35,000 Feet In The Air

On the 6.30am Flight Gatwick – Toulouse

We bounded out of bed at 4am to lovely day and zoomed down to Gatwick in record time, just 45 minutes from the time we left home to parking the car.  I commented to David that ‘one of these day’s we’ll come a cropper leaving so little time to check in’, but thankfully, today wasn’t that day.  Its spring bank holiday weekend in the UK and miraculously the weather is set to be generally sunny, even more miraculously (for us) the weather prediction in France has improved dramatically during the week from a forecast for full on rain every day, to rain today only with the rest of the long weekend looking sunny and fine.  We have some friends arriving this evening, George and Sabrina – they will be with us in time for drinks.

I’ve got plans this weekend, big plans!  By the time we leave on Monday I aim to have laid turf to the right and the left of the gates at the back of La Martinié as based on a conversation that I had with Steff earlier in the week it appears that the box of grass seed that I sprinkled the last time we were there hasn’t come to anything.  The conversation went like this – ME:  “How’s my grass growing to the right and left of the gates Steffie” STEFF: What grass?   ME: Oh, I poured two boxes of grass seed down a month ago…. STEFF:  Well there’s no signs of it!

Last time we were there I spent hours raking over the soil, moving a ton of bricks, rubble and other objects from the ground, pulling up weeds and doing everything that the grass seed box told me to do before liberally sprinkling the stuff, only for it to remain an unsightly brown bit of earth.  So, instead of hiring the usual car I’ve hired David a van to drive with the intention of filling it with lovely turf for this weekends “Turf & Lavender Project”.  Steff has given me rough (very rough) directions of a turf place in Toulouse so that is to be our first port of call after leaving the airport. I guess it would have been good to actually measure the area to be turfed before buying it but David and I have never let a small detail like that deter us from jumping the gun and buying whatever it was we needed without knowing exactly how much was required!  So, watch this space for what I hope will be a dramatic improvement to the outside of our house.

Other excitements this weekend is the delivery of a lovely new rug for our bedroom following the demise of the previous one after a log hopped out of the wood-burner and burned the edge and all the fringes off, and the garage, which Allen is building for us being up to roof height.

David has spoken to Yan this week and asked him to bring the pool out of its winter state, add a load of nice friendly chemicals and put the pump on again, so at some point over the weekend the water will begin to clear and gurgle, and will remain gurgley and sparkly until its put to bed for the winter.

I love going down to La Martinié at this time of year when spring has really taken hold, the weather is warming up, the bistros and boutiques in Cordes are open and La Martinié begins to come out of her winter slumber.  This time of year is our peace and serenity time, before we have to hand La Martinié over to our summer guests and say goodbye to her until the autumn.  But less of that, we are about to land and I’m hoping that in a few hours time we will be heading for La Martinié with a van full of luscious green turf.

Lavender & Lawns

Wow, time doesn’t half fly in this part of the world.  It’s that time again, the day has arrived when we will be preparing the house for the holiday guests that are due to arrive next weekend, and then we will head off to Toulouse and back to the UK.  This visit has definitely been too short given how long it’s been since our last time here.

The morning was spent in a flurry of cleaning and tidying activities.  David finished off his pruning and cleaned some windows while I huffed and puffed about with the preparations inside the house.  Before we came away, a friend of ours commented “you are so lucky having a holiday home”….!  I replied “HOLIDAY… you must be joking… it’s more housework –  just a different country, with a different coloured hoover!”  But, that said, we ARE lucky, although if we actually needed/wanted a holiday we would have to book somebody else’s ‘holiday home’!

Later, I walked around to the lane to have a look at last nights gardening efforts and was pleased to find that my lavender plants are all pretty much in a straight row.  I took a box of grass seed with me and scattered a ton of it on my newly dug and raked earth, there’s lots of rain forecast next week and for once I was happy about that.  My new little project looks a bit bare at the moment but I’m hoping that by the next time we come my grass will have grown and I’ll be greeted with a lawn to match Barbara and David’s next door, with flourishing lavender, the likes of which you’d have to go to Provence to find.  I’m also hoping that by then David will have stopped chuntering on about how lovely the lilies were and how I should be shot for pulling them all out!

At 1pm we sat down at the table outside to a lunch of ham, mozzarella, tomato’s, pate, bread and red wine (yes, very French).  We’ve often tried this combination back in the UK but it just doesn’t work quite as well… must be something to do with the lack of ‘World Heritage’ view of Cordes sur Ciel or something! The weather has turned much milder since we arrived on Friday and although there was rain threatening it was really quite pleasant.

We actually left on time today and although we aren’t officially meant to be back until the start of May we vowed to sneak a little visit in sometime in April if we can.  I’ve got a few more things up my sleeve for my new garden, and then I plan to do the same with the bare patch of brown earth to the right hand side of our gates.  I wont write here what my plans are as I know that David will read this blog, but suffice to say, watch this space and message to David “Can you stop going on about those flippin lilies now?!”

The Slaying Of The Lillies

I woke up with a red face from my doze in the sun yesterday, because despite the chill of the wind, the clear air up at La Martinié meant that I’d got a face-full of fierce spring sunshine.  Hurrah, my first tan of 2013 achieved while hiding under a blanket and wearing a thick overcoat, fluffy socks and a woolly ski hat!

David and I went down to Cordes this morning for a few bits and pieces from the market.  I ended up chatting to a stall-holder, who 10 years ago, had moved away from the UK and had settled in Gaillac. He and his wife make a meagre living from selling homemade snacks at the various local markets.  He told me that his brother is a high-flying corporate lawyer in The City and is jealous of his simple living, and that despite not being able to afford to have central heating put into his house in Gaillac he would rather freeze each winter than leave.  A sentiment that I totally understand, although I’ve not yet reached the point of being prepared to freeze in order to live in France – it’s only a matter of time!

At the market, I bought 11 lavender plants with the intention of transforming our current brown earthy patch outside the wall of La Martinié into my very own piece of Provence.  David and I both have garden envy having seen our next-door neighbors newly grassed brown earthy patch, which was planted and has grown a treat since our last visit.   There can’t be a finer lawn in the whole of France than next doors so I’ve decided to up our game and transform our patch into something fabulous – hence the 11 lavender plants for starters.

After handing over the princely sum of 28 Euros for my lavender, David and I went to sit outside the bar opposite the market, and had a couple of café crèmes while I plotted my landscaping.

Thankfully, the temperature is up from yesterday, it felt pleasantly mild and while David carried on his cull of the bushes and trees in the court yard I began raking and digging my future lavender and lawn area. At 4pm I was saved from this by Allen, Steff and Tiggy who came to visit with their gorgeous dog Jasper, and we all congregated in the kitchen for tea and naughty cakes. David and Allen agreed a schedule of works for the open, barn style garage, lock up and wood shed that we are having built around the back of the house.  The materials have been on site since November but due to the cold of the winter and then the rainy start to spring, work hasn’t really began.

By the time our visitors left we only had an hour or so of day- light left which meant that I finished the job in the dark, albeit with a glass of rosé in my hand.  David had a semi breakdown at the fact that I had dug up a row of wild lily bulbs in order to put my lavender in – at that point it was still too light for me to blame the dark on my apparent murder of the lilies.  My last lavender plant went in just as the last of the light disappeared.  I went in doors hoping that I’d managed to plant them in a straight row and wouldn’t need to dig them all up again at first light!

New Brown Earth Minus Lilies But With Lavender

Old Brown Earth With Hidden Lilli Bulbs

Reunited – Part 2

So.  We arrived at Toulouse to a chilly 2 degrees, but the sky was blue and unlike in England, the sun was shining.

We decided to make the most of the lovely weather and rather than do our usual large shop at the supermarket in Gaillac we voted to pick up something from Paella Pepito and head straight home.  Paella Pepito is in Gaillac, (opposite the large E.Leclerc supermarche),  They cook 3 or 4 dishes each day, such as Paella (obviously), Lamb Tagine and Cous Cous, Boeuf Bourguignon and rice, Chicken Chasseur, and you just pitch up, make your choice and head off home with a gorgeous home cooked dinner that you just stick into the oven and heat up.  Yes, this is lazy with a capital ‘L’ but on the day that we arrive in France when we have been up before the birds, it’s heaven on a stick knowing we have a home cooked dinner to look forward to without the hassle of actually cooking it.

Today we went really mad and bought Paella for lunch and Lamb Tagine for dinner.  We ignored the pull of E.Leclerc and set straight off for Cordes and lunch in the garden – albeit with a couple of layers of clothes to keep out the VERY brisk breeze – ok, howling wind.

As we drove in the direction of Cordes, through the Gaillac vines which all stood stark and bare against the icy blue sky I just had this overwhelming urge to cry!  God only knows what it was all about… I was just so overcome with emotion, could hardly breath or speak … I’ve been away from this place that I love SO much for over three months and as we whizzed past the vineyards I just felt this huge sense of relief, like I was ‘coming home’.  For anybody driving towards our house, I highly recommend you listen to the latest album by Florence And The Machine – Ceremonials… loudly – I also recommend a hanky or two as the combination of the vines and this album is highly evocotive after an early morning start!!

The feeling intensified as I got my first eyefull of Cordes, and more so as we drove up our lane.   There stood Maison La Martinié with her gorgeous honey colored stone and blue shutters, exactly as we had left her.

The weather hasn’t been good enough for Allen to make any progress on the open barn style garage we are building around the back and so that looked pretty much as it did when we left in November.

Around the front of the house though I saw that our lavender bushes have not only survived the winter but are in rude health and are all geared up to look amazing this summer.  The palms in the pots all looked happy, we have Winter Pansies out and of course, on such a lovely day our view of Cordes was clear and no less stunning than it has been the other hundred time’s we’ve seen it.  Each and every time we arrive and I look at that view my reaction is always to ask myself “how did I ever get to be this lucky”…

Inside there wasn’t so much as a suggestion that a spider or a mouse had been to visit, no water leaks and even our broadband was working.  Our house had taken care of itself beautifully, just as I’d known that it would.

Having satisfied himself that all was in order David opened a bottle of rosé champagne and we toasted our return.

View Of Cordes Sur Ciel In The Background

Ok, so it was as windy as hell but we pulled the outside table into a corner of the courtyard, (we didn’t have a courtyard this time last year, we were open to the lane) and found that we were nicely shielded from the wind.

Lunch

Our Paella and rosé went down a treat so we decided a little snooze was in order and pulled out the Day-Bed that we bought last summer, the one that we bought while it was hammering down with rain and which so far we haven’t even had chance to sit on.  Today, we pilled it up with cushions, brought the throws from the lounge, and buttoning up our coats we settled down for that most decadent of institutions… ‘The Rosé Induced Siesta’.

Snooze Heaven

I woke up, to see David emerging from the studio wielding a very large saw, heading for the trees on the courtyard where he proceeded to give them a very severe hair cut.

Our plan tomorrow is to spend the whole day gardening as the weather is forecast to be sunny and bright.  More lunch and another snooze is on my agenda, while ‘Saw Man Sellars’ has his eye on some more ‘light’ pruning.

The day ended with us eating our Lamb Tagine in front of the lounge fire before heading off to bed, where the log-burner in our bedroom was also roaring.  I fell asleep vowing NEVER so spend three months away from this house ever again.

Reunited

07.35am

YAYYY!!  The day has arrived; we are going back to Maison La Martinié.  The last time we were there was for David’s birthday weekend at the end of November last year.  Ever since buying La Martinié in September 2010 we have usually managed to be there, on average about once a month – apart from the summer months when it is rented out.  Being away for so long makes me nervous of what horrors we’ll encounter when we arrive later on today.

During the early days of buying La Martinié we would spend the winter months there doing all of the work necessary to ready her for our summer guests.  Short of doing the proposed extension, we’ve done about as much as we can inside the house for now and so this winter, we’ve chosen to spend our weekends at home with the dogs and cats, and with our friends rather than freeze our butts off in France.  The climate in England and our part of France isn’t very much different between the months of December and early March and with David being self employed we decided to keep him in work and getting paid during the colder months so that we could spend the time in France when the weather is warmer.  March in France is usually as warm as April in the UK, May more like June and then the summer months just go off the scale.

So, here we are, on the 7.25am out of Gatwick, flying towards our beloved Maison La Martinié and wondering what the hell we will find after being away for so long!

Will we have a repeat of the dead deer in the pool … spiders the size of our dogs, an army of comfortable, warm mice all spending the winter inside, the relatives of the poor Praying Mantis that I once inadvertently maimed waiting to avenge his unfortunate loss of limb – will the garden be so overgrown that we have to machete our way in….. or will our lovely house just be sat there as serene and breathtakingly beautiful as usual – totally unfazed by our long absence.  I’d put money on that being the case.

Each time that David and I leave La Martinié I usually look back on her as we are driving down the lane and say “I’d like to think that she has some friendly ghosts there to keep her company while we are gone”.  I don’t really think that’s the case though.  Maison La Martinié has been standing guard on our hamlet for over 220 years, the first house you arrive to on our side of the lane, with her unsurpassed view of Cordes Sur Ciel to keep her company.  She is as self-assured and strong as she is beautiful and while there might be the odd spider or overgrown bush waiting for us the one thing I’m certain of is that she has taken care of herself over the winter and no major catastrophe will have occurred in our absence.   Oh God, David is SO going to murder me for tempting fate if we arrive to find burst pipes and a torrent of water coming down the stairs!

This early morning start has made me fanciful and prone to rambling by the looks of things!  I’d best shut up, drink my coffee and save my joy at going back to the house which holds my heart until we get there and find she has survived the winter in tact.  More later.

A Fishy Tale

YESssssss…. I’ve CRACKED it – the secret to a hangover free flight to France is simple – drink GIN the night before rather than wine!  I’m SO cheesed off at being woken up at Stupid O’clock to go to La Martinié feeling like death, that last night when Jacky our house-sitter arrived we stuck to the Bombay Saphire, and voila this morning no hangover.  There might even be a more obvious solution but nothing springs to mind…

Today is David’s birthday and for the second successive year we find ourselves on a plane.  Last year we flew to Dubai on his birthday, this year is far more exciting as we are spending it at La Martinié.   Not so exciting was the niggling worry about the contents of my hand luggage as I had bought David a very stylish shaving kit from Geo Trumper, the upmarket gentlemen’s grooming outlet in London.  When I’d wrapped and packed this into my hand luggage I’d forgotten to check whether I was allowed to take a posh razor through security and now, upon arriving at Gatwick I had visions of having to unpack it all in front of David and leave it behind.

Meanwhile though as well as the non-hangover, the morning got off to a great start, when upon arriving at Gatwick we were (for some reason) picked out from the crowd while heading for security and invited to go though the ‘Business Class’ section.  I swaggered through and informed David that clearly, my making an effort and putting on make-up, heals and a very fetching (though not very warm) coat was the reason for our special treatment.  My Victoria Beckham moment was ruined upon noticing that the next people to join us were studenty types sporting warm Woolley cardies, ruck sacks and flip flops, and definitely no make up!

I sent David though the scanner first and then loitered so that I could have a quiet word with the nice security scanning man about the lethal weapon contained in my bag.  Taking David’s que, who told him “just to let you know I have some wall-ties in my bag” I leaned over, smiled brightly, and so that David wouldn’t hear whispered “just to let you know I have a razor in my bag”.  I thought he looked a bit taken aback which was probably due to the dazzling smile and wink that I’d given him and so I followed this with “It’s for my husband, I promise you I’m not planning on stabbing the pilot with it”.  This could have gone either way but I was let through and my surprise birthday pressie was safe.

We arrived in Toulouse to sunshine and an icy cold blue sky, with an even icier wind blowing straight down from the snow capped Pyrénées that we’d seen from the plane.  I was FREEZING – My glamorous queue jumping coat had been a BIG mistake.

We headed straight up to E.Leclerc in Gaillac to do some shopping before nipping across to Paella Pepito (www.paellapepito.com) to pick up some homemade lamb tagine and couscous for dinner tonight.  This place really is a little gem full of gorgeous smells and dishes, all freshly prepared and displayed in massive dishes in the shop – a perfect alternative to cooking or eating out on the night we arrive in France.

Paella Pepito
www.paellapepito.com

With tonight’s dinner in the bag (literally) our thoughts turned to lunch, a birthday lunch.  It’s a bit of a bummer with both of us having winter birthdays, as our choice of restaurants in this part of France is limited after the main tourist season finishes.  As we were already in Gaillac we thought we’d just head into the town center and see what was open.  As it turned out, everything was open so we chose a bustling little bistro on the square, which we’d never tried before.

Inside was warm and convivial, it had jolly tablecloths and a nice looking Plat du Jour, which consisted of something that we couldn’t quite see – (reading blackboards from a distance used to be so much easier) but which definitely involved chorizo. “Oooo fab” thought I, “I LOVE chorizo”.  We both ordered this along with a pichet of rosé.

Notice the grimace!!

This time last year we were enjoying lunch at “The Yacht Club” in Dubai but right now there was nowhere I’d have rather been… until our lunch arrived…!  A plate full of unidentified stringy purple things, (no chorizo in sight) but with an awful lot of rice was deposited with a flourish and a “Bon appetite”.  After a bit of a poke about at it with our forks I said to David “well this is exciting, I just hope it isn’t fish”.  However, a tentative mouthful of it told me that it most definitely WAS fish –  of some kind – a very chewy, pungent, fishier than the fishiest fish ever fished, type of fish, which I had to wash down with a huge glug of rosé in order to swallow it.

 David was also having trouble with his but politely ate enough of it to work out that it was squid of the smelliest strongest kind.  There was no way on earth that I was going to be able to eat this but not wanting to offend the chef I then proceeded to surreptitiously hide the whole lot of it inside some napkins.  This turned into a very messy affair but while doing so I did actually find a bit of chorizo, which I wolfed down with another big slug of vino.  I was hoping to get this lot inside my handbag but David already looked mortified so I settled on arranging little bits of bread over the top of the napkin in the hope that the suspicious looking mound on my plate would be mistaken for a few scrunched up napkins and some half finished bread.  I then legged it into the loo and waited a good 10 minutes before taking a peak around the door to ensure that my plate had been cleared away!  I left David to pay and hightailed it outside, as I was sure the chef was giving me daggers.

The taste of that bloody fish stayed with both of us for the rest of the afternoon, regardless of what we did to get rid of it.

Back at La Martinié we arrived to find that Steff had been down and lit the fire in the lounge for us – bless her.  It was a gorgeous day and the garden looked amazing in her late autumn colours.

In an attempt to rid ourselves of that fish I declared it pressies and champagne time, and having no regard for the fact that it was barely 4pm produced a bottle of the rosé nectar from the fridge.

It actually took two bottles of fizz before we were ‘rid of the squid’ – I guess mouthwash would have done the same job in a 70 Euros cheaper kind of fashion… but hey!

That evening we settled down in front of the fire and ate our lamb tagine, which was just perfect.  It had been a lovely day and another birthday ticked off for David… mine’s next, not sure where we will be for it but I’ll definitely be giving the squid a miss!

Goodbye Autumn 2012

We woke up to a lovely sunny day, which was perfect for drying the washing.  I stripped our bed, stuck it in the washing machine and this was out and blowing about before 11am.  Then it was the usual mad housework fest that takes place each time we leave but more so this time due to our final Holiday guests of the season who are due to arrive from Australia in a few weeks time.  This will be our second lot of guests arriving from Australia this autumn and added to the gorgeous lady who spent her holiday here in August, (having come all the way from Ontario) means our little house is welcoming some very international travellers!

View Of Cordes From Bedroom 3

 

This morning while I cleaned, David went up for a meeting with Allen to agree on the schedule of work, which was to take place next.  The block work on he garage, wood-store and lock up storage space is due to begin.  The sooner the better given how tight things got with the building of the wall this summer – Marko barely had time to pack up his tools before the first guests were driving up the lane.  We then had to wait the whole summer until everyone had departed before he was able to continue with the building of the wall around the back of the house and finish off with the top stones.

The day flew by in a frenzy of cleaning until all too soon it was time to leave for the airport.  I’m always a little sad when we leave La Martinié at this time of year as autumn/winter is my favorite season and today is the last day of autumn 2012 that I’ll spend here.  The next time we arrive will be at the end of November, on David’s birthday and by then we will be on the countdown to Christmas, and then a new year at La Martinié.