Now that we are on sabbatical, Ali thought you might like to keep up to date with the goings on here at Le Couvent. So she set up a photojournal. She's intending taking a photo a day and writing about it.

The results appear in the left hand column here on our diary page. It will show the photo of the day and the latest nine photos.

 We do hope you'll come back to check every so often.

For those of you that will be here over the next couple of weeks, we have finally bottled some of our 2010 vintage ready for you to try. It'll be better around Christmas, when it will have got over the shock of being bottled, but I had some last night and I'm pleased with it. Hope you will be too.

D'you like the chair Ali gave me for my birthday? It's so comfortable I fell asleep in it within ten minutes of sitting in it. I see many happy years together. Thanks Ali and Mr Eames.

Le Couvent will close its doors on 1st October for the winter whilst awaiting a new owner . For the moment we have no idea whether it will continue as a B&B or become something else entirely so, in the meantime, we are not taking bookings for 2012 whilst we take a sabbatical.

There is still a chance to come to stay during 2011 and our availability is shown in the left column.

This week we've had two starkly contrasting suppers in nearby restaurants. On Saturday we went to O Bontemps in Magalas with two guests/friends. We were treated to ten courses of delectable treats. We'd ordered four courses, but there were so many amuse bouches that the meal went from a gentle stroll to a glorious hike. Here's my blurry, phone-captured, photo of the starter. Everything was as beautifully presented and utterly delicious.

On the other hand, we thought we'd celebrate the opening of a new restaurant in our village, Le Petit Péché, which has nothing to do with fishing or peaches, but means small sins. Actually they were guilty of several rather larger sins, the worst of which was producing the utterly predictable menu of the same dishes one sees everywhere else. To be fair they've only been open a fortnight, but the menus have been printed to last, so I don't think they'll be changing anything soon. The price difference between O Bontemps and  Le Petit Péché is just 12 euros a head, but the difference in value could not be more stark.

Come on France. You produce some of the best raw ingredients in the world, but you keep on dishing up the same magret de canard, bifsteck and poulet, chased up by ile flottante, chocolat moelleux, tarte tatin, crème brulée and ice cream. And where are the vegetables for heaven's sake? Give us a break. You're better than that. Shape up.

NOTE:

Since publishing this post we have received the comment below. Normally we do not publish anonymous comments, but this one has some valid points, so rather than deleting it we're giving it prominence.

We've been to Le Petit Peche twice with no complaints whatsoever - good presentation, simple and consistently good food, local produce and good value for money. The restaurant additionally offers the opportunity to eat either inside or outside in its pleasant courtyard. This review is overly harsh and critical, especially from business people who should know better. Not only is it unfair to compare a restaurant which has been on the go for years to one which has just opened, it is also ridiculous to compare their menus considering the huge price difference. I doubt that Le Couvent would have appreciated similarly severe criticism in its first month of opening. Support, rather than criticism, would be more likely to encourage these young people and help the restaurant survive in Roujan! - DB

Thank you 'DB' -  don't hide, give us your name next time.

Thanks to a cancellation of all five rooms for the next Bank Holiday weekend - 26 & 27 August, we can offer you a last minute break of two nights or longer.

Take a look at the Bookings page of our website and come to join us. The pool is sparkling and silky, the rosé's chilling, the weather forecast is excellent and it'll be your last chance before we close. Go on, what's stopping you? Treat yourselves!

Of course, if you don't book Ali and I will just have a free weekend to loll by the pool, go to Pezenas market, have lunch by the coast and take a bike ride through the vineyards. On second thoughts, please don't book.

The guests are all out hiking the Pic de Tantajo, swimming in the Mediterranean, or settling down to a lunch of oysters. I've just popped in while the pool cleaner does its work keeping the water sparkling. Ali's making her shopping list of fruit, ham and cheeses for the guests' breakfast. The dogs are asleep at my feet, some hens are on the nest, the birds are keeping up a tuneful chatter - and for once the cicadas have stopped their usual whistle. The temperature's a very comfortable 26 degrees with a breeze and the skies are blue with wisps of high cirrus clouds.

I can't hear any cars, the church bells are silent, but there is the lazy drone of a distant small plane.

It's 12.30 - all the Roujanais are inside having lunch before their siesta. Bon appetit.

How can we thank you enough? Once again our kind, adorable guests have bothered to write reviews on TripAdviser and have put us back on the top of the list. We're closed for seven months of the year, so we slip down the rankings during the winter, but once the season starts our guests start writing again. We're hugely grateful to them, even though TripAdviser has far more power than it ought, and hangs like the sword of Damocles over our heads.

Today I received my first e-mail from Stannah, the stair lift people. I guess I must have hit that age. The funeral insurance people were already after me last year, but I thought that was just a joke.

Somewhow I don't think we'll be installing chair lifts at Le Couvent. Not yet, not ever.

We'd full to the rafters, which means that we have nine guests in the house. Having had a tidal wave of Aussies, Kiwis and Americans, we're now full up with lovely English. Two have gone off to Sete and the coast, two are taking a walk in the National Park of the Haut Languedoc, two exhausted new arrivals are basking by the pool and two more are strolling round Pezenas having been to the market this morning. There's another guest lolling somewhere reading a book. All in all it's very peaceful, so I'm off to Pezenas this afternoon for a very long-awaited haircut. Oh, the cut and thrust of it all.

Yesterday evening the guests and I went up to the goat farm at Mas Rolland to stroke the young goats and to buy lots of wonderful cheeses. So this morning, at breakfast, along with all the usual fruit, ham, eggs and croissants, we had fig and chestnut bread slathered with two-day-old goats cheese, drizzled with acacia honey and topped with tiny garriguette strawberries. Too yummy for words.

On the subject of food, the new watering system in the vineyard vegetable garden is working out a treat. So for the first time we actually have vegetables this summer. In the past it's always been way too difficult to keep them watered, so we've just filled up the garden in the winter and abandoned it each summer. Not any more. I have fine spuds, courgettes, chillies and onions a-plenty. The yellow banana and red and black cherry tomatoes and peppers are almost ready and I have recently planted haricot and stripey red and white beans which are doing famously. Only the aubergines look pretty feeble. God knows why. We've been scoffing so many lettuces that Ali can barely face another. Three types of basil keep us endlessly entertained at lunchtime with experiments to find the best tomatoes and mozzarella for a tricoloré salad. It's a hard life.

We don't have enough time to keep our vineyard meticulously tidy, in fact it's all rather a pickle. But it is a magical place to take a walk in the early evening. We frequently take guests up with a bottle of wine, to take a stroll followed by an aperitif.

Just recently we took the lovely Allan and Jill from Western Australia, with a bottle of fizz, to celebrate Allan's birthday. We sat on the Caux seat, hot from the day's sunshine, and toasted a very jolly stay.

Douggie and Caroline who have been to stay at Le Couvent NINE TIMES already and are booked in for later this year too.

It's a pretty sunrise here at Le Couvent on this, 1st May 2011. We're open again for the Summer season and the old house is looking glorious. The wine is in the chiller, the glasses are all polished, the rooms are spotless and sunny, the pool is glistening (if fresh), and all the roses are out ready to greet our first guests. We have people making their way here from Kent, London and Tasmania and we are very happy to be hosts to them and all the other lovely guests who are booked in this summer.

Bring on the aperitifs!

With just over a week to go before our next season starts, Ali and I are busy getting the house ready. Everywhere's been spring cleaned and here's Ali with a distant relative, the cobwebbing brush. Can you see the family likeness?

Our pal the hoopoe's been hanging out quite a bit. Here he is sitting on our neighbour's aerial.

We have the family here for supper tonight. Here are some of the ingredients, fresh from the Convent garden

A very disorientated hoopoe is currently throwing itself at our kitchen window. I have no idea why. Gouttière the cat, now seriously deaf, is completely oblivious.