Changes to the landscape - inside & out

What is it about blogging that one should feel guilty when one hasn't posted for a while. Anyway, it's because we've be doing major amounts of gardening and re-decorating. The warmer weather and longer days are here and we've just realised we re-open in six weeks' time. So, how to make Le Couvent even more beautiful?

For the past five years I've struggled to keep a section of grass in front of the 17th century part of the house. I've always thought it relaxed the eye and made it all look cooler in the blisteringly hot months of the summer. But it's been a huge struggle to keep it looking good. I've had the heat, lack of water and dogs against me. So, in the process of reflection to see what we can do to reduce our effect on climate change, I've decided to let the grass go. It's been seen off. The shingle comes in next week. It's meant moving the roses that used to be in the middle, so now they're here, where the table and hammock used to be. Josh had a little help from Kit.

Meanwhile Ali passes her days modelling a particularly fetching pair of white overalls whilst redecorating the blue bedroom. It's not going to be blue any longer, although I'm sure we'll still call it that, just to confuse guests. This is a huge disappointment to Poppy and Yvonne and John and all those people who've enjoyed the soft and faded blue. But Ali and I never really thought the room worked as well as it promised when we saw it as a wreck all those years ago. So this is the last you'll see of it like this:

Today I'm off to a wine tasting in Marseillan. It's the wine of the son of Christiane, one of our wonderful women who comes to the English class. There's a lot of good rugby on the box this afternoon, so this will be a labour of love. I'm not really given to chinking glasses at 3 in the afternoon. It's difficult not to get a bit drunk on the fumes, a fact corroborated by our friend the wine expert Rosemary George who spends her life spitting out wine.

But Christiane is a good and kind woman who, each summer, invites us to the most amazing meals in a little mazet in the middle of her vineyards. There, by the light of the moon and hurricane lamps, we have a feast. Christiane prepares it all at her home then transports it lock, stock amd barrel into the mazet which is just one room with no water, drainage or electricity. So who am I to be churlish about missing a rugby match?