Le Couvent Diary

 

A couple of weeks ago we took the most wonderful walk at Lake Salagou, just 20 minutes or so north east of Le Couvent.

 

What an extraordinarily beautiful place. I find it impossible to describe landscapes so I'll point you to these fantastic photos instead.

Our walk took around an hour and a half and was pretty easy. By the time you come to stay at Le Couvent we'll have prepared maps and guides for each of the walks we're doing this winter in case you fancy a mildly energetic jaunt.

Erzsi, our lovely friend who joined us declared it the mst beautiful walk she's EVER taken.

 

Needless to say we took lunch. Why is it impossible to take a walk without a picnic? It must be a hangover from those days, thankfully long ago, when, as a PE teacher, I used to take kids to North Wales as part of their Duke of Edinburgh's Award. I lived in fear of the death or starvation of one of the kids and went loaded with every supply imaginable. I've never been able to look Kendal Mint Cake in the face since. These days it's delicious tarte au poireaux or jambon et fromage from the local baker's. Much more fun, although I have to save a bit for the mutts.

 

 

By the way, Happy Birthday mum and congratulations to guests Mark & Lisa on the birth of Tom!

Gouttiere, the convent cat, is an old bag. She came with the house and does as little as she can to endear herself to us.

 

 

Those are fresh-picked delicious almonds from the vineyards she's sleeping in. Beuf!

What's been happening at Le Couvent during this six weeks of silence? Well lots actually. We lost the first week dealing with cops, garage and insurance when the van was broken into. Then my lovely mum & John came to stay for ten very gentle days of eating good food, touring and talking.

 

 

This is a typical photo of my Mum who has never managed to look straight at the camera. John's about to have his second period of chemotherapy in a year, so we all have our fingers crossed for him.

And now we're just back from a wonderful week in New York. After first class flights from Heathrow we stayed in the uber-stylish Gramercy Park Hotel on Lexington and 22nd (I've always wanted to say that) and spent our days, like all tourists, shopping, sightseeing, visiting galleries and eating too well. BA looks after its first class passengers very well so we arrived on fantastic form, refreshed and well slept.

The Gramercy Park Hotel can only be described as dark, luxurious gothic, with the emphasis on dark. Superbly situated near Union Square, it had the most comfortable bed I'd ever slept in and a wonderful large bedroom and bathroom, but you needed a miner's lamp to see your way round. The lift always contained some poor guest bent double peering at the floor numbers. And when we ate in the excellent Wakiya restaurant which is part of the hotel, there was a chap at the next table actually using a torch to read the menu. He was obviously a regular. It was a hoot, and I would have  loved to have been able to see the heavenly chilli lobster dish that will stay in my tastebud memory for ever.

But the main reason for our trip was to spend some time with four friends and to support Gill Carrick and Joan Armatrading who were running in the NY Marathon for the Women of the Year Foundation . They did brilliantly,  and can still be sponsored by clicking on their names.

 

 Well done girls!

 

 

We had a fantastic time cheering everyone on.

Macy's called for the next couple of days and Ali, who has gained a bit of weight, and I who've lost a bit, found some fab new clothes and shoes, and a new suitcase to lug it all back in. After that we geared up for a bout of sightseeing. Here's Ali at the top of the Rockefeller building. As you can see the weather had closed in rather. So we'd managed to shop during brilliant sunshine, then sight-see in cloud and rain. Lah di dah.

 

 

It's behind you.... Lizzie &the Flatiron building

 

 

....and Ali in Grand Central Station

 

We all met up for a fabulous lunch in the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar - to be recommended, especially the Ipswich Crab Cakes (I had those just for you Mum)

 

It wasn't always so glamorous - Ali and I were desperate to try out a real diner for brunch.

 

 

 I forgot to mention that we'd arrived on Halloween which put us in the party mood from the get-go, but the absolute highlight of our stay was being there for the US elections. Can you believe it? What an exciting time. On the day of the vote we pitched up at Election Plaza outside Radio City, where the party had well and truly begun.

 

 

But we decided the most comfortable place to watch events unfold would be our hotel room where we set out a picnic and watched it all on the box.

 

 

 And you know the rest of the story.

 

 

Well done President-Elect Obama. Those check-out girls in Union Square that we spoke to earlier in the day will be thrilled. As are we.

After all the excitement of the elections our friends Mandy, Miranda, Josie and Janet flew back to the UK leaving Ali and I to do a couple more days' exploring. We were very keen to see as many galleries as possible. MOMA was interesting, if exhausting. We managed to arrive at the Guggenheim, the one we were keenest to see, on the only day it was closed, so we headed up to the nearby Jewish Museum. Very interesting, if dark. I got into trouble for shining a tiny magnifying light on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Whoops.

 

Although the beautiful Guggenheim was closed, it was a treat to see a Kandinsky arrive to be tenderly handled into the museum.

 

 

It's all just over the road from Central Park, so that deserved a fleeting glance too. Unfortunately one week simply wasn't enough to do all that we wanted so we'll just have to go back - soon.

 

 

And finally, many many thanks to our lovely generous pal who gave us our flights, lots of delicious suppers and our hotel stay - you are amazing. And thanks too, to Jamie and Tara, developers of  Phoload, who came to stay at Le Couvent to look after the dogs, cat, chickens, fish and house so well. We feel refreshed and ready for a winter preparing Le Couvent for next season. God, holidays are a tonic.

Some while ago Ali, Justin & I spent the most fantastic day learning to blend wine - and creating our own bottle to take home.

 

 

Several of you asked if there would be other opportunities to do it - well here are the upcoming dates:

Sunday 30 November 2008
Saturday 28 February 2009
Saturday 2 May 2009
Sunday 26 July 2009
Saturday 17 October 2009

If you would like to come to any of the assemblage days do contact Hans & Christa at Domaine Bourdic.

I promise it will be one of the most memorable and enjoyable days of your life.

Murky skies told us we'd be daft to go to La Couvertoirade as our pal Alex had suggested so we decided on Clermont l'Herault market, followed by Lodeve for the Kisling exhibition.

Clermont offered up luscious cheeses, an organic pumpkin, some coriander and the last of the summer's ruby tomatoes. I bought 30 spinach plants for the potager too.

Rabbit was on the menu at Alex's favourite cafe, so we had the menu du jour - pissaladiere, lapin au pistou & dessert for 13 euros each. Excellent. I wonder what the kids had here.

 

 

Onward to Lodeve for the exhibition. Lodeve gets smarter every time we go, even the hard hats signs are chic.

 

 

 

 

The Musee Fleury is home to fantastic exhibitions every year and the Kisling did not disappoint. There seemed to be lots to see, but not so much that one becomes eye-weary. The curator has a splendid eye. The entire gallery is repainted for each exhibition, so the paintings hang against the most perfectly subtle, but strong, colours. Hats off to you ma'am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 30 people pitched up at Domaine Bourdic at 9.30 this bright, sunny morning. Hans & Christa, the winemakers who own the domaine, had organised a 'ballade vigneron' - a stroll through the vineyards, followed by a fab lunch outdoors.

 

 

 

 

Hans struggled to be heard over all the chit-chat of the walkers, such was the twitter going on.  Strolling through the vineyards with a wineglass in hand, ready for tastings of Le Mori and Destiny - a rich red and a grassy white, whilst standing next to the vines that inform them, is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning.

 

 

Chat wasn't the only sound in the air. This was the first day of the hunting season and the blokes in their camouflage fired off an arsenal in neighbouring fields. Fortunately we could see them easily, despite the camouflage, as they wear bright orange jackets on top. This is to reduce the number that shoot each other. Why the wild boar should be fooled by the camouflage and fail to notice the luminous jackets is beyond me, but there you go. Despite all this we had a wonderful walk and tasted some jolly good wines.

 

 

I didn't make the lunch as I had offered to eat at home with my lovely niece, Poppy, whilst my pals and family pass an equally enjoyable afternoon at the opera in Montpellier. However, I know it will have been wonderful - Christa's a good cook. Watch out for the next ballade at Domaine Bourdic here .

Now this must be a fairly unusual sight. Madame is fishing in the Canal du Midi and her man is watching from the comfort and safety of the car.

 

 

Yesterday, after a rapid bit of shopping in Beziers, we took a stroll by Les Neuf Ecluses de Fonseranes - The nine locks of Fonseranes.  And what a marvel it is. Needing to overcome the problem of a 30 metre drop over a 132 metre distance, the builder of the Canal du Midi, Pierre Paul Riquet, unfazed, built a staircase of nine locks. It is a stunning feat of engineering, especially when you realise it was constructed in the late 1600s, but as he'd already built dozens of locks in the earlier parts of the 240 mile canal, it can't have seemed too much of a problem. Here is a very good short history of the Canal du Midi.

 

 

These days, merely using the lock presents some boat-hirers with problems. It's obviously a stressful hour when you have to wiggle your big boat into a smallish space along with a couple of others, under the critical eye of people like me, who've never stepped foot on a canal boat yet know we would do all this so much better than the hapless twit on the wheel. Tensions run high and there can be very public fallings-out between members of the crew. The least onerous role seems to be that of hanging on to the ubiquitous dog while everyone else runs about shouting. Ali has thought it would be a fun thing for us to do, taking Kit & Flynn with us. Having seen the lock business, I cannot imagine how we could possibly manoeuvre the boat AND deal with two large and excited dogs. So maybe we'll do it alone.

 

 

This flight of boat-stairs is very sweetly controlled by a young woman who looks about sixteen. It's good to see women have their place on the canal.

 

 

If you're thinking of visiting the locks next time you stay at Le Couvent, there are some lovely walks to be had along the canal from the locks, and there is also a place where you can hire bikes or small electric boats so you can explore a bit further.

Yep, finally we're into the other half of our lives - the B&B is closed for the off-season. One of the most frequent questions we're asked (along with "Is Kit really a labrador?") is how we spend our winters. Follow us through until the end of April and you'll see.

So far the best thing we've done is to move bank accounts - yippee!  We've left Cretin Agricole at last. Having had enough of battling with the indifferent bunch in the Roujan branch (open four mornings a week for banking, but much longer if you want one of their 'products') we went to the Pezenas branch to ask how we should deal with six unauthorised payments online from our account. The gum-chewing teenager who told me I should not be using a credit card on the internet (give me strength) could not have been more confidence-draining. However, the final straw came when, after (my suggestion) cancelling my card, a further two payments were made using it.

Now we are with a bank which our friend Suzelle, who works there, says is well-managed and humane. It's only taken five hours over two days, and a great deal of talking to open three accounts. This is France, after all. We were recognised with beaming greetings on our second visit, unlike at CA where I could have walked in naked for the past six years and they still wouldn't have wasted a smile. Wish us luck.

 

 

Our other wonderful thing is that, inspired by a raft of guests who were great walkers, we've decided to explore bits of the Languedoc we don't know, i.e. nearly all of it - on foot.  The wonderful Decathlon , seller of sports equipment for the masses at good prices, has kitted us out fantastically well. So, with our lunch, water, collapsible dog bowl, map, outer jackets, guide book, mobile phone, camera and (I kid you not) torch, all tucked in to our new backpacks, we set out yesterday.

 

 

Walk number one comes from a great book called l'Herault à pied .  6kms, just over 2 hours and a bit of a climb in the middle took us along the River Orb, past a pretty pre-Roman chapel, up a steepish climb (glad we had the new fold-down walker's sticks), through a long dark tunnel (glad we had the torch), along an old railway line where we stopped for lunch under five spots of rain (glad we had the jackets) before a descent back down to the Campotel car park where we'd left the car. I haven't been happier this year and the dogs were in seventh heaven. If you come to stay next year we'll have the walk available on paper for you.

 

 

We have three days left until the end of our season. The penultimate guests have just left and we are now waiting for three couples from Australia and a couple from Cheltenham, UK. Two of the guests are called Nutter, so we start with the stoolball team and end with the Nutters. Handily we come full circle.

Our guests have been just wonderful again this year. No-one trashed their room, everyone was impeccably behaved, books that were borrowed to finish arrived back in the post. No-one failed to arrive, only one couple arrived a month early - thank God. The vast majority let us book restaurants for them weeks in advance, saving us the nightmare of trying to find restaurants for nine people on the day.

No-one lost their keys, no-one forgot the gate code. (Burglars please note, we've just changed it.) No-one crashed their car, only one person broke a bone. Everyone enjoyed the wine, but no-one made a fool of themself. Only one person expected to pay in a currency we can't use - thank you. Very few people were defeated by PayPal. No-one ate enough breakfast so our hens are now on a strict diet.

No-one wrecked Ali's beautiful linen sheets, everyone put up with Magali's distant, yet persistent, cockerel. Lots of people wrote lovely reviews and those who hated it here have, thus far, not said so in public. For that we can't thank you enough. People let their hair down, but remained dignified and charming. Only a couple of people found they didn't much like the Languedoc, the rest walked, drove, cycled, cruised, rode and canoed huge swathes of this beautiful region and have gone home enchanted.

Now Ali & I will have time to explore again all those magical places people have discovered through the summer. We even have a couple of new restaurants to try. 150 pineapples, 200+ room changes and 650 litres of coffee later we'd be lying if we said we weren't tired. But we've had a fantastic time. Thank you one and all. Next year?

Say, what do you think of this? Rather unnervingly, Google has interactive photos of chunks of Roujan. I'm to be spotted chatting to my pal, Mme Maria Picanço & my brother's family are all having lunch at the Grand Cafe. We're all looking gormlessly at the camera - I do vaguely remember seeing a survey vehicle during the Spring. Or maybe it was early Summer. The temperature outside Taxi Andre is showing as 26 degrees and the time on the Mairie clock is 1.15 - hence all the shops being shut and everyone off the streets having lunch. Maria has a bag of lunch scraps in her hand for our chickens. No more secrets eh?

Click your mouse on the picture and you can zoom in, travel up and down the streets and look right & left. Have a fiddle and see what you come up with.

 
View Larger Map

Will this put the end to naked bathing by the pool?

By popular request we've offered an alternative date in February 2009 to come to help at Le Couvent, Roujan. If you're up for some fun and hard work in the vineyards and here in the old house, do take a look at this page . We've had volunteers apply from several other countries, so the talk should be good and the jokes multi-lingual/cultural.

Don't hold back - this will be an extraordinarily interesting week/fortnight. You'll learn loads and get fitter into the bargain.

There's nothing like a bit of teamwork for getting things done.

 

 

Today's blog post has been written by Doug & Caroline, who came to Le Couvent, Roujan hoping that they could take part in our grape harvest.

Following a long drive to Roujan on Monday two weeks ago, we arrived to a very warm welcome from Liz & Ali, only to find the weather had put a premature end to this year's grape harvest. Therefore no vendange for us this year, however as some of the harvest had been salvaged there was the option to be involved with the next process, turning it into wine (yip-pee).

Thanks to lots of hard work before we arrived the grapes had already been transported into the village were in a vat and starting to ferment. So twice a day the fermenting grape & juice mix had to be mixed by hand & on the 2^nd occasion daily the specific gravity of the liquid had to be measured for percentage of potential alcohol.

Within a few days of doing this the mixture was at its prime, and time to extract the grapes from the juice, it was decided that Sunday would be the ideal time for this 1100 to be exact.

Sunday 1100 we all met at the Cave (Caroline, Liz, Ali, Colin, Judith, Justine, Michelle, Josh & I) ready to start the separation process. This involved draining the grape juice from one tank into another (by bucket), after we had transferred approximately 280ltrs of liquid from the first tank all that was left was the remaining grapes. These grapes still had potential to produce more juice so they needed to be taken out of the tank & be pressed, this meant that someone would have to get in to the tank and bucket the remaining contents out. I was that volunteer, so off with the shoes & socks, down to my speedo's and in I got. What a sensation paddling in soggy grapes being overwhelmed by the pungent smell they were giving off. It was great.

Once the remaining contents of the tank had been transferred to smaller containers and put into a van, we all went a few kilometres to where the press was situated. We all then took it in turns to press the juice from the grapes, which resulted in a further 100ltrs of juice that could be added to the 280ltrs back at the Cave. The following day we did exactly that, so there is now nearly 400ltrs of premium Chateau Mal Au Dos vintage 2008 maturing in a secrete location somewhere in Roujan.

Despite not being able to pick any grapes on this visit to Roujan we have had a fantastic time and feel very honoured to be part of the team that helped produced the very first batch of wine from Chateau Mal Au Dos. And who knows what other years will bring..

A very, very honoured & overwhelmed

Doug & Caroline.

This morning was sparklingly bright and rather autumnal. Perfect for going to the market in Clermont L'Herault.

Having dug over a chunk of the potager yesterday, we're ready for winter vegetable plants, so we bought cabbages, cauliflower, brussels sprout and beetroot.

It's a wonderful market, full of absolute tat and fabulous food. We settled on a spit-roasted pork joint and some roast spuds for a picnic on our way home.

 

 

 

 

On the way back to Roujan we stopped off at Villeneuvette and had our picnic under a magnificent avenue of plane trees and a brilliant blue sky. Villeneuvette is a very pretty village of workers' cottages which were part of a factory producing fine cloth from the 1600s until it finally closed in 1954. Here are some photos taken this morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Loosely translated - Well brought up dog, but be wary just the same.

 

Said vegetables are now planted at Chateau Mal Au Dos , but we have a problem with the well & I can't fix it, so we're back to schlepping water. Drat.

 

We just had the lovely Rosemary Neave from Women Travel New Zealand & the World to stay. She wrote incredibly kind things about us on her blog . Here she is on Mother Superior's balcony chatting with Ali across the void.

Meanwhile we've had two couples staying, both called Kay & Ian. What's the odds for that? Here they are at breakfast.

 

 

 

I've just come back from collecting the morning bread, cakes and fruit. Here's the list:

One watermelon, one yellow melon, one green melon, 5 apples,  5 slices of ham from the bone, 5 croissant nature, 4 croissant beurre, 3 croissant abricot, 3 noix de pecan, 2 pain au raisin, 2 pain au chocolat, 1 pain au lin, 1 pain complet & 1 festivale brune.

I already had peaches, oranges, bananas, nectarines, salami and cheeses. The hens have laid enough eggs for me to offer all 9 guests boiled eggs too this morning. It's now 8am and the table is complete. I just have to wait for guests to come down to breakfast.

 

 

It's jumper time at 6.30 when I trot off to the village. There's suddenly an autumnal nip in the air. Worry not, if you're still to have your hols here, it warms up wonderfully during the day, but pack a jumper eh? We close in a couple of weeks' time and I love the change to autumn. After the languid summer heat which is just ennervating, I adore the re-found energy that comes with cooler days.

And I'm longing to get going on the vineyards, to help them recover from their hideous hail-bashing of last week. If you're interested in seeing how the wine is going you'll need to nip over to our sister site at Chateau Mal Au Dos . I've copied all the wine-related entries over there and will be continuing the wine story there.

Meanwhile I think I hear footsteps, so I'm off to boil eggs - for exactly 3 minutes 20 seconds. With no food-miles to count, our hens eggs are nest-fresh and take less time to cook to perfection.