Le Couvent Diary

The weather's taken a grand turn for the better and we've had unbroken sunshine for days and days now. With temperatures in the mid-30s (90s for those on the old scale) guests are enjoying long lazy days by the pool or chasing Cathars in their many castles in the region.

 July marks the start of the fetes/festival season and wine domaines open their doors now that the heaviest of the early Summer work is just about done. The grapes are left to get on with growing fat, fullsome, flavoursome and ripe. So the winemakers party. Our pals Hans and Christa open their doors each Monday night for a couple of months so you can go to taste their lovely wines in the middle of the vineyards.

 

 

We still have some availability at the end of July as a result of a cancellation, so why not escape the bustle and come to sunny Roujan for a few days? There's no-one in the pool right now - it could be all yours!

 

 

I haven't blogged for ages because there's been an elephant in the room. How could I have written and not mentioned the awful weather? It's been the worst June for forty years, but I could hardly have told you that. You'd have cancelled in droves! However, everyone has survived and had a good time visiting the lovely Languedoc's wildest places instead of lolling by the pool.

But THE SUN's BACK. That's the forecast at 9.07 this morning. So now we look forward to the return of the cicadas and their heat-driven whistle.

We've been battling with vine-spraying between showers. A mixture of heat, rain then plunging overnight temperatures has meant that the vines have been very susceptible to a number of conditions such as powdery mildew and shatter - the latter producing poor fruit set. But now I'm hoping we can hang on to as much of the good-looking berries as possible and that we have a long hot period from now until harvest. We need sun-soaked guests and grapes.

I'm about to have a rant, so look away if you're not up for it on a fine June day. Four days ago I received an e-mail from a guest who'd booked to stay for four days with her parents who were coming all the way from Rio de Janeiro. She wrote to say how much she was looking forward to cycling through lavender fields here in Provence. PROVENCE, LAVENDER FIELDS? Eeek. I wrote immediately to say that she did realise that Le Couvent is in Languedoc surrounded by vineyards, didn't she? She didn't and could I show her on a map when they got here?

They duly arrived two nights ago and were clearly bemused by where they'd pitched up. No lavender fields and no castle. CASTLE? What castle? Our lovely Brazilian then went off to find the picture she'd cut from a magazine three years ago and had been carrying in her pocket and her dreams ever since. At this point it all came clear.

In 2007 we had an e-mail from a journalist from Elle Spain who asked us to send photos of Le Couvent as she wanted to write an article. We sent photos and expected her to turn up. She didn't, but the article was published and I found it online. To my horror I saw that she'd said Le Couvent was in the lavender fields of Provence and at the top of the article was a Photoshopped stock image of Senanque Abbey sitting in a field of lavender. I wrote to the journalist immediately and pointed out her mistake and told her that I was furious that she could be so misleading. She told me I was worrying unnecessarily and that it didn't matter.

Lots of people contacted us to book and we told all of them the truth. Some of them came to stay anyway and we all had a lovely time. Some really wanted the lavender - just as our lovely guest who's here at the moment. So yesterday I suggested that we find them somewhere in Provence and I've now booked them in to a B&B that looks lovely and definitely has lavender there right now.

But lazy journalism has cost us about 400 euros and our lovely guests the loss of two days of their long-awaited holiday. Sure, they've made the best of it and have had their heads turned towards the delights of the Languedoc, but that's not the point. In the eight years that we've been open as a B&B there have been many articles that mention us. We have never sought it, though we've been grateful more often than not. However, only one journalist - the lovely Louise Hurren - has ever bothered to actually visit us. Pretty poor show eh? So don't believe everything you read in the papers - good or bad.

I'm sick of the variable weather we've been having. Take yesterday. The log man rang to say he was on his way. Great news as he's pretty unreliable, but a glance outside made my heart sink. It was just lashing with rain, so the delivery of four cubic metres of wet logs didn't fill me with joy. We haven't stacked them yet but have left them to dry a little in today's sunshine. We've been chopping them into impossible-to-burn wet kindling. At least the exercise keeps us warm.

Last night we toddled off to Neffiès to have supper at the bar there - L'Escampette.

 

 

There were just eight people at the bar, and the three of us were the only diners. But they did us proud. I chose a jolly good salade composée to start with. I don't normally choose anything with egg (in solidarity with our hens) but this was a fine egg.

 

Ali had some luscious snails followed by grilled foie gras, Alex chose some good looking crevettes and I went the steak route.

 

 

 

 

It was all good and we were very well looked after. Of course it is very popular in the summer, but top marks to them for staying open all winter. Just a four minute drive from Le Couvent and as a guide two courses each for the three of us, including wine, was 64 euros. Not at all bad for a tiny village bar.

Now, what do you make of this lid? The bottle contains cinnamon sticks, so how are you supposed to get them out?

 

Happy Valentine's Day to you. I hope you're having a wonderful day surrounded by love. Here in Roujan it's a bitterly cold, but sunny Sunday, so we're within 3 metres of a roaring log-burner watching the Winter Olympics. Ali's shocked as it was a very muggy 36 degrees when she left Western Australia earlier this week. I drove through thick snow on the road to Toulouse Airport to pick her up, but the snowploughs and salters had done an excellent job, so it was pretty clear on the return journey.

 

 

I'm praying the temperatures will rise over the next two weeks. We're expecting our lovely team of volunteers at the end of the month and the work will pass so much more sweetly if we're not battling freezing winds. Each year we advertise for volunteers and unbelievably we get takers.

 

 

They pay to get here and they offer their labours for a week. In exchange we make them work like Trojans in the vineyard, cook gigantic meals, and suffer fairly spartan conditions in our under-heated house. But amazingly it all gets done with spectacularly good humour and we laugh all week long. People get fitter, happier, and sometimes fatter and they leave the vineyard looking stunning. We simply can't thank them enough. Meanwhile, Kit the dog won't be wearing her new Australian coat. It's a bit on the tight side so she obviously feels ridiculous.

 

If you ever think of importing a car to France, forget it. It's a squillion times easier to buy one here, even if second-hand cars do cost the absolute earth. I've finally managed to get the paperwork together for my Mum's old car which now lives here. This is the pile of paperwork that's just gone off to the authorities.




Tomorrow we're hoping to finish the very last of the pruning in the vineyard. That'll be around 5500 done - each tended by hand. I actually love the pruning as it really is the time when you kick off the wine-making year. As you approach each vine you think about the wine you want to produce, trying to find the balance between quantity and quality. Last year we made a mistake which cost us dear later in the year. There were extremely violent winds during last Spring and we lost at least a quarter of the long young shoots to the gusts. Only subsequently did we hear that the locals say that you should leave enough for the wind when you prune. Our Grenache and Carignan is particularly vulnerable as it's in an exposed position at the top of our land on the side of a big hill. I'm not going to make the same mistake again.

Last year's wine is coming on very well. We're hoping to bottle at the end of April and we're currently talking with a wonderful ( and famous!) designer about preparing us some labels. More news later. The labels we codged together last year were amazingly successful, so we'd like to keep a mixture of the sacred and profane if we can. Who knows. Better ideas may come.

We have a new booking system on this website and it's working very well. In the past potential guests have had to engage in an e-mail dialogue with us, all of which took time, especially with differing time zones involved. Now enquirers can see immediately if their chosen room is available for the dates they want, and can book, pay the deposit, and have the stay confirmed without waiting for us to respond. As a result our bookings are already up on last year, which makes us very happy! So if you're hoping to come to Le Couvent this year, why delay? Go on, it'll give you something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, I'm off to watch the Italy vs England rugby match.

Phew, that's the excitement over for a while. We had a spiffing Christmas, with all the Gosling family together for the first time in donkey's years. My mother came to stay for a month and slithered back to Suffolk just before the heaviest snows fell. We had the best time while she was here and I'm sure she thinks we do nothing but party, so frequently flowed the invitations.

 

 

Ali hasn't had such a good time of it. First she snapped a front crown clean off on Christmas Eve. Mercifully our lovely dentist took pity on her and welded in a temporary one to stop her looking looking like a witch for Christmas. Now she finds herself stuck in snow-bound London, having popped over to Oxford for lunch a week ago. I'm very much hoping she makes it back on her revised flight tomorrow, otherwise I shall begin to suspect that she's avoiding the follow-up dental appointments and the pruning.

 

 

 

 

Having spent so much time frolicking about with my mother, December passed with barely a vine pruned, so now we are severely behind. We've also decided to burn all the off-cuts as we go (to save tripping over them all summer) so it's a painfully slow process. But the new pram-burner, Hot Pegasus, has worked like a dream. Coupled with the new, second-hand super-warm jacket I bought on Pezenas market last Saturday, I was sweltering today. Nevertheless, I was eventually driven home by sleet, yes, SLEET, in the vineyard. Ridiculous. This is the south of France so it is supposed to be sunbathing weather all the time, right?

 

 

 

The only irritating event over the past month has been the theft of my carefully devised plumbing system in the vineyard. So I'm about to replace it and I'm going to super-glue it in place, then dust it with that stuff that stains thieves hands. I'll then sit at the bar in the village and try to spot the miscreant. With a bit of luck I'll catch him/her red-handed.

And finally. Flynn won't go anywhere without his leather bone at the moment.  Here he is in the van, on the way back from a walk.

 

 

Happy New Year to you and yours. xxx