garden become a source of great interest: our next door neighbour’s wife, Charlotte, who is house-bound, even has a chair brought out into the street so she can watch the proceedings.

The digger starts transforming the landscape with bewildering speed: by the end of the day the swimming pool is dug, and the spoil has created a miniature Cairngorms at the bottom of the garden. A succession of neighbours wander in to watch, give advice or collect the enormous earthworms that are unearthed.

Aristide, our next door neighbour, who arrives with his bucket, explains that the worms are favourite food for the eels that inhabit the river. Although the fishing season does not re-open until March, the ten-inch worms will be released into his own garden and be dug up again next spring. To what extent the worms co-operate with this arrangement is unclear to us.

Meanwhile, the race to finish building and tiling the en-suites so we can get the plumbers back in for their next phase of work. We have a strong incentive to get the work done as quickly as possible, as we have our first cold spell of the season, with temperatures dipping to below zero. There is no central heating in the back bedrooms: part of the plumbers´ next job is to install radiators that are frustratingly sitting in boxes downstairs. While we work in overcoats and gloves, Fred, who seems immune to the cold, discovers that wall insulation makes a cosy bed.

The month finishes with Halloween, which is a well organized event. During the afternoon a group of children in Halloween costumes are escorted by adults round the village to collect sweets, while in the evening there is a soiree in the village hall. Every house is bedecked with hollowed-out pumpkins with candles inside, and carved faces that vary in ghoulishness. We are invited to make cakes for the event, so Ianthe decides to produce another treacle tart. This is greeted by the villagers with some curiosity, but it is all consumed.

November 2003

It’s amazing to think we have been here six months and, so far, are still on schedule to open next May. Real progress is being made on all fronts, and jobs have been completed that, when we started, we had neither the skills nor tools for. With our newly acquired skills and tools, forty sheets of plaster board, sixty lengths aluminum studding, seven rolls of sound insulation, six doors and frames and forty square metres of tiles are being transformed into six en-suite bathrooms and a new toilet.

It seems as if for the past few months all we have done is get up, put on our dirty work clothes and get down to DIY. A day off is a visit to a builders’ merchant when we run out of materials (except of course when the rugby World Cup was on – there are limits!) It’s not exactly Peter Mayle´s idyllic France, but this is real life and we love seeing our dream becoming reality. And we did get out enough to enjoy the magnificent Autumn colours in the garden.

Both cats went down with throat infections this month. In Fred’s case, he was sufficiently poorly to merit a trip to the vets for a shot of antibiotics. He made a remarkable recovery, and on a follow-up visit was pronounced by the vet to be “un très beau chat”. Fred undoubtedly understands this, as he officially became a French cat after three months here. Unfortunately we were too busy to mark the occasion: perhaps some kind of swearing in ceremony and playing the Marseillaise might have been appropriate. Fifi, meanwhile, has lost none of her customary bounce.

Our elderly Volvo, that we doubted would even get us down here, is also on the way to becoming a French car, and we are delighted that she has passed the Controle Technique (equivalent of the MOT test, except that it only takes place once every two years). She is a remarkable work-horse, having made many trips groaning with boxes of tiles, sacks of cement, lengths of timber or kitchen sinks.

The best news of all is that the swimming pool is almost finished, and we now have an 11m by 5m patch of sky-blue in the garden.

Admittedly, it´s surrounded by a sea of mud – not the most inviting prospect - but transforming that will be a job for the Spring.

December 2003

The first indication that Christmas is approaching comes early in the month, when branches of Christmas tree appear on every telephone pole in the village. A few days later these sprout parcels in colourful paper (see photograph), thanks to the efforts of the maire´s wife and children.

Apart from the decorations it is hard to feel Christmassy, as we enjoy many days of bright sunshine, combined with the mild climate that avoids the snowfalls experienced elsewhere in France. The quality of the light here is something that we still marvel at: soft but luminous during the day, with stunning sunrises and clear, brilliantly starlit nights.

In the house we have a new kitchen installed. This does not go entirely to plan. When we assemble the units, which were delivered a couple of months earlier, we find various bits missing. After the kitchen rep at the store where they were purchased has been beaten about the head a few times, the parts miraculously materialize in time for the fitter to install. But we then discover, only after they have been cut and fitted, that the two lengths of worktop supplied are in different finishes. This time the store is unable to rectify the mistake straight away, and a replacement worktop in the correct finish will not be available until late January. So we now have a half finished kitchen, although this is still a great improvement on what was there before. We have learned that getting things done here requires a great deal of patience and not a little persistence.

Our own relentless work schedule slackens a little this month, but we still have little time for seasonal festivities. We promise ourselves that next year will be very different.

January 2004

January is evidently the rainy season: early in the month we are battered by gales and heavy rain from the Atlantic. The river level rises to the point where the ditches round our garden can no longer drain. Consequently, a rather splendid lake appears where the lower part of our garden used to be.

We also discover that two extremely large toads have taken up residence in the swimming pool. They are summarily evicted and offered alternative accommodation in the admittedly less salubrious ditch. To our relief, however, they seem to accept the inferior lodging and do not reappear.

The plumbers return this month and install the radiators in the back part of the house: we have heat at last! It takes some time to adjust, and we find ourselves sweltering working in the en-suites. These are also slowly inching towards completion, with electricity connected and ventilation fans installed. One evening we discover that the plumbers have left behind a large worm (of the kind beloved by our next door neighbour – see October 2003) in a plastic pot in one of the bedrooms. We wonder whether this is some essential plumbing aid or if the plumbers are in league with the local fishermen. We never do find out, as the worm disappears before we get round to enquiring.

Fifi has her neutering operation this month – despite hints from some of our English neighbours that they would love one of her kittens, we feel that there are enough unwanted kittens in the village already. Besides, if Fifi started inviting all the local tomcats round, Fred would no doubt feel duty bound to defend his territory and risk coming off the worse (he’s run up enough vet´s bills already). After the op Fifi is sparko for a couple of days, but then her customary bounce quickly returns. So any hopes that Fred might have had that it would calm her down are short-lived.

February 2004

The month starts with Candlemas, a date when pancakes are traditionally eaten in France. Our next door neighbour’s daughter very kindly brings us a plateful to try (à deguster). Needless to say, the French do not miss the opportunity for more pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), when the children also come round in costumes (as at Halloween) to collect goodies from the villagers.

The weather is back to front this month. In the first week the temperature soars, we are out in the garden in t-shirts, and the local TV news shows people in bikinis on the beach.

The garden starts to burst into life and we devote a bit of time to getting it into shape. Our nearest English neighbours lend us their rotovator: a fearsome beast which makes short work of the veg patch, and we make a start by planting some raspberry canes.

When it comes to gardening, much attention is still paid in France to the phases of the moon. The general rule is to prune or prepare ground during a waning moon, and to plant during a waxing moon. We attempt to follow this rule, although a drop in temperature during the month brings hard frosts which make planting impossible. Right at the end of the month, we have the first snow of the winter.

Snow is generally a rare event in this region, and it doesn´t last long. The days are clear and sunny and even during the coldest spell we can feel the warmth of the sun.

In the house, our main achievement this month is to get the dining-room decorated. We are pleasantly surprised by how quickly this is done, as it is a huge room. No sooner have we finished, however, when the wooden mantelpiece catches fire, blackening the newly painted wall above the fireplace. So another week is spent rebuilding the fireplace and fireproofing the replacement hardwood mantelpiece. Despite being unscheduled work, the final result is definitely an improvement.

March 2004

This is very much a ‘stop-start’ month, both in terms of the weather and progress on the house. Outside, occasional days of warm, spring-like temperatures are following by bouts of cold with sub-zero overnight temperatures. Consequently, plants and trees burst into flower one day, only to go on hold for the following week. So not much gardening is done this month. Similarly, indoors we have occasional spurts of activity followed by prolonged periods waiting for the plumbers to return before we can progress further. They have a habit of turning up when least expected, such as 0800h on a Friday morning, causing us to hastily abandon plans for a leisurely lie-in. By the end of the month we are tantalizingly close to finishing the en-suites, but the final finishing touches seem to take forever. Our regular visits to the second-hand furniture shops continue to produce some excellent bargains, although invariably the pieces that we buy require some restoration work.

The lengthening days mean that this can be an evening job after the main decorating work has been done for the day.

We also have our first guests this month – on a non-paying basis, as none of the rooms is quite ready. This is a very useful exercise for us, as the ‘dry-run’ enables us to identify the gaps (small items such as trays, jugs, coffee pots). Our guests also give us some valuable and very positive feedback. We thoroughly enjoy the visit, and look forward to hosting guests on a regular basis.

April 2004

Spring is definitely here. The swifts are back by Easter, wheeling round the lime tree in the garden, and village lotteries proliferate like the cowslips by the roadside. The prizes on offer reflect local ways of life: along with the DVD players and sewing machines, we could be the lucky winners of two half pigs or an electric concrete mixer. There is also a tantalizing ‘super lot surprise’, which we speculate might contain sewing thread, a bag of cement and the unmentionable parts of the pigs.

The builders start work on what will be the pool house. Their arrival coincides with a period of heavy rain, and their use of a JCB to shift pallets of breeze blocks quickly turns the garden, yet again, into a quagmire.

No sooner does the weather improve than they disappear, becoming as elusive as the hoopoe which is spotted in the garden. A phone call to the builder promises that work will resume ‘fin de semaine’, which we are quickly learning means ‘next week – maybe’.

However the plumbers, bless them, having been told by Ianthe that the work needs to be finished by the end of April, manage to complete all the work this month – the last two shower doors are fitted on 30 April.

Even better news is that we have our first paying guest this month, even though we are not yet open for business. A retired Dutchman, who is on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, turns up on our doorstep one night absolutely soaked and frozen, having cycled through two hours of heavy rain. Our circumstances are hardly ideal – the second phase of the kitchen refit is finally taking place so the kitchen is in chaos, and Ianthe is suffering from a severe throat infection, but we can hardly turn him away. We manage to improvise a three-course meal and put him up in one of the two nearly completed rooms. He seems happy with the arrangement, judging by his very positive comments in our visitors book (in Dutch, but our kitchen fitter who is also Dutch translates them for us). As he cycles off the following morning, we feel that we, too, are on our way.

May 2004

After a cool and variable Spring, Summer arrives this month. The days are long and hot: crickets sing all day and the lime tree is coming into flower, soon to be alive with the sound of bees as it was when we arrived last year. The orioles and hoopoes are regularly heard, if not seen, and during an evening bike ride in the lanes around the village, we have to pleasure of listening to a nightingale in the hedgerows. Closer to home, a wren has nested in a box just outside the kitchen window, and scolds the cats relentlessly whenever they venture outside.

Fred has acquired a new summer coat which appears to support the fashion statement that brown is the new black.

Fifi, meanwhile, is out all night, sleeping during the daytime on her back with all four paws in the air, with a variety of garden life trapped in her long fur.

We continue work decorating bedrooms, while outside there are more frustrating delays getting the pool-house built and the pool surround concreted. By the end of the month we are still not quite there, but tantalisingly close (see photo).

In the meantime we are encouraged by the steady trickle of paying guests, even before we have got any advertising organised.

So we have now come a full year. Our target to be up and running and the end of 12 months is more or less met, even though it is a gradual start with much work remaining to be done. We have come to realise that, with a property like this, work will never be finished: we are already identifying possible improvements for the next season.

This is the final diary entry of our year in Deux-Sèvres. After a year of hard work as builders and decorators, our new life as owners of a chambres d´hôtes business has begun well. We look forward to a second year in France as rewarding as the first.

With our first summer season is behind us, and the nights drawing in, it seems an appropriate time to respond to the hints we have received that an update is due.

And there is certainly plenty of progress to report since May.

After a relatively slow start, due to our determination to get the place finished before we went to market, our season did not really get going until July. Then it really took off.

At least by July we had a pristine swimming pool with a tiled surround (well, except for a small area at the far end that not many seemed to notice), and a pool-house that was rendered and painted (on the outside, at least). But we quickly came to realise that guests were not unduly concerned by such details: with the hot weather, the pool was a huge success and well used by all our summer guests, including children from 1 year upwards. We loved to see our guests enjoy the water, and were as proud as the parents of one three-year old who learned to swim during his stay..

It was not long before we had our first topless female sunbather. Although the pool is well screened by fencing, we thought it prudent to ask her to avoid positioning herself where she was in full view of our next-door neighbour. Now an 80 year old who behaves at times as if he were still 20, Aristide has already had one heart attack and we did not wish to cause him another one.

The rapid rise in guest numbers kept us on our toes, especially in high season when French guests arrived in strength. With some hasty improvisations the four seater dining-room table grew in length to accommodate ten or more diners, and despite some scenes in the kitchen reminiscent of out-takes from ‘Ready, Steady, Cook!’ we managed to produce evening meals that seemed to be enjoyed by all. We will not, however, be held responsible for the excess weight that some of our guests complained they had put on during their stay!

The cats adapted well to the comings and goings. Both adored the attention they received from the many cat-lovers who stayed with us. Fred particularly liked one guest´s description of him as ‘world-famous’ because of his Internet appearance, and took to sitting in the entrance hall where he could meet and greet new arrivals. Some guests would even ignore the offered drinks and help with luggage on arrival, and insist on meeting their real hosts, the world famous Fred and his lovely assistant, Fifi. .

The new en-suites were much admired and functioned well, thanks to our plumbers. Even their high standards, though, could not cope with the exploits of an over-amorous couple on a long weekend from Paris. After their somewhat furtive departure, we discovered that they had managed to rip the entire shower tap unit off the wall (speculation on how it happened is still a popular dinner-table topic). Typically, the room was booked for the same night, and if that wasn’t enough, the next family arrived early, to find us and our friends Jon and Helen, who had (perhaps unwisely) chosen that weekend to stay, careering about in search of a strong, fast-acting fix for the taps. Despite our best efforts the shower was out of commission overnight, so we offered the family the use of the shower in the adjoining bedroom which had not been used before. This seemed a good idea – until they took their showers. Just as we were preparing for dinner, water began cascading into the dining-room. The resulting scenes were close to farce as the four of us scrambled for buckets and mops to clean up before any guests appeared, while still trying to get a meal ready on time. To this day we like to think that they had no idea what chaos their quick shower had caused downstairs.

But there were also plenty of tranquil moments, when we could sit outside in the warm summer nights with our guests, accompanied by two glow-worms who quickly acquired the names Gilbert and George. Or watch a hedgehog trundling across the lawn past Fred who, in his characteristic statue-like pose, pretended it did not exist. Fred would have been wise to adopt the same tactic with a praying mantis which appeared in the garden during the autumn. On that occasion his curiosity earned him a sharp smack on the nose, something he is not used to from a three-inch long green thing.

During the autumn our guests were predominantly house hunters, and we shared their enthusiasms and disappointments as they returned each day from another gruelling round of house viewing. Many were extremely curious about the inner workings of French houses, and we were a little surprised to find ourselves giving detailed explanations of how our sewage system works - not something we had envisaged sharing with guests!

So we have reached late autumn. The sun is low in the sky, the nights are clear and frosty, and in the shops singing Santas lurk in corners. In contrast to last year, the house is now extremely warm, with a new wood burning stove in the dining-room proving very popular with the cats. But in other ways we have a curious sense of ‘déjà vu’. We have resumed decorating the remaining bedrooms, while outside the garden has been dug up to install a major new drainage system to cope with next year´s planned expansion. One year ago a large yellow digger was ripping up the garden to install the swimming pool: the only difference this time is that the digger is a rather fetching shade of lilac. And there is Aristide in the garden with his bucket, collecting worms for next season´s eel fishing. As the French would say, ‘plus ça change’…..

The last review left us with the familiar scene of the garden being ripped up: happily, the drainage was successfully installed, leaving a garden that was reasonably level, albeit looking like a ploughed field over the winter. The only hitch comes on the final morning, when the terrassier accidentally severs the mains water pipe with his digger. Within minutes we had a second swimming pool forming beside the house, and an urgent request to contact the rather grandly named ‘president of the water syndicate’. It was not a serious enough problem, however, to interrupt the sacred ‘heure de déjeuner’. The president finally arrives at two o’clock, maps in hand, and amid much hand-shaking he joins the terrassier and our next door neighbour to admire what had now become a tributary to the river Boutonne. Eventually the local plumber is called and the leak fixed in minutes. The president then pats Ianthe on the cheek, and with a beaming smile announces that there would be no charge for the repair.

We spend Christmas with guests, which gives us a wonderful excuse to make Christmas puddings and mince-pies, and to dig out long-forgotten Christmas decorations. The local choir with which Ianthe now sings enjoys our Christmas offerings: the mince-pies are declared ‘super-bon’, even though the French are totally flummoxed by the fact that mincemeat isn´t meat.

After a relatively mild winter we suffer an exceptionally cold February, with the temperature one night plummeting to an all time low of minus 6 degrees. The early Easter means that Mardi Gras falls in February, yet another excuse for the local children to dress up and solicit sweets from every household. It is now standard in French primary schools for children to be introduced to English from the age of five, and our young neighbours are keen to practice what they had been taught. “In the morning, you say ‘good morning’. In the afternoon, you say ‘good afternoon’…”.

In between visits by our regular guests, we take the opportunity of the prolonged cold to finish decorating the house: the last two bedrooms are completed, and then the kitchen. It gives us great satisfaction to tick each room off the list. Another small but significant step is to get a sign up outside the house (at long last!): last summer several visitors commented on the low profile we appear to keep, although everyone in the village now knows how to direct people to Chez Freddie. Fifi is making a determined bid for a change of name (see photo), but we remain convinced that ‘Chezfifi’ might attract a somewhat dubious clientele.

Eventually Spring arrives, and the garden begins to turn green again. Work starts on the outbuilding that will become our home for the summer, and, typically, as soon as the old roof was removed we have a week of heavy rain. The French menuisier and his team persevere, however, refusing to leave even when it is tipping down, and within a week we have a new roof with beams carefully sculpted to match the old style. In the interim, the lack of a roof gave us the opportunity for a unique view of the garden (see photo).

In late April the sun reappears to lift our spirits. As well as cuckoos, the first golden orioles are heard. We also have the pleasure of seeing a hoopoe on our lawn, and hearing a nightingale singing in the hedgerows. By mid-May the crickets have started their chorus, and lizards are beginning to emerge, although many are now tail-less after an encounter with Fifi. We are now in the final stages of preparation for summer lets, and with the rising temperature the swimming pool is looking more and more inviting…

Our preparation for the summer rental season becomes a frantic rush as the weeks fly by, and our list of decorating, gardening and clearing out jobs seems endless. Help is summoned, both locally and in the shape of Richard´s father, who does a sterling job getting the garden into shape. When our first guests arrive, the house is spotless, the pool fully tiled and with a new shower/loo installed, the drive newly gravelled, and we are in a breathless heap in the cottage surrounded by a jumble of possessions.

After such a manic five weeks, we suddenly find ourselves with unaccustomed leisure time. With guests relaxing in the house and garden, DIY is definitely off the agenda (save the occasional emergency repair), and gardening can only be done when guests are out. This happens relatively rarely, as they seem to find the place much to their liking. As one guest put it: “Why should we go out when we’ve got everything we want here?” So we begin to enjoy the lazy days of summer, sharing the occasional bottle of wine with our guests in the evenings, or a morning cup of coffee and joke swap under the willow tree outside the cottage.

We have many fond memories of the summer, for example the family ‘Olympic Games’ on the newly-grassed play area .

By this time we had accumulated a wide range of outdoor and indoor games, which were enjoyed as much by the adults as by the children (in the case of the Scalectrix, the children barely got a look in). We are also entertained by children’s boat races on inflatables in the pool, and by treasure hunts by ‘Freddie´s team” versus ‘Fifi´s team” .

The cats adapt effortlessly to the new domestic arrangements, making occasional visits to the main house to make the acquaintance of successive guests. Fifi decides to offer a new service in decorative arts, with tasteful paw-print designs on guests’ cars.

Too soon, however, we discover Murphy´s Law of house letting: domestic appliances that have worked perfectly all year will suddenly break down when made available to guests. We are fortunate in being able to summon help quickly: when the washing machine packs up, our local plumber (who installed all the en-suites) arrives the same day. His solution is to tip the offending machine on its side, hit it with a spanner a few times and call it a ‘putain’ (obviously a technical term). It has worked perfectly since.

August sees a change of pace as we revert to B&B. The first night is the hardest: apart from finding that nothing in the kitchen is where we left it, we find that only two burners on the gas oven are working, while the electric oven has given up altogether. Cooking an evening meal for 14 people is therefore something of a challenge. We stagger through, and by 11pm have loaded up the dishwasher with some relief, only to find that it isn´t working either. Fortunately all these problems are rapidly put right, and we are able to get back into the swing of things.

At the end of August the guests leave, and we greatly miss the sound of conversation and laughter drifting through the cottage windows on a warm summer´s evening. Despite the improvised facilities, we love our ‘posh camping’ in the cottage. We are so reluctant to leave it that only the autumn cold of late September drives us back into the main house. Ironically, we then enjoy a glorious ‘Indian Summer’ that lasts until the end of October, enabling us to sunbathe by the pool in shorts and tee-shirts. We are only sorry that we do not have more guests to share it with.

Our Indian summer gives way to a long and cold winter, in common with the rest of Europe. We are forced to move back into the main house, as the small stove we have installed in the cottage is unable to compensate for the lack of insulation upstairs. We start work on the cottage in November, repointing interior walls in gloves and overcoats while the wind whistled through the gaps in the eaves.

Unlike the rest of France, we did not have any snow (it is still rare in this region), but the cold weather did bring some very beautiful scenes of frost-covered trees.

However, by early 2006 we began to feel as if winter would never end. In late January Richard’s father, who had given us so much help and who had spent a quiet Christmas with us, died in the UK. That was followed less than a week later by the death of one of our closest English neighbours, Bill, whose DIY knowledge had been invaluable, and who had unstintingly helped us out on occasions. Bill was buried in the village cemetery, which gave us an insight into funeral procedures in France, particularly the role of the maire. As well as acting as local registrar, our maire was closely involved in the funeral arrangements and gave enormous support to the family. It was touching to see most of the villagers present for the burial, on a bitterly cold February day.

At the end of February comes the annual celebration of Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday). The cold weather does not deter the village children from going round in fancy dress, collecting goodies from householders, and afterwards burning an effigy, or bonhomme (fortunately, not of the maire) on the village green.

The first signs of Spring come at the beginning of April. The first hoopoe is heard only a day after the first cuckoo, and the black redstarts, the male resplendent in his black and white plumage with vivid orange tail, return to take up residence in the garden. During the winter we put food out for the birds and had much pleasure in seeing how many permanent residents the garden hosts. During the spring, the stonework of the open barn hosts nests of redstarts, robins, wrens and flycatchers, who seem neighbourly enough, and unite in a cacophony of warning calls when one of the cats was nearby.

During the winter, the large willow tree on front of the cottage has a long overdue haircut, which is necessary to prevent damage to the roof. Despite a severe pollarding, it very soon grows new shoots, but not before we witness a very interesting silhouette in the spring sunshine!

As the summer season draws near, we have our usual mad rush to get the cottage habitable and the house ready for guests, although this year the list of tasks is a little less daunting. The late spring, combined with a wet May, works in our favour in the garden, as the roses look superb this year, and everything is fresh and green. By the end of May, the temperature is rising nicely, and the pool is warm enough for the arrival of our first guests.

Once our first rental guests are settled in, we are able to enjoy some of the highlights of the village social life. Not least of these is the annual ‘vide-grenier’ (literally translated as ‘empty attic’). In Cherigne this is as much an excuse to chat to the neighbours as it is to buy anything. Although these events now feature many professional traders, the villagers are out in force, selling everything from outgrown children’s toys and handicrafts to any old junk they think somebody else might buy.

In late June we welcome a new arrival to the Chez Freddie team, in the small black and white (and female) shape of Freddie 2. We had for some time been considering the possibility that Fred, our esteemed marketing director and logo, might some day wish to retire, and so had been on the lookout for a suitable successor. Little Freddie, who came from a local vet´s, bonded instantly with Fred senior. The two appeared inseparable, Fred behaving like a tolerant uncle towards his miniature replica, with only an occasional gentle smack to remind her who was boss. .

Sadly, within a few week’s of Freddie 2’s arrival, Fred senior’s health began to fail and, to our shock, he was diagnosed positive for both leukaemia and feline AIDS. While still enjoying the summer sun, he gradually faded over the following weeks, and died in early August. He has been buried in a spot he chose himself, behind the swimming pool where, in his declining days, he enjoyed listening to the voices and laughter of our guests.

So little Freddie suddenly found herself in charge of the business at the tender age of four months. While we would have liked her to have had longer with her mentor, she is evidently taking her new responsibilities very seriously indeed.

In early September our last rental guests depart, and for the first time since our arrival, we manage to take a few days holiday ourselves. In the event, we only manage 4 days, before we welcome the first of a steady stream of B&B guests throughout the autumn. They, and we, are able to take advantage of one of the warmest autumns on record, with daytime temperatures in the high 20s centigrade. The only clue that we are not still in high summer is the early arrival of nightfall.

Our warm autumn gives way to a mild winter, punctuated only by two or three days in January when the snow returns - the most we have ever seen here. We are happy to be able to keep the heating bills down, as we move back into the main house for the whole of the winter while the downstairs of the cottage is refurbished.

So once again we are back to mess and dust in the cottage as we clean and re-point the old stone walls, lay a tile floor, put up plasterboard walls and decorate (the electrics and plumbing we leave to a professional).

However, the hard slog is well worth it and we are delighted with the results. We are now able to start moving all our belongings permanently out of storage into our new home: some of which haven´t been unpacked since we moved here four years ago!

We also make an early start on the garden, but our work here is interrupted as Richard has a three week spell in hospital with blood clots. Despite the perception of the French that their medical service has deteriorated, we are still impressed by its quality. Richard’s after care in particular is excellent, with weekly visits from the district nurses.

During this period, winter suddenly turns into summer with the warmest April on record. Our summer visitors return early in the month: the cuckoo beats the hoopoe by a day or two, the redstart and black redstart seek their usual nesting places in the barn, and by the end of the month the golden oriole is regularly heard by the river. Sitting outside during the day, we can watch the buzzards drifting gracefully in the thermals; at night, we listen to the crickets and a distant nightingale.

One of our most spectacular garden visitors is a newcomer: an impressive 12-centimetre wide giant peacock moth.

These normally live nearer the Mediterranean, but perhaps global warming is bringing them further north. In any event, the richness of the wildlife here continues to amaze us, and we look forward to further interesting sightings.

The premature heat of April gives way to an unsettled summer, with more rain than we are used to, although our sheltered position spares us from the extremes of climate suffered by much of Europe. Our guests cope gamely with the rainy weather, and the indoor games and videos are much appreciated. Fortunately, everyone has at least some sunshine, and it is rewarding to see the outdoor games and bikes being used to the full. We particularly enjoy the inventive ‘jeux sans frontieres’ of one family group.

The house copes well with the influx of visitors, apart from some minor plumbing problems. Our local plumber responds promptly to our phone-calls for help, turning up at 08:30 one morning dressed in a checked shirt, shorts and bedroom slippers. It turns out that he is in fact on holiday that week, but still fixes the problem with minimum inconvenience to our guests. Nor has he lost his sense of humour: on discovering that long hair was the cause of a blocked shower, he solemnly advises us only to have guests with short hair. We respond with equal solemnity that we will amend our booking enquiry form accordingly.

Little Freddie starts to show increasing independence, spending the summer nights out, and on one occasion disappearing for three days. despite being fully mature she remains a small cat: unlike Fifi, who on a routine visit to the vet´s is declared clinically obese and required to go on a diet.

Fortunately (for us and for her), four weeks of slimming has the desired effect, and she has now regained some of her old agility.

With perverse predictability, as soon as the summer guests depart the weather settles and we have a glorious autumn. The start of September brings the return of the hunting season with the annual ‘fete de la chasse’ on St Hubert’s Day (the patron saint of hunting). As well as displays of hunting dogs and horn-blowing, the attractions include ‘guess the name of the pig’.

One local wit is overheard to comment that it can only be called ‘Sarko’ (the French nickname for President Sarkosy) – a name, strangely enough, that is not on the list.

The major event in the village this autumn is the introduction of street names (only a year late). The tasteful burgundy and cream street signs are installed by the local farmer and his assistant who are responsible for the maintenance of the village´s roads and waysides.

Our Christmas and New Year guests, both extended French families, give us an insight into how the French celebrate the festive season. The main event, as always with the French, is the meal: the garage is transformed into a temporary larder which plates of carefully prepared seafood and entrees (4 boxes of
oysters are consumed by one party). Their hospitality is extended to us, and we are invited in for a drink, although we find it difficult to sit back and let others do the fetching and carrying! Perhaps one day we will get used to being guests in our own house.

The first major event of the year is the municipal elections in March. Although the commune of Chérigné has a population of only around 250 people, it is required to have a council of at least 11 members. And the residents take their civic responsibilities very seriously: the 85% turnout puts English local elections to shame. Most of Chérigné´s council members are standing for re-election, and their names, along with new volunteers, are listed on the ballot paper. In true French style, however, residents can vote for whoever they like by adding names at will. This makes the counting process a lengthy, and public, affair, as a large crowd gathers in the Mairie to hear the votes read out. It seems that practically everyone in the village has at least one vote: some people vote for entire families, although with many villagers sharing the same surnames, family connections are baffling to the outsider. Even the vote-counters are sometimes confused: one vote has to be discounted as it is not clear which of the two Robert Nocquets in the village is intended. Three hours after the polls close, the results are finally confirmed, and celebratory glasses of wine handed round. And the outcome? A council virtually identical to the previous one: a reminder, perhaps, of the seemingly unchanging nature of life here that attracted us in the first place.

A wet spring, with unseasonably late frosts in April, has done nothing for this year’s fruit crop, but on the positive side we´re unlikely to have a water shortage this year. We start the season with the lawns lush and green (although we curse the need for twice-weekly mowing!). And for the first time, we are sufficiently well organised to get the vegetable plot going, and will hopefully be sharing the produce with our guests during the coming months. Last summer´s uncertain weather also convinced us of the need for a heat pump for the pool, so by the arrival of the first guests in May the pool is a comfortable temperature.

This year´s rental season starts almost before the warm weather, and the newly-installed swimming pool heat pump has a few teething problems. Judging by the cries of ‘Oh! Mon Dieu!’ emanating from the pool enclosure, our first French guests in May find the water a little bracing. The kids, as ever, are totally impervious. By June, the heat pump has settled down and both the weather and the water temperature are much more agreeable.

This year Chez Freddie plays host to a wide range of groups in terms of party size (4 to 13), age (from one month to over 90), and interests. The visit by an MG owners’ club coincides with the village´s ‘vide grenier’ in June, and arrangements are made with the maire for the cars to be displayed on site.

These classic models attract a lot of interest, although their owners are anxious to stress to the locals that they are most definitely not for sale!

In July, the local town of Brioux-sur-Boutonne is the starting point for a stage in the local departmental cycle race, the ‘tour 79’.

The very next day is the 14 July, and it is traditional for local communes to organise a cycle ride. Chez Freddie is hosting a party of cycling enthusiasts at this time, and they join the village of Chérigné for this event. The turnout is impressive, with children, parents and grandparents taking part. Our maire arrives on a bike that looks like a vintage World War 2 model – a far cry from the high tech machines of the previous day’s race.

The cycle ride is also a much more leisurely affair, the weather is glorious and the countryside at its most beautiful.

It is rewarding to see full use being made of all Chez Freddie’s games and facilities. As this is Olympic year, one party organises its own Olympic games in August, complete with award ceremony and singing of the national anthem (a fitting balance, perhaps, to a rather rousing midnight rendition of the Marseillaise from an earlier group). As always it is the little ones who provide the most entertainment, albeit unwittingly. Particularly touching is a makeshift cross, with a note in childish handwriting, marking the spot on the lawn where a ‘baby butterfly’ was accidentally squashed.

In late autumn, Richard leaves Chez Freddie. For some time he has felt at somewhat of a loose end now that the building and decorating work, which he found the most rewarding aspect of the enterprise, is finished. Ianthe, on the other hand, is quite happy to swap hours of tiling and plaster-boarding for the day-to-day running and routine maintenance jobs. So we decide to go our separate ways, and the business will now be run by Ianthe - ably supported by the two cats, and a team of friends and neighbours who are already helping out on changeover days.

The winter this year is consistently cold but calm, and the clear skies result in some spectacular sunsets, especially when accompanied by a ground mist that gives the river an ethereal quality. The village, as usual, is decorated with sprigs of conifer on every gate, and individual householders show considerable ingenuity in adapting everyday objects for their displays of Christmas lights.

The calm weather is briefly interrupted in February by a fierce gale that leaves the village without electricity for nearly two days. The B&B guests who are staying at that time seem unconcerned by the loss of light and heating in the house, and are very appreciative of the candles, torches and extra blankets offered. Our maire shows commendable concern for the commune by visiting every household during his lunch hour to check that everyone is coping.

The cold continues throughout April, but with frequent rain that provides perfect conditions for the fruit trees. Unlike last year, when almost nobody in the village had any fruit, this year promises a bumper harvest. The evening is the best time to enjoy the heady scent of fruit blossom, and also to listen to the nightingales whose non-stop melody is a joy to hear, until the arrival of the crickets in May almost drown them out.

During the light spring evenings some rather different sounds can be heard. Two of the lads in the village are learning to play the French hunting horn, or ‘cor de chasse’. Unlike the English hunting horn, this is a long instrument that coils round the body, and judging by the number of cracked notes is not the easiest to play. Unfortunately their efforts cause all the dogs in the village to start howling, so the two boys resort to practice sessions down by the river.

Even if the fish object to the noise, their protest is rather less vocal than that of the dogs.

With the light evenings, nocturnal visitors are more easily seen. Mitten is clearly fascinated by one of them, even though her attempts to make friends appear to be ignored.

Finally the hot weather arrives. The first of the summer fruit is suddenly ready, and all the neighbours are invited to pick the overwhelming quantities of cherries and raspberries. Any spare moments between harvesting fruit and the lawn-mowing are spent in the swimming pool, which has reached a comfortable 28 degrees centigrade without the need for the heat pump.

As predicted, this is a bumper year for all types of fruit: the plum trees are so laden that their branches break. All efforts are made to harvest this bonanza, the freezer ends up bulging, and jam-making skills are brushed up. But there is simply too much, and the majority ends up going to the birds.

By the summer the ‘vide-grenier’ season is in full swing: the popularity of these village events has not waned, and they remain as much a social occasion as an opportunity to buy and sell. Despite the turnout of the crowds, the economic recession has affected trade – buyers are much more selective, and reluctant to part with their money. Consequently, some hard bargaining can be heard at the stalls.

Other village traditions remain almost unchanged. The midsummer ‘Feu de la St Jean’ (Fire of St John) is held as usual in Chérigné. This ritual, which has its roots in pre-Christian religions, involves a procession of lanterns and a bonfire around which all the villagers dance (see photograph).

This was originally held to encourage the summer harvest, in the belief that the crops would grow as high as the flames (pretty impressive, if true). Traditionally, all the young men would then jump through the fire, a practice intended to ward off bad backs and other maladies (an important consideration, when all harvesting was done manually). But modern health and safety regulations have now intervened, and the maire puts a barrier round the fire as soon as the dancing is over (not before one or two lads have managed to keep the old tradition going, though).

In August the village organises a bicycle ride in the Marais Poitevin. This important tourist site is now fighting hard to regain its ‘Regional National Park’ label, lost some years ago due to intensive agricultural development. Considerable efforts have been made to clean up the waterways of the ‘Green Venice’ and to create a network of marked bicycle trails, to enable the visitor to appreciate the delights of this special landscape.

After the bike ride almost the entire village assembles for a picnic: being English, of course, we had forgotten that for the French this means a table and chairs, table cloth, china, and a five-course meal. Sitting on the ground with our plastic mugs and plates, we attract some pitying glances, but the locals are liberal with their offerings of home-made Pineau, the regional aperitif, and each person´s vintage must, of course, be sampled to avoid giving offence!

The summer gives way to one of the mildest autumns on record, with the result that in December the raspberries are fruiting, and the bees are out in swarms on the flowering ivy. Concern about the diminishing water reserves in the area has led to the construction of new reservoirs around the area, but heavy rainfall means that these are full almost before they are finished. There is a brief spell of cold weather during December, including half a day’s snow, but Chez Freddie’s winter guests experience a mild and very wet Christmas.

The mild Autumn gives way to a long and cold winter. In January the snow arrives - typically, just too late for the Christmas guests. The following months remain persistently cold, with a steady Easterly wind, punctuated by a violent storm in late February. This causes havoc on the Atlantic coast but little damage here, apart from blowing over a very pretty viburnum (‘boule de neige’) behind the swimming pool, which, undeterred, blooms during May from its new horizontal position.

The cold start to the spring does not alter the natural progression towards summer. The cuckoo is first heard, appropriately, on the first of April, closely followed by the hoopoe. By May the nightingale is in full spate every night, but towards the end of the month he has stiff competition from the nightly chorus of frogs and crickets.

Spring also sees the start of a new programme of work at Chez Freddie. The swimming pool is completely retiled by a local builder, accompanied by his very enthusiastic five-year old grandson.

Be reassured, little Theo’s contribution was entirely voluntary: France does have laws against child labour! Work also starts on a new games terrace which will eventually be roofed over, and will become a permanent home for the games rather than simply a new sun spot for Fifi.

As the days lengthen and the warm weather returns, we have the opportunity to meet some of the countryside’s natural producers at work. A neighbour takes us to see his beehives in the local woods, and it is a pleasure to watch him calmly moving around the hives without any special protective clothing, while the bees come and go as usual.

This is truly a chance to appreciate the slow, measured way things are done in the countryside – something that we don´t always appreciate in our rushed daily lives.

We would like our guests to be able to sample as much locally produced food as possible. Sample pots of honey are available in the kitchen, and can be bought from the producer. The fruit trees promise a plentiful crop again this year, and the vegetable plot is well stocked with plants, many donated by neighbours, even if the weeds are also flourishing!

In July a brief heat-wave greets the first high-season guests, who are from Sweden. They cope admirably with what for them is a dramatic change of climate. The swimming pool is unsurprisingly the centre of attraction, as it continues to be with successive guests who enjoy more temperate, but still sunny and dry, weather. What is striking is the large number of younger visitors this summer, the record being a party with eight youngsters under the age of six (a neighbour commented that it sounded like a chicken farm!).

Our neighbour’s honey is much appreciated. We are even able to arrange a visit to the hives for a little girl who is studying bees at school. Our guests are also invited to an evening ‘apero’, during which they can sample other local specialities, such as goat´s cheese, ‘grillons charentais’ (a kind of meat paste), and, of course, ‘Pineau de Charentes’, the local aperitif. In addition, some of the more adventurous manage to find edible produce from the jungle that was once our vegetable plot.

A certain amount of building work continues on an extension to the cottage, whenever this can be done without causing disturbance. This will provide more accommodation for Ianthe, her French partner Jean-Michel, and a growing family of animals. In addition to the cats, we now have Merlin, an elderly dog belonging to Jean-Michel´s mother. She is too frail to cope with him on her own, so he lives permanently with us. During the summer he causes us some concern when he begins to act rather strangely (see photo). It turns out that he has suffered a stroke, and is now on permanent medication which keeps him happy, if a little gaga.

In October we have a new addition to the family, when Ianthe finds a wild kitten in the village that is starving to death. With some special feeding, little Bibi, as we call her, makes a rapid recovery and is now a lively and affectionate young lady.

Her arrival seems to have brought harmony between the other two cats, Fifi and Mitten, to the extent that the three will now share the bed together. This doesn’t leave much room for us – thankfully, the dog sleeps downstairs.

In December the locals go to great lengths to brighten up the village with Christmas lights. There is probably an element of competition as to who has the best decorations: in our view, the prize goes to neighbours who have a goat farm on the edge of the village.

In contrast to last year, this year’s winter is mild and wet. This causes us problems with the new extension to our cottage, as we discover that it fills up with water every time it rains. Consequently, a new drainage channel is dug during the spring, so once again we have the sight of diggers destroying part of the garden (see photo, in which Jean-Michel wonders how we will ever get rid of the mud).

Fortunately, a neighbour just happens to have some topsoil to spare, so we are able to recreate the lawn in time for the warm weather.

Typically, no sooner is the work finished than we have the driest and hottest spring on record, with only half a day’s rain during the months of April, May and June. By the end of April it feels like high summer, with crickets and frogs singing through the night, and the lawn rapidly going brown.

This year, as usual, we have a programme of improvement work during the spring. This includes levelling the play area, which has become increasingly bumpy over the years. The work is duly done (see photo), but the drought means that reseeding a new lawn in time for the summer season is something of a challenge (watering restrictions having been swiftly imposed in the region).

However, a change in the weather comes in July, with a week of almost non-stop rain. By high summer the whole garden is green again, looking more like it usually does in May.

There is the usual last minute rush to get the preparation work finished before the start of the season. The cats, as usual, do their best to help and supervise (see photo: Fifi evidently thinks that the table tennis net could do with a little stretching).

Inevitably, a few ‘nice to do’ jobs never get done, but the house and garden are nevertheless ready in time to welcome the first guests in June.