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.

Whoops - I've kept you waiting. Sorry. Glad you're back though. So four days ago the Tour de France chose to gallop through Roujan again after a 50 year break. And what fun we had.

Two of our poor guests had to leave early on the day of the tour to avoid closed roads and traffic jams. This was particularly rotten luck since one of them had broken her foot whilst here and had the 24 hour journey back to Western Australia to do encased in plaster. Hope you got home safely John & Julia - sorry you missed Le Tour. Maybe the whole of Roujan should be protected thus:

The fun starts some two hours before the actual cyclists show up, when a cavalcade of advertising vehicles rattle past lobbing freebies at leaping spectators. Grown adults diving like Grobelaar to rob tiny children of the fourth peaked cap or a triangle of cheese. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, like this one on top of a car.

Some aren't quite what they claim to be - for instance - what's eco about driving the whole of France in a big square box on wheels?

 

This poor women spent her entire time trying to avoid being decapitated by overhanging trees.

Whilst this chap looked none too enamoured to be spending half of July sitting in a cup of coffee. A career in PR anyone?

Mme Mas came out onto her balcony to wave, sporting a very appropriate and fetching Nike cap.

 Ali made sure we got our own bit of marketing in.

Our lovely French neighbour brought us out a plate of delicious stuff to stave off hunger (we were none too successful at catching the cheese triangles).

 Nicola & Ali bought silly hats.

And eventually the cyclists came in a sweep and a whoosh. All very exciting. We shouted for them to thow us drugs, but they seemed to have kept them all for themselves. Hey ho, you can only ask.

  

 So we all had a silly, noisy, friendly and lovely time. Wish you'd been here.

 Thanks Tour de France - see you in 2058.

Wow, it's been a momentous week. My lovely brother Justin (known in the family as Freddie) had his 50th birthday.

His kind wife, Michelle, organised a secret party for 60-odd people (important hyphen). It was nearly a well-kept secret until Joel the local carpenter asked him what time it started just two days before the event.

I gave him one of those super-duper self-published books you can do so easily on a Mac & Ali gave him a day learning how to taste and blend wine. We all went off to Domaine Bourdic and had a fantastic time creating our own blend. By the end of the morning we all had blue tongues from tasting so much 'raw' wine.

But the real panic came during the afternoon when we had to blend, record quantities, taste, adjust, blend again and eventually come up with our very own assemblage which was bottled and given a label with our name on.

 

It was a truly fantastic and memorable day. Hans & Christa are gifted teachers and each one of us said we'd learnt more about wine in one day than could be imagined. We'll keep you posted about the next chance to do the same assemblage day.

Yesterday we had a real Jean de Florette kind of a morning. For some time we've been lugging 120 litres of water up to our vegetable garden in the vineyards as there's been no water there. But it all changed yesterday thanks to Ebay (where I found the perfect pump), Ib and Andreas. More about it on Ali's blog about our vineyard .

Meanwhile the guests have just been hanging about in hammocks.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Fresh from Australia via Paris, new guests arrived yesterday.  They're on their honeymoon and over a glass or two of Le Couvent rosé they were telling us of their short but magical time in Paris. In particular they'd been impressed by the wonderful display of multi-coloured macaroons in Ladurée .

 

Yesterday morning, by absolute chance, I had skidded into one of the two Roujan baker's seconds before they closed and bought up the last of their special of the day. What was it? Yes, a pretty box full of colourful macaroons hand-made by the baker that morning. So, as I presented the plate to our guests I looked like the most accomplished magician ever to have lived.