Le Couvent Diary

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.

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With just over a fortnight to go I'm beginning to panic about our grape harvest (le vendange). Ali says it will just happen. I, as a Virgo, tend to think we need to plan it a bit. So our unsuspecting pals are about to be coerced into spending a few days bent double over our vines. I fear many of them will feign memory loss when we contact them. " Who are you? Never heard of you. Sorry. Bye"

Our wine cuves are still in northern France despite days on the phone and visiting transporters to beg them to bring them to us in time for the vendange - or indeed ever. We're having no luck with it at all. Looks like all our grapes will have to go to the cave co-operative in Roujan. We'd been very much looking forward to having a go at turning some of our Syrah into stuff that turns our tongues blue. But hey ho.

Meanwhile we are having a charmed summer on the guest front. Not only has it been our best season ever bookings-wise, we have had a stream of utter charmers. Everyone's been a complete delight. Ali and I feel very unstressed thanks to having such lovely, kind, thoughtful and easy people to stay. Thank you, each of you. We've loved having you here - and doesn't the old house smile when it's full of happy people?

We have just five weeks to go before then end of our season and as I sit here in lightweight summer clothes in brilliant sunshine it's hard to bring myself to phone the log man to ask for a delivery of 12 cubic metres of logs for the winter. But if I leave it until we actually need it he won't have any - or it'll be sopping wet and impossible to heave into neat stacks. Both Ali and I look forward to winters here. I can't say I felt the same when I lived in England. I love the crisp chill that puts a spring in your step, the bright sunny days that mean you can work outside, even if you have to wear a thick jumper. I'm looking forward to days cool enough to tidy up the garden, giving everything a haircut that will last the winter. Everything smells different as September rolls past. The air fills with the scent of smoke from wood-burners stuffed with fruit woods and oak.

But before then the air will be infused with the sharp smells of grape juice running through the streets. Small tractors will hurry along towing great trailers heaped with grapes, small blackboards on the back marked with the variety of grape. They'll deposit a trail of juice which will leave us in no doubt about how this region earns its keep. As one drives along towards Pezenas great draughts of wine-perfume blast out from the Cave Cooperative and Domaine Bourdic and the Chartreuse de Mougeres and Domaine de Montpeyrat and Chateau Fondouce - and all the other thousands of wine producers here in the Languedoc.

And the great thing is, it just happens.

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If you're free in February 2009 and you fancy a heap of hard work in exchange for free bed and board, we're running two Volunteer Weeks . We haven't done this before, but we have had some wildly successful volunteer weekends and now that we're in danger of using up the goodwill of our friends we're hoping to spread the net a little wider. Our friends tell us they have loved the weekends, so we hope you would too.  If you're interested follow the Volunteer link on the menu at the top of this page, or click here .

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The problem with writing a blog is that sometimes you don't have time to write it, then all the stuff that happens in between becomes so huge that you can't face the task of going back over it. So you don't write. Sorry about that, I'll make amends now.

Since I last wrote we've had wonderful Swedes, Americans, English, Scots, Dutch,  New Zealanders, Australians and many others staying. They arrive already knowing about our lives thanks to this diary and website. But we know nothing about them, so it's like sticking your hand into a lucky dip and finding a treat every time. Film-makers, glassy-winged sharp shooter expert, tennis coach, mountain-climber, charity bosses, ballet dancer, widget manufacturer, software architect, writer, lawyer, homeopath, urban regenerator, public relations experts, an honest estate agent, hoteliers, a cop, musicians, accountants, architects and artists have all turned up at Le Couvent in the last month. Can you imagine how interesting it is for us to learn of the wild, wonderful, awful and exhausting ways people find to make a living? We salute you all and hope you found a bit of peace and inspiration during your stay. Thanks for the stories!

As for us, we've been run off our feet with lovely guests and have had a great time in the process. The pool's stayed bright, clear and fresh thanks to slightly cooler than average weather at around 24 degrees-ish. Very comfortable and quite unlike the energy-sapping high 30's of the first year we were here six years ago.

The vegetable garden's groaning with salads threatening to run to seed so I'm doing my best to palm stuff off onto guests who decide to take a picnic to our vineyards.

 

 

And when they're not helping us use up salad we put them to work weeding the vines. This one's for you Sarah & Andrew.

 

 
While we're on the subject of the vines, this has been a worrying time weather-wise. The mix of warm temperatures and a bit of rain is not great for grapevines. They are prone to getting mildew and oidium, so we have to treat them. We have help in the rather delectable shape of Fred who sprays the vines for us each fortnight. We insist that he wears a mask but he's a bit reluctant to use it properly. God knows what his tan looks like after a day like this.  

 

This morning our friend the WelderBeast's been round to discuss the bridge. Many of you will know that we've wanted to construct a small bridge between the house and the garden, but we've never found a satisfactory solution to the problem. We'd like something functional and sculptural at the same time. WB is the first person to tell us it's completely possible. Watch this space.

This weekend we cooked for our lovely group from Landseer Productions (something we do very rarely) and they've asked for the recipes, so there will be a couple more in the book by the end of the week.

 

I've also made some peach ice-cream and sorbet from our own peaches. At Chateau Mal Au Dos there was an orchard of peaches and olives when we bought it. However many of the peach trees had died of neglect, except for about four. Incredibly one of them produced the smallest yet sweetest peach crop this year. I'm hoping that some TLC from us will produce even better result next year.

 

 

 

 

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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.

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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.

 

 

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Looks like a big parasol closed up doesn't it? Well, you and I are both wrong about that. It's actually the winter sleeping quarters of a tiny pipistrelle bat. I inadvertently forced it to open one ear yesterday when I unfurled the umbrella for the first time since last October. I feel a heel. I do hope it's going to be OK.

 

This isn't my thumb, I didn't pick the poor creature up. I nicked the photo from another website - thanks if it's yours. Please let me know who you are and I'll acknowledge you.

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It's been a busy week. We're don't officially re-open for the summer until 1 May, but , as a favour to our pals Nicola & Teddy, we're making an exception. We have a group of writers coming to stay for a week's workshop from 25 March. So we have to get the house and garden in guest mode a bit early.

As a result Ali has been painting like a dervish all week, the green bathroom's now germolene pink. We're not at all sure about it, but hope that the addition of lots of art and photos might make it bearable. At least it's a lot lighter now. The ceiling has yet to be lowered and new lights installed. I know, wrong way round, but you try getting a workmen at this time of year. Ali's now moved on to the orange bedroom, re-painting the ceiling and a couple of walls.

Some of the windows have taken a battering during the winter so a little outside work has to be done on those. The windows and shutters are wonderfully battered and beautiful. The paint's weathered naturally into the most glorious multi-hued fade - the sort of thing TV makeover people try to do by distressing things. There's nothing remotely stressed about our shutters, they're just slack and gorgeous. But that comes at a price - we have to be gentle with them, just doing enough to ensure they're safe and that they work, but not deciding to replace them with brand new ones. When it comes to that time we will sell up and move. I would be very sad to see this beautiful old girl tarted up like a teenager on a date.

 

 

I, on the other hand, get to tickle the garden back into shape. Actually, it's less of a tickle than a short back and sides. Having spent the whole winter pruning our vines the garden has had less attention than usual. But we must have done something right in the previous six years because it's stood up to this neglect rather well. The plants are all thriving and there really aren't millions of weeds. Last year we invested in a garden shredder and shredded everything in sight, tossing the mulch on the garden. I'm assuming the weeds gave up in the darkness because relatively few have bothered to surface.

 

Actually I'm rather disappointed. I was hoping to have tons of garden waste to take to the tip in our new trailer. I am particularly hopeless at reversing it and the municipal tip is the perfect place to practise. It's a huge open bit of ground and if I choose my timing carefully there might be no-one there to witness me jack-knifing repeatedly. For the moment, though, I'm doing it in a simulated kind of a way. See how you get on in this reversing game .

 

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We're about to start preparing the Le Couvent gardens for summer. The current warm weather is forcing on the roses, so the pruning is pressing. The main job, however, is weeding. I find the rule below quite helpful, although frustrating. 

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

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We've had our lovely Cambridge friends Sarah & Dawn visiting for the past three days. No-one gets to stay while Le Couvent is closed during the winter unless they put in a bit of work, so they pruned olives, bushwhacked thistles and planted salad & strawberries.

 

Their reward for all this work this was taking us out to lunch in Meze where we had stunning shellfish looking out over the sparkling sea. The Picpoul de Pinet was almost a finely chilled as the sea. Ali & I passed on the latter. Our sweet guests got soaked, but reckoned it most refreshing.

Hope you got home safely - come back soon eh? Happy birthday Sarah!

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