Le Couvent Diary

We're a bit behind with things. Not to be outdone by everyone else in the western world, Ali and I got the rotten colds the second Christmas was over. Dammit. This put paid to serious vine-pruning, gardening, sorting out general chaos - indeed anything that involved standing upright. But we're back, and on splendid form.

Today we have a heap of friends coming to lunch.  We'll be two Swiss, one Catalonian, two French, four English and Ali, who is Irish/Scottish/Malaysian. So, of course, we'll speak French - the first language of just two of us. I'm trying a recipe for sanglier, only I haven't got any wild boar, so I'm substituting pork. I'll let you know how it goes - and the recipe if it works. It uses heaps of red wine in honour of the five wine-makers who'll be eating with us. I'm daring to ask them to taste our new wine from last year's fated harvest. Yesterday our pal Rosemary George, Master of Wine and expert on Languedoc wine , tasted it and, very kindly, didn't choke. She was even rather kind and encouraging about it. Thank you

No doubt you'll have seen that France, like the UK, has been covered in a blanket of snow for days now. We, here in the south, have had more of a thin veil for just one day. The rest of the time it's just been absolutely freeeezing. Despite our colds, we've spent a fair amount of time chainsawing dead peach trees for firewood. When we bought our vineyard we inherited a once-upon-a-time orchard. After three years of complete abandonment many of the trees had withered and died. I've rescued quite a number, but those past it are now filling Le Couvent with the delicious scent of peach-wood.

Our recycling scheme is going well. As fast as new stuff appears on the website someone claims it. Recent good giveaways have a been a brand new skinny Mac keyboard, a swimming pool roller and cover, 22 bottles of white wine, a pair of designer shoes, two pairs of leather trousers, two sunbeds, champagne glasses and lots more. If you're reading this locally do take a look at C'est Gratuit . There are loads of things being given away - free - for nothing. At the moment there are some great Ikea wardrobes and an Ercol dining table up for grabs. Do take a look.

The new hens have settled in famously and are fast gaining on the big girls. Anyone who's been to Le Couvent will know that our hens are absolutely enormous, living on a summer diet of croissant, pain au chocolat, pain au raisin and anything else left from breakfast. This time of year sees bags of leftovers hanging on the gates of Le Couvent from our neighbours. From time to time their kindness is rewarded with some fresh, orange yolked eggs. The perfect exchange.

Six hens weren't enough to keep up with demand for luscious boiled eggs for all the guests this summer, so we bought five more today. The new girls are Light Sussex and should lay creamy pale eggs to go alongside the brown ones our older biddies produce.

Although they are just babes at 5 months old, they will look like this in a few weeks' time, but for the moment they look like this:

Meanwhile, the old girls are looking mean and moody, ready to jump the new ones when they're released. We currently have the babes in their own quarters until they've settled in.

It'll be a week at least, by which time the old ones will have forgotten the new ones are new. This morning one of the white ones rewarded us with an egg. Just 16 hours after moving in. I guess that means she's happy enough.

I'm thinking of naming them after small Sussex villages. So we'll have Firle, Glynde, Ripe, Chiddingly & Cowbeech. God knows which will be which - there's not much difference between them yet.

As previous visitors to Le Couvent know, we have wonderful hens. They burble away gently and lay us and our guests delicious eggs. We like to think of them like this:

However, there's a new kid on the block who belongs to our sideways neighbour. A cockerel. Not on our block exactly and we can't hear him that well. But for our good pal and upper neighbour Yvonne he's something of a nightmare. At 5 in the morning he's rather more like this:

If you only want to eat the eggs what use is a cockerel? Don't give me all that "they're really handsome" rubbish. They're just a pain in the ear, bullies in the hen yard, and should be kept well away from the centre of villages.  Or cooked. With lemon and garlic.

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.

Today it's very chilly. We have an appointment with the accountant this afternoon, so we've abandoned the vines for a day. It's cold and we have to pay our taxes so it seems the perfect excuse to reward ourselves with a holiday. I've just booked us into a lovely riad in Marrakesh for a week in April - a recommendation from some great guests who stayed here this summer.

We'll squeeze it in before our first guests of the season arrive at the beginning of May. Oooh, what a treat.

For those of you who've stayed at Le Couvent, you'll know that Ali and I have a separate apartment and that we shut the main part of the house for the winter. Today, however, our lovely cleaner Patricia is hoovering away upstairs, so I've lit the big fire in the kitchen. The air outside is full of woodsmoke and the hens are burbling away by the kitchen door. It makes a change to be here at the big table.

Ali is beside me framing lots of original old photos we bought from the archive of the now defunct San Francisco Examiner. They really are extraordinary testaments of their time and you'll see them on the staircase walls when you next come to stay.