Divine jazz

Our lovely Aussie visitors went over to Pete Churchill’s jam session at La Maison Verte yesterday, on their last night here, and were rewarded by listening to two of Britain’s finest jazz pianists (possibly the world’s) letting rip just for us. (Pete’s wife , Nikki Isles, is one of Britain’s best current jazz composers – they were both up for an award last year for ‘Best Jazz Educator of the Year’ – he won. But all in the family so who cares.) Who needs the Festival or Albert Hall when you have a Roujan. Ain’t life sweet? I still gasp at it all.
We’re screening the fabulous Australian movie ‘The Castle’ here at the Roujan Roxy (aka Le Couvent) on Wednesday night for his singing course. What will the new Americans arriving on Wednesday think of all this? Lord, lord, our Trip Advisor ratings may plummet – or soar. Who knows, C’est la vie. We shall find out.

Phew, the bees have flown

After a few days' worry the bees have disappeared. I read on the internet that honey bees swarm, laden with honey, and scouts go off to find somewhere suitable to make their hive - a sort of B&B search. Once found the vast majority clutter off to establish their hive, along with the queen. A few dim and greedy bees get left behind, busily lapping up the honey drips in the arms the Madonna, but die over the subsequent few days, unable to survive without the rest of the colony. Sad but sweet.

Virgin honey

A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm of bees in July isn't worth a fly.

Oh dear, three days ago the skies blackened above the head of the statue of the Virgin Mary on our roof. I thought Roujan had suddenly become Surrey on a Sunday morning with every lawn-mower buzzing busily. But no, a huge swarm of bees was circling looking for a place to make their hive. I fear they've settled on the crook of Madonna's arm. I'm no expert so I really have no idea. The vast majority disappeared, but there is still quite a number of bees buzzing around.

I asked M Descouens, the village bee man, what I should do. He looked horrified and said he couldn't go on our roof. His wife concurred. He must be about 85. I hoped he might be able to give advice from the safety of the ground, but the best he could come up with was 'call the pompiers'.

I haven't called them yet. What am I going to do with a load of hay?

Feisty hen

Hooray. St Ivel proved mightier than Ali and I, resisting all attempts to continue with the injections. Despite two pairs of hands and a towel to wrap her up, Ivy managed to wrestle free, so we, rather pathetically, gave up. We figured that if she was strong enough to defeat us she was probably strong enough to live. They've all finished the water-borne antibiotics and are on splendid form, including Ivy. As soon as my camera battery's recharged (needs antibiotics too) I'll take a snap and whoosh it to this post.

Are there no doctors in the house?

We're just back from the vet's. Poor St Ivel the hen was looking rotten over the weekend and I thought she was egg-bound. We tried dunking her in warm water (trick given on the internet) to no avail. Not surprising really, as the vets decided she has peritonitis. She's had a shot and I've had instructions to inject her every day for five days. The other hens are being treated in their water too. Now I've never given an injection to anything before, so I approach this with trepidation.

The two guests who left this morning were doctors. I wish they were still here.

Wednesday means Clermont Market

At the moment we have some guests from Australia and the UK who are old friends and have met up here to share a week together. This morning they're off to the market in Clermont l'Herault and then on the St Guilhem le Desert. Of course they have no idea of the lusciousness that awaits them. The market will be full of strawberries, asparagus, cheeses, hams, sausages and fish, not to mention loads of dodgy clothes and handbags as seems the norm for all markets these days.

And when they arrive in St Guilhem they'll be in one of the most beautiful villages in France. Lucky them.

Cherries and Stoolball

Well the season has well and truly started. I'm up at 6.15 each day to take the dogs to the vineyards and prepare guests' breakfasts. This morning it is beautiful, like so often. It's still slightly cool at that time so I'm able to cycle the dogs without wrecking the work of the earlier shower. This morning I picked a bowl of wild cherries for breakfast from a tree in the vineyards.


Last weekend we had a fantastic team of Stoolball players here. We managed to haul together a team to play a couple of matches against them. I guess you may never have heard of this game as it's really only played in Kent and Sussex in England. But it's fantastic fun and playable by all ages. Have a look at the National Stoolball Association site for details, and here for a full match report. It was a noisy and jolly weekend as the team filled the house and they must have enjoyed it almost as much as us because they've already booked to come back next year.

Hot & floral

We've been working our socks off (right down to vest & shorts too) in the garden and it's looking pretty good. The irises have been spectacular but are almost over, only to be replaced by roses, ceanothus, arum lilies, and bignonia campsis. The Banksia rose tree which is over 4 metres high looks magnificent too. And the 100 year old rose outside the office is as extraordinary as ever with huge creamy pink edged blooms. There are ample for us to put them in the guests' rooms.

Picnic in the vineyards

Each summer we try to encourage guests to leave their cars outside and take to the Le Couvent bikes. There are seven like this for you to borrow. There's really nothing more lovely than buying a baguette and some cheese, picking fresh tomatoes in the Le Couvent garden, packing a bottle of wine, corkscrew & glasses and peddling off into the vineyards with a good book and some factor 30.

It's officially summer

I know this because two things have happened. The cover came off the pool yesterday - it was 26 degrees, after all. And Hoxton the hen has taken up her summer sleeping position on the window-sill of the convent gallery.

The birds are singing their socks off too, and I've seen our resident hoopoe and Billy the bat several times already. Yesterday a kind person gave me four agaves. I'm delighted because, apparently, they are bats' great favourite. I hope Billy many-mates enjoys them. Ali's not to sure - she thinks agaves grow too big and look cactus-y.

Almost there

After a short, warm winter we are about to re-open for the summer - in two days' time. This is almost the busiest time of the year for us, preparing the house to look lovely for guests. Here's Poppy, my niece, re-oiling pool sunbeds. The pool isn't open for another month or so, but the sun's out and there are tans to be had.

Our forward bookings are fantastic, and it seems that many more people from Australia, Canada and the USA are preparing to travel this year. I assume our whopping increase in pre-bookings is down the the (blush) jolly nice ratings and comments previous guests have given us on TripAdvisor. To each and every one of you, a huge thank you and an even bigger hug. Come back soon eh? You've made Le Couvent, Roujan the most highly rated B&B in the Languedoc. Thank you. Of course, we now live in fear and dread of a rotten review from someone who'd like to knock us off our perch, but it's just making us work even more thoughtfully to ensure people have a good time.

The sun's out, the chimneys have been swept, the boiler's been serviced, the garden's full of irises in bloom, the bedrooms look lovely, the kitchen and hall have been redecorated, the bikes have been serviced, the new hen-chicks have arrived, the older hens are in full production. Now all we need is for the first-of-the-season guests to arrive. Roll on the summer!

Blue skies and bad forecasts

I've just finished preparing the hanging baskets and pots for the balconies, so naturally Meteo France tells us we're going to have arctic conditions next week. I so hope not. Here's how it looks today.

Green paint and shingle

As if painting the blue bedroom, the whole of the kitchen and starting in on the hall wasn't enough, Ali decided the dresser in the kitchen could do with a new look. So gone is the yellowing paint of fifteen years. Now it looks like it should be in the shed. I paid £10 for it in 1978 from a school where I worked. It'll look great when it's filled with home-made jams and preserves.


Meanwhile, yesterday, I hired a huge tipper truck, made several runs to the aggregate yard, then struggled to get the truck up our drive. The truck was enormous, much larger than any I'd hired before. So we now have huge scores in the road where the truck gouged out chunks whilst mounting the drive. Still, 5 tonnes is in and almost spread. The courtyard's looking a thousand times better.


Our lovely friend, Erzsi, who lives in the village, came to help shovel and rake. I'll bet she didn't sleep a wink from aching arms and back. It's extremely hard work. Thanks Erzsi!




This morning I'm off to Pezenas market to buy more plants. It was 27 degrees here yesterday. It can't last, but it feels incredibly summery. It's great for starting off the plants early so we'll just pray there's no frost.

We re-open for the summer at Easter - book now while the flights are sooo cheap. 00 33 467 24 64 37

RyanAir - yukky but cheap airline. Travels from Stansted, Luton and many other airports to Montpellier, Perpignan, Carcassonne & Nime - all within 1.5 hours from Le Couvent

Eurostar/TGV - lovely superfast train, loads of hand luggage and not much use of fossil fuels, but probably more expensive - catch it via Eurostar in London, one platform change in Lille, then the TGV all the way here to either Montpellier, Agde or Beziers - all less than 45 minutes from Le Couvent.

Independent reviews of Le Couvent with Tripadvisor, just so you know what others think.

And a bit of inspiration for an insignificant Wednesday in February.

'Tis the season to be busy, tra la la la la, la la la la

Having said the blue bedroom was no longer going to be blue, we've changed our minds. It looks lovely in the summer light. So here are Freddie (aka Justin) and Ali up ladders a-plastering and a-painting.

Last night nephew Josh & I went to a talk about Mediterranean gardening in Beziers. Josh is 14 so I wasn't hopeful that he'd bear up to someone droning on about plants, but it was clear enough and short enough at just over an hour. Then we bought a fantastic book - Kitchen Gardens of France - which led him to proclaim divinely beautiful vegetable plots totally cool. His summer veg box scheme looks a go-er if he keeps up this enthusiasm.

Meanwhile the hens are coming back into lay. One of them had a bit of a lie-in the other morning. I wonder if she was the one that laid the odd-one-out in the photo. It's a tear-jerker, and enough for an omelet.

The Six Nations Cup Rugby's happening at the moment, and we're able to see all the matches on ordinary french telly (unlike Ali's family in Oz where it's on the pay-for channels only). I'm dying for the Rugby World Cup to arrive here in France at the end of the summer. We have tickets to see matches in Montpellier, and B&B guests who are coming from Australia to go to various games. It'll be a great way to end our season. If you're planning to come to this area in September, you'd better be quick, places are getting booked up.

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?

Hands up those who like winter

Ali's on the fabulous TGV, the high speed train that whistles through France from top to bottom in very few hours. She shouldn't have been, of course, but she went to dinner in London last night and woke to find snow so deep the airports had all been closed. So, unable to bear the thought of a second night away from the lovely Languedoc, she abandoned her flight and hit the train. The photo is of Blackheath Church in London this morning. It's from the BBC website and was taken by Maurice Tunney - thanks.

I spent the morning working on the Deux-Pieds website. This is where you can buy your last minute St Valentine's present (for your lover or yourself) - the adoption of a dozen vines. It includes a complete package of details about your vine, a soil sample, a dozen wines each labelled with your name or to whomever you wish. There are lessons in blending wines and invitations to the harvest. Take a look eh?

France goes no-smoking

Unbelievably, it is now illegal to smoke in public places here in France, and in a year's time that will extend to cafes and restaurants too.

"A world is collapsing," writer Philippe Delerm wrote in a front-page ode to the cigarette in Le Monde newspaper, referring to the alluring image of the chain-smoking intellectual. "Those were good times. But nobody thought about the collateral damage."

One of the things I just loved about coming to France was the instant recognition of where I was in the world, defined by the infusion of Gauloises everywhere. I shall miss it.

Of course, giving up smoking the year before last has left me with a huge body as I swiftly went from 20 cigarettes to 20 meals a day. I no longer want to smoke, but the food thing - ah, now that's much more difficult.

Ali, in an (very successful thus far) attempt to reduce smoking moved on to roll-ups. She's an elegant woman, but rolling one's own in public is not so chic so they can be rolled in the privacy of one's home in advance. This is the tin in which they are kept.

Deux-Pieds - adopting vines in the Languedoc

I realise I haven't told you about our most recent project. With three friends we are creating a vine adoption scheme which is called Deux-Pieds giving people the chance to bury their own two feet into the soil of the Languedoc.

For a 190 Euros you can adopt 12 vines which will be labelled with your name. You will receive a certificate of adoption, an information leaflet about the parcel of land that contains your vines and a sample of soil from the vineyard. Over one year you can follow the progress of your vines via the Deux-Pieds blog to which each member of our team contributes. You'll learn a great deal about the raising of vines and the creation of wine. Ali & I have learnt more in the past four meetings of the team than we have in almost five years of living here.

During the year you will be invited to come to take part in the harvest and the blending of the wines. At the end of the year you will receive 12 bottles of wine from Domaine Bourdic where your vines are planted.

We can think of lots of people who'd like this as a gift (us included) - perhaps you do too.

Trams, Valmagne and St Pons de Mauchiens

You know, we never go outandabout during the summer. Our house is a B&B so we're here to look after the every whim of our guests. But in winter, when we're closed, we can go exploring. Last weekend we went to Perpignan, primarily to go to the flea market, but for a for a bit of a look around. No-one was about, the weather was glorious and I had the best paella ever in a wonderful old bistro called Casa Sansa which has been knocking out scrummy food since 1846.

Yesterday we toddled off to L'Abbaye de Valmagne with the lovely Alex, Ali and my belle-soeur, Michelle. On the way we passed through Montagnac and spotted a new tram for Montpellier being hauled on a magnificent truck with at least 48 wheels. It dwarfed everything around it and we could only wonder why they hadn't chosen to use the motorway.

On we bobbled in Alex's Noddy-Kangoo to the magnificent Abbaye de Valmagne - an extraordinarily beautiful Gothic and Romanesque wonder in very good repair. Well worth the visit if one reckons that a good part of the rather steep entrance fee (6.70 euros per person even in the depths of winter) goes to its upkeep. I was touched by the presence of an IKEA uplighter in the picture below.

Continuing our jolly jaunt, St Pons de Mauchiens was our next stop. It's not a very inviting name for a very beautiful ancient village. Legend has it that one of the lords of the castle owned a pack of ferocious dogs ("chien" in French) that he let loose at night. One day he arrived home late and the doors to the castle were locked. The dogs did not recognise their master, so savagely attacked his throat and tore him to pieces.

Despite the dodgy story I thought St Pons rather a kind place. Needing to top up on red wine, but being low on funds, we called in at the cave co-operative. A friendly chap filled the foil liner of a BIB (bag-in-box - yes, it's that in French) with 10 litres of perfectly quaffable wine - straight from a petrol-station type nozzle in the wall. He apologised for having to charge us 2 euros for the bag and box on top of the mere 9 euros for the ten litres of wine. Mmm, about 85 pence a litre in UK terms - including the box. Not bad methinks.

Today I'm waiting for the log man. One of two log men. Last week I ordered 3 steres of logs from one of them - a new supplier recommended by our lovely plump butcher, Frank. I'll deliver at the beginning of the week, he promised. That was ten days ago. Meanwhile, after such a long no-show, yesterday I ordered 4 steres (cubic metres) from my usual log man. He rang this morning to say he'd be here in five minutes. That was eight hours ago. The other log man's due tomorrow morning, according to his wife who pleaded with me not to cancel the order. So by the end of the weekend we could have 7 cubic metres or none. We'll see.

Ali's gone off to walk the dogs in the vineyards and find inspiration for her new blog.