If you're thinking of coming to stay at Le Couvent, Roujan or you've already made your booking, why not think of incorporating a three hour (or longer) wine tour?

Wine expert Dominic George who runs Languedoc Wine Tours will pick you up from Le Couvent, take you to some of the best domaines in the area, teach you to taste wine, organise a tasting and explain about the wine-making process, then drop you off back here - after a picnic lunch too, if you wish. What a perfect way to spend a day in the biggest vineyard on Earth.

Just let us know well in advance and we'll arrange it with Dominic.

Fresh from Australia via Paris, new guests arrived yesterday.  They're on their honeymoon and over a glass or two of Le Couvent rosé they were telling us of their short but magical time in Paris. In particular they'd been impressed by the wonderful display of multi-coloured macaroons in Ladurée .

 

Yesterday morning, by absolute chance, I had skidded into one of the two Roujan baker's seconds before they closed and bought up the last of their special of the day. What was it? Yes, a pretty box full of colourful macaroons hand-made by the baker that morning. So, as I presented the plate to our guests I looked like the most accomplished magician ever to have lived.

I know, absolutely ridiculous. After all, we're just a B&B. But you're going to buy stuff like boxer shorts and BBQ aprons somewhere, so why not from us?

Everything on the shop will be limited edition - that is, the over-printing will be changed when we've had enough of it, it stops selling, or there are complaints. So if you like something why not get it now?

We earn a bit of commission on all sales and we intend spending it on random kindnesses and senseless acts of beauty.

If you're interested take a look. Le Couvent Shop

One of my favourites is the Le Couvent, Roujan Dog T-shirt . Not sure how Kit the labrador feels about it though.

What's stoolball? It's an old English game, the fore-runner of cricket, originally played by milkmaids. You probably haven't heard of it because it's only played in Kent, East Sussex and now, Roujan. If you'd like to know more about the game you can check it out here .

Last year Ali & I made some wickets, painted them jolly colours and hauled together a team of friends and family & called ourselves the Languedoc Crocks. We were mentioned on a website and as a result the lovely Clare, captain of Causeway Stoolball Club in Kent, got in touch with us. Despite the fact that our team had played just twice Causeway was insistent on coming to play against us. It was a howling success as witnessed here .

Within moments of going home they booked to come for a long weekend again this year. So we did it all again. We had supper at Le Couvent, we went to Pezenas market, we played on the cricket pitch at St Pons de Mauchiens.

 

We laughed, we lost, we were 31 for dinner at Les Goutailles , we played again. Ali & Nicola got silly.

 

We were 36 for dinner in the vines at Chateau Mal Au Dos and then they squeezed themselves and all their bags into two people carriers and grinned their way back home to Kent. All between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. And then Clare wrote to book for next year. Hooray! What can we conjure up as a surprise then I wonder?

Thanks to all our friends and family who worked their socks off cooking and lugging stuff and providing wine, not to mention actually playing. And thanks so much to all our friends from Causeway Stoolball Club. It was fantastic. And we're going to beat you next year. 

 

The other day I was strolling with the dogs around the periphery of the newly acquired Le Couvent vineyards . As is quite usual I came across a couple of people collecting wild asparagus and taking the air.

"Are the dogs friendly Madame?"

"Absolutely" said I.

"Where is it you are from?" said the elder of the two smiling old girls.

"Roujan - the old convent and school - and we've recently bought these vineyards from M. Gineste"

"Ah, Le Couvent, you've done an excellent job there - I know it well. And we're neighbours here, because this is my land" she said sweeping her hand across some wild garrigue. "Is it you who's doing the vegetable garden?"

Bear in mind there is a sign saying that the land's private and the vegetable garden is buried right in the centre of the vineyards, pretty well-hidden and has a chicken-wire fence all round.

"Your salad, broccoli and strawberries are coming on very well" "What else are you going to plant?" she said with more than a hint of lip-licking.

It's curious. Just a couple of weeks ago I thought the water in the butt had gone down and that the plants looked already-watered. It looks as though I have a co-gardener. I do hope she has green fingers.

The weather's been disgusting today, dull, wet and dismal. Perfect for cooking up a storm or making a sorbet for supper tonight. This sorbet is soooooooo good I thought I'd share it. Don't be put off by the fact that it looks uncannily like school mashed potato, it really has an absolutely stunning flavour. Oh, and I've made twice as much in the photos as there'll be lots of us for supper.

You need: 150 ml water; 150 gms sugar; 6 limes zested; 1 glass of juice from the limes; 1 large bunch of basil

 

 

Method: In a saucepan chuck the water and sugar and bring it to the boil. Turn it down to a simmer and lob in the lime zest leaving it to simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile pound the basil to a pulp.

 

 

Remove the water/sugar/lime mixture from the heat and let it cool a bit. Throw in the lime juice and basil puree, stir it and let it infuse for about ten minutes.

Sieve the mixture into a bowl and squeeze out the remnants. The remaining liquid will look like the stuff below. Don't be tempted to throw it away even though it looks so awful.

At this point you can put it into the freezer for about 3 hours, stirring it every 30 minutes, or if you're lucky like me and have a sorbetiere or ice-cream maker you can hand it all over to that. Mine takes about 50 minutes to be ready.

The finished product - not a great look, but a flavour you'll never forget. As they used to say at the Hungry Monk in Jevington - 'Serve with a smacking of lips'

P'raps we'll make some for weary travellers when they arrive at Le Couvent, Roujan - in our opinion the best bed and breakfast in the Languedoc! Biased? Us? Surely not.

This one's for the Landseer group who are coming to stay at Le Couvent, Roujan again in a couple of month's time. It's an annual reunion of chums who've previously worked together and they've asked for us to do supper for them one evening. They've requested 'the lovely courgette soup you gave us last time'. I'd completely forgotten, but have found the recipe. Good start. I'm hoping I can encourage the courgettes to get a move on. This is how they look today, with their pals the coriander plants.

 

 

What’s interesting for us about going on holiday is not just the place one visits, but the experience of being a guest. Each year we receive hundreds of bed & breakfast guests at Le Couvent, Roujan, each one more or less stressed than the next. Both Ali and I love to watch people unwind during the course of their stay. It can take different forms; some people find recuperation in doing lots of things that are completely different from their normal lives. They go everywhere and see everything. It works for them. There are others who arrive overstrung with stress and who spend their time by the pool, or on Mother Superior’s balcony just reading or snoozing. They obviously tear about every day of their working lives and all they need is to stop.

 

 

Ali and I spent the past week in Marrakech, a noisy, bustling, hustling, vibrant and colourful city. We couldn’t have done it immediately after our season ends - we’d never have had the strength. But after a winter’s rest we were up for a bit of hectic madness, battling in the souks and being suckered into buying trashy things we didn’t need for many times their value. It was huge fun and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But towards the end we found ourselves spending longer and longer just reading in our riad. Gearing ourselves up for a busy season ahead. It was lovely watching other people do our job - watching them welcome new guests, gently finding out what they’d need to make their stay in Marrakech perfect. It was good to remind ourselves of how it feels to arrive somewhere that’s little more than a promise. It takes faith to book a holiday. Your time is preciously saved up for those days away. You just pray your hosts recognise what it is you need.

We’ll do our best to remember that when you arrive.

Yep, it's time for our hols and we're not going on the Marrakesh Express, but with rotten-ryan-air. We're off for a week and lovely Jamie & Tara are coming to look after the house and menagerie.

I'm taking my darling Mac laptop (who's called Scipio) so I can check mail - this is the time when lots of bookings come rolling in. But that won't stop us having a good time. I'm looking forward to taking hundreds of colourful photos, sleeping longer than Kit-the-labrador usually allows and catching a glimpse of the Atlas mountains. It'd also be good if I could find a jelabah in one of the souks suitable for throwing on after a dip in the pool.

 

 

I'm sure we'll update the blog in the next few days so do come back in a couple of days.

This past week we've been privileged to have the Bloomberg Tricycle Writers Group staying with us. Each year, thanks to the Bloomberg Foundation and the Tricycle Theatre around a dozen writers meet together for a week here in Roujan where they find space to work on their current writings. Each evening we've heard scenes from plays, short stories, stand-up routines and seen short films made by the individuals in the group. It's been utterly fantastic to hear such wonderful imagination at play.

So thank you Hassan Abdulrazzak, Michael Bhim, Neil D'Souza, Jennifer Farmer, Amit Gupta, Amy Evans, Winsome Pinnock, Trevor Williams, Dolly Dhingra, Lorna French and Kwame Kwei-Armah, you've been absolute stars. See you next year?

 

Just so you can see how your breakfast is coming along I thought I show you some figs that will arrive on the Le Couvent, Roujan breakfast table a little later in the year. These are on one of about five wild fig trees that we have in the Le Couvent vineyards.

 

 Although nowhere near ripe yet, having a couple of months to go, they're looking good. Currently, however, it's the asparagus season. We're not at all happy that our lovely neighbour Stephane Cabrol, who used to have a long stall of luscious asparagus outside his house each evening, has decided to move to Alignan-du-Vent, a few minutes drive away. Gone are the days when we could stroll across the road for the fattest, most delicious thumbs of fresh-picked asparagus. I drove off to buy some last Friday. I needed three kilos to make some delicious dense soup. Although he only had the little finger sized ones they were perfect for the velvety soup.

 

 

 Our lovely writers are here still - just until tomorrow morning, when Ali and I will be very sad to see them go. They've been wonderful. There's a gentle hum of energy and thinking running right through the house. We've loved it.

Meanwhile, Ali and I have had time to do a little more in the vineyards. A good deal of the time we were pestered by Kit the Labrador wanting to ride round on Queenie the Quad. Here she is with Neffies in the background.

And here's a pic especially for my step-father, John, who's having a rough time with chemo, and for Sarah who's thinking of camping in the vineyards all summer. Here is a pic of your vineyard - they're coming along well.

 

Hope you're feeling better John.

Hey look at this. While we've spent the winter pretending to be vigneronnes, our good friends Hans & Christa at Domaine Bourdic have been preparing proper wine for the guests of Le Couvent, Roujan. Here's the new rosé looking gorgeous.

 

 

It's a much lighter colour than previous years, has the addition of Grenache and is just delectable. Perfect for a cool glass as you arrive at Le Couvent, Roujan. There'll be a bottle waiting for you in your room as a welcome from Ali & I. We hope you enjoy it.

If rosé is not quite to your taste we have a luscious 2004 Le Mori, also from Domaine Bourdic. Here it is with the rosé, looking smart in its black & white livery.

 

 

 

Ok, so we're not officially open until 1 May, but this exceptional week we have a group of Black & Asian writers staying, working on their films, stage plays, radio plays, TV dramas & books. They're all jolly well known, and they're just lovely and very interesting. We had supper together last night with the writers and our chums Nicola & Teddy who've arranged this particular jape. They do lunch & supper and we have everyone to breakfast. Lucky us eh?

 

 

I have a personal challenge to see how many different fruits I can serve at breakfast and the current record is 13. It's early in the year so I wasn't being too hopeful but I managed passion fruit, kiwi, physalis, melons, oranges, apples, strawberries, pineapples, star fruit & bananas this morning. That's 10. The record looks in danger this year now that we have Chateau Mal Au Dos where the fruit grows in abundance.

Crikey, is it as cold where you are as it is here? We have a ferocious wind blowing straight off the snowy heights of the Massif Centrale and it's perishing. I'm a bit worried about my tomatoes. They were described as precocious by the man at the market who sold them to me, but they'd need to be stalwart to survive this onslaught.

Flynn the husky, despite still having his winter coat, has decided to stay in today.

 

Ali's in the middle of framing a gazillion more pictures and photos. We'll have to move - there certainly isn't wall space to hang them all, despite Le Couvent being a fair old size.

 

 

 

Our lovely neighbour, Maria, has just made her daily visit with bread for the hens. She's rescued a huge pot of geraniums that have dived off our gatepost ahead of the gale. I'd just put them back there after the winter, in readiness for our first guests who arrive on Tuesday. We've spent the past week spring cleaning ready for the season. Between our two cleaners, Patricia & Sophie & Ali & I, we managed to spend 28 hours cleaning on Friday. Yikes. Just a few more curtains to go back up and we're there I think. A cup of tea or coffee anyone?

 

 

It didn't start well. The four of us in the car were arguing about where exactly the restaurant was. We'd pulled up outside a huge wine factory and the signs for Bistrot d'Alex ran out, only to be replaced with dozens of others saying 'Vinipolis'.

I, because I am a Virgo and therefore always right, and because I'd looked it up on the internet moments before, insisted we were in the right place and to just park. The others didn't believe me. I was right, of course. This new restaurant is part of the wine factory and looks like the entrance to a small modern airport. Sliding doors usher you in, then you stop dead. The floors have a colossal section which is glass, so you can look down on hundreds of wine barrels many feet below. I'm not good at visual cliffs, so tiptoed round to firmer ground.

 

 

Photo pinched from Cwiosna CABANE - Merci.

We were at this new restaurant to celebrate the birthday of our friend Jackie Devereux . And what a find it is. If you can get past the place looking like the works canteen at IBM and concentrate on the food and the price of said food, you'll find it excellent. In a huge, lofty and airy space, with spacious seating for about sixty or so people, jolly waiting staff serve excellent food of the region. I had six of the freshest oysters from the Bassin de Thau served on a bed of ice, guinea fowl with the creamiest risotto I've ever tasted followed by a dish of strawberries prepared five different ways. Everything was beautifully, cleanly presented and perfectly cooked. For 18.50 euros. That's £14.36 at today's rotten exchange rate. The wines are largely from the cave co-operative which is part of this Vinipolis complex and are good and well priced.

We're on a winner here for at least another six months if they don't do something about the signage. No-one will be able to find it, so we should be fine for a table. Yesterday was Sunday, however, and the restaurant was full to the gunnels with savvy french locals all keeping quiet about the place. If you're coming to stay at Le Couvent, Roujan I'd advise you to ask us to book you a table well in advance. They could be making funky new signs as I write.