A new door

Those of you that have stayed with us at our B&B will know that our metal double doors were a bit difficult on very hot days. They would expand in the heat and with their very wobbly door handle were almost impossible to close until they cooled again in the evening. What you won’t have known is just how cold they could be in winter; shrinking in the frosts and allowing chilly winds to whistle through the cracks. But we loved them they had real character.

We decided to ask an artisan if there was any way we could insulate them better, as they were so cold in winter. He took one look and replied “C’est normal”. Apparently this was true of all metal doors, and as they were hinged directly from the wall without a frame there was nothing that could be done, except to replace them. It wasn’t our preferred route, as we truly did love them, but it seemed we were talking to the right man, because he could make new ones for us that were very similar in wood. After much soul-searching, and asking for a technical drawing, we decided to go ahead. This was in June.

Building the door took longer than we expected, and it was a Monday evening in early December, and minus two centigrade outside, when they rang to say they wanted to fit the door the next day. We agreed, but were a bit nervous about the cold. But it seems they were smarter than we’d given them credit for, as the next day there was a staggering 11 degree centigrade jump in temperature.

They started early, and wasted no time at all getting the old doors removed.

They worked cleanly and swiftly, and just after midday the work was finished.

The new doors are even more beautiful, and they’ve made such a difference to the warmth of the house. We are so pleased with them.

Plat du jour

Earlier this week we met up with some friends to enjoy a ‘plat du jour’, or menu of the day, at a local relais routier restaurant. A relais routier restaurant is where truck drivers and travellers can get a good home cooked meal, and wash and rest if they need to. There are not as many relais routier restaurants around as there used to be, I think as the roads across France became bigger, and service areas become better, the smaller relais routier services have closed. However, the ones that are left do offer great value for money meals.

The plat du jour at this one was €14 for a four course meal: sausage in a brioche bun, turkey kebab with mashed potatoes and mushrooms, followed by cheese, then finally a delicious light vanilla custard rolled sponge. It was all cooked very well, used local products, and was absolutely delicious. Still a very popular stop for drivers and locals, it was full when we arrived at 12h45. Luckily we had booked.

A mini mountain to climb

I’d set myself a goal of walking up to the point de vue. To me it really did seem like a mini-mountain to climb. I thought if I could achieve this by the end of February that would be a very good result.

Today was such a perfect day for a walk, so I was keen to get started. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, there was a chill in the air, but the sun on my face was warm and invigorating.

Wrapped up in our hats and scarves we headed up through the village. Brian had suggested the point de vue as the walk we started with, because it was easy to remember how far we got each day, and there was a definite target to achieve. We would walk as far as I felt I could, then turn around and head back. Each day we will try and get a little bit further.

We set off, not trying to predict a first day turning point. We were chatting away about all kinds of things. I always find that walking, even short distances, clears the mind and your brain starts exploring.

Before we knew it we were walking through the little forest at the mouth of the point de vue, and heading for a well deserved rest on the little bench soaking up the stunning view.

This is such a beautiful spot that feeds my soul whenever we are up here, and offers such a wonderful calm. Idyllic.

So happy I achieved it on day one. Now to do it again.

Marc Bohan

It amazes me sometimes the wealth of culture our little region has to offer, and just how unique it can be.

Recently we were lucky enough to visit an exhibition in Châtillon-sur-Seine for the designer Marc Bohan. Bohan was the creative director at Dior during his nearly 30 year career at the house, and among his many achievements were his unique designs for princess Grace of Monaco.

Bohan had his home in Châtillon, so it was fitting that an exhibition of his work should be held there. What was incredible about it was that the family of princess Grace offered some of her most beautiful haute couture outfits for display for the first time ever. What a coup!

It was a spectacular exhibition, that felt almost private in its intimacy and lack of crowds. A truly ‘once in a lifetime’ event for us, and a perfect example of why we love our little piece of France so much.

What’s changing

The last six months have been rather challenging, and I needed to take a rest from the chambre d’hôte and the blog, but I’m healing well from my health issues, and my strength, are improving day by day. No long country walks yet, but that will come, and I’m enjoying building up to them.

We are not going to be able to relaunch the chambre d’hôte back to how we ran it last year, we will need to slow things down a bit, and give ourselves time to prepare properly for guests, family and friends that visit. To ensure we can continue to offer a relaxing and comfortable stay, we will have a minimum stay of three nights for guests going forward. We like to think our home is a haven of relaxation, and feel our guests get the most from us when they have time to truly enjoy their surroundings.

Website

It’s that time of year again, when Brian likes to ensure our website is all up-to-date. He’ll refresh any information that needs updating, and include any changes to the website to keep it current. It’s also important to make sure the website properly reflects the chambre d’hôte and its rooms, so with the new additions and changes we have made its probably time to update some photography as well, but that takes a little bit longer. So, for now, the website is where it needs to be, and is fully updated.

Thank you for your patience

Some of you may remember my last post of 2025: “Due to some health challenges I’ve had we needed to make some decisions with our day to day life, and one is for me to make a little pause on the blog.”

Well, things have improved since then, and I’ve really missed writing our French Adventure blogs. So I’m happy to say I’m ready to pick up the pen (mouse) again.

It has been a chilly start to the year. We’ve been experiencing temperatures around -9°c, which brought with it about 6” of snow. We had some friends arrive just as the cold weather was drawing in, and they had a little bit of a hairy trip from the motorway to ours, negotiating the freshly snowed roads that were already a bit icy beneath.

For the next couple of days we enjoyed cooking together, sharing recipes, eating together, chats in front of the fire, and tasting the local bubbles whilst playing board games and trivia. There was also time to just quietly sit and read a book, enjoying one of Brian’s delicious cups of coffee.

Their time with us went so quickly, but gave us a moment to reflect on the year that had just passed, and wish for hope and harmony in 2026.

We wish you all a very happy new year, and can’t wait to start sharing our adventure with you all again.

We have lots of exciting new adventures to look forward to in 2026 which we would love to share with you, and some projects along the way of which we want to start and some still to finish. I will once again blog about our adventures and let you enjoy our experiences together. It may not be a daily blog to start with, but little by little I’ll get there.

Taking a break

Firstly apologies for not being available to blog over the past couple of weeks.

Due to some health challenges I’ve had we needed to make some decisions with our day to day life, and one is for me to make a little pause on the blog.

I hope you will stay subscribed, so that when I return, later in the year, you will be the first to read all about our adventures, and plans for the future.

Thank you for supporting me via my blog since we moved to France in 2020, I so appreciate all your comments, suggestions and tips that you have shared.

Catch up again soon.

Dijon – a day trip

We needed to be in Dijon, which is about an hour and a half from us. This gave us a chance to roam around this wonderful city, with its gorgeous, typical French architecture.

The mansard roofs and Juliette balconies are just so iconic. I love their elegance.

The interiors are spectacular too. Would you believe this is just the tourist office?

Skylines are often very dramatic in their contrasts, especially with those beautiful blue skies.

And their famous market is pretty amazing as well. It’s a great place to head for, to enjoy some lunch.

Definitely a beautiful city — well worth a visit.

A fruity delivery

A friend of mine organises a delivery from the south of France of soft fruits; mainly apricots, but this year she also included nectarines.

The apricots, I’m just taking the stones out and freezing. I needed a simple way to preserve them, although I have kept a few back to make a tasty apricot compote to have with yoghurt in the morning. I think our guests will also like that.

I haven’t quite decided what to do with the nectarines yet. I have given some to a neighbour, as it’s nice to share when you have plenty, and I’ve already eaten a couple, although they are rather large. I think I may see how they freeze, as they could be nice in a crumble in autumn, or roasted with vanilla ice cream on a warm summers evening. Yum.

Canicule

We’ve had a bit of a ‘canicule’, or heatwave, with temperatures getting as high as 42°. It’s not normally humid, but this one was definitely steamy at times. When we have a canicule the insurance company sends us texts and emails, telling us to take it easy, or stock up on essentials, so we don’t have to go out.

When the weather gets this hot though there’s only really one solution!

We’ve had a few cooler days, which have been a nice relief, but they are forecasting another canicule in about a week. Better get the bathing suit out again.

Where should we put it?

If you read my blog regularly you’ll know we recently bought three paintings from a brocante not too far from us. They all need a little bit of attention, and Brian’s taking his time doing what he can when he can fit it in between other little jobs.

Yesterday he found a bit of time to take a look at this one. It was pretty dirty/dusty, and there was at least one scratch in the paintwork.

It’s a real labour of love, he started by cleaning the surface with a very diluted detergent and water mix. This was quite painstaking, but as you can see it took off years of dirt.

Next he tried a very small part of the painting with white spirit, which reacted well, so he pushed on and cleaned again with that. This was a deeper clean, and also removed a very thin layer of the yellowing varnish on top. It’s hard to get an accurate rendition of the change from start to cleaned, but these two shots are pretty true. I like the cleaner hues of the cleaned one.

On the right of the painting there was a rather deep scratch through the tree, which really stuck out as the contrast was so great. As the painting is done in oils, Brian thought it would be best to colour match it in acrylic, so if anyone in the distant future wanted to reverse it they could.

I have to say I think it’s a pretty marvellous job.

Now where should we put it?

Spooky

We do get some beautiful sunsets, but sometimes they turn a bit spooky. Like this one, where a low moon peaking through the faded light on a pink and blue cloud really looked quite creepy.

Don’t know what it was about it, but it was very eerie.

The cloud was soon gone though, and balance was restored.

Now I think it looks like a Christmas tree.

Champagne visit

While my nephew and his girlfriend were here we wanted to take them to see a Champagne house, and even though it was a Sunday we managed to find one willing to give us a tour.

Champagne Pascal Walczak have been making Champagne in Les Riceys since 1973. They’re only a relatively small outfit but they’ve created an impressive business with award winning Champagnes.

It’s always good to take a tour, because you learn something new every time, no matter how many times you’ve done them before.

Never ceases to amaze me how much they have in storage as well. We did help them here though by coming away with a few bottles.

The river

A few weeks back we went to a village meeting about the impending review of our ‘Village fleurie’ rating. It’s a sort of community competition, aimed at improving the life of village inhabitants and attracting tourists. The competition was created in 1959 by the French state and is administered by a national committee, who visit once per year to assess the quality of green spaces, volume of flowers and general upkeep of public areas. The committee can decide what flower rating you can display at the entrance to your village, and the rating is from 0 to 4. We are currently a 3 flower village.

As with all these things though, over time, the judging becomes more officious and the villages more competitive. And this year the guidance from the committee seems to be at odds with our villages intent, so it could be a difficult review.

We’re keen to do our bit, so we put window boxes outside the front of the house, as it adds an extra pop of colour. Also outside the house though is the river, and keeping it clean falls to the owners of the properties adjoining it. This means that at least twice a year we have to cut out all the weed that grows in it. And with a judging group coming it needs to be done quickly!

As you can see, it gets very weedy when the sun shines, like it is now, but with the help of my nephew and his girlfriend we soon had it looking ship-shape.

Let’s hope all the work everyone has put in throughout the village is enough to convince the judges.

Rapid

It was Phil’s birthday, a good friend of ours, and he was going to have a quiet barbecue celebration which he wanted us to join. When he originally invited us he suggested a long walk around the lake and an ice cream before heading back to theirs for the barbecue. This sounded great, and I was quick to agree, but after hearing that the lake was very busy because the school holidays had started he instead suggested, as a treat to himself, that he’d like us all to go kayaking on the Seine; which runs along the bottom of their garden. It looked like our quiet afternoon had gone up a notch — exciting!

So we packed some suitable clothing, and made our way to theirs. After an extensive safety briefing putting our wet shoes on we all dived into our kayaks at the end of the garden, and set off. We had taken the double seater, thinking we were being kind, allowing them the fun of the single seaters, but I think we had the easier time.

We were actually heading up river, against a few sets of shallow rapids. We needed to get out and push the kayaks through these. Then to a gentle, wider part of the river, full of ‘les demoiselles’. It was both exhilarating and beautiful.

The journey back, was so much quicker, and we all decided we’d risk staying in the Kayaks for the rapids.

Brilliant, happy birthday Phil.

Guests arriving

On returning home, I felt the garden needed a few more flowers so when we nipped out to do the shopping we also made a visit to the local garden centre. It was full of gorgeous flowers, and some were really quite reasonable. I was then in a quandary as to what I should buy.

It took a little while, but my decision was made, and we headed home.

Once there, Brian opened up the pool ready for our guests, who were arriving later today. I have to say that it looked very tempting, but I had to stay focussed on our impending arrivals.

With our guests all nicely checked in, and enjoying an early evening swim, I was able to take a moment and water the plants in.

Cleaning the Lavoir

We arrived back home after a long drive, in the knowledge that we had a hard afternoons work ahead of us, preparing the gardens for our guests the day after. What we hadn’t bargained on was that our Mairie would be calling on willing villagers to help with cleaning up the lavoir the next morning.

Apparently the inspection team for the village flower ratings is visiting soon, and we need to do our best to keep appearances up. That’s all good, but the last thing we needed was an early start with manual labour, but at least it wasn’t until 9.30am. but then we read the second flyer.

Due to the temperatures we were experiencing they had pushed the time forward…

…to 7am!

It really wasn’t ideal, but Brian said that he would go, whilst I stayed at home to prepare for our guests. It is always important to show that we are willing to support the village.

After a brief pep talk the work began. There was an excessive amount of ivy and other plants growing in, and around, the lavoir (wash house), and it all needed to come out.

there was no mucking about, and they were all soon getting stuck in, with the sound of power tools and clanging gardening equipment filling the morning air.

The Maire got stuck in with his Massey Ferguson, and there was soon a big change happening.

It’s amazing what a group of like-minded people can achieve in a short time.

Brian couldn’t hang around for the whole effort, but he had been present and helped them along, and that’s the main thing.

Musée des beaux arts - Limoges

We do love a museum, especially when it has a display of arts.

We visited the musée des beaux arts de Limoges, a grand building that was commissioned by the bishop as a new personal palace in 1766. It was never completed following the French Revolution of 1789. The museum has three distinct sections, an Egyptian section, a history of Limoges section, and a section devoted to enamels.

The section on the history of Limoges had a series of 3D maps showing the size of the city through the ages, and a collection of very detailed paintings showing what Limoges looked like during those periods.

They also had works by painters that had lived or worked in Limoges, including a few paintings by our local celebrity Renoir.

A rather spectacular piece, that caught our attention, is the rather crazy Parade Burlesque by David-Ossipovitch Widhopff, 1924

Just love those pigs!

The real surprise was yet to come though, in the enamel section.

Enamelling, in its most basic form, is a method that seals vitreous powder (ground from crystal), that’s mixed with colourings, to copper plate using heat. The coloured layers need to be applied in the correct order, with the highest melting point colours first. Each colour fired separately. It’s a painstaking process, but the results can be mesmerising.

It’s not a process reserved for flat plates of copper either, many of the works were created on complex shapes formed by sculpting the copper first.

This small, blue vase was so beautifully textured, and finished with metallic enamels for that extra ‘pop’.

It was an altogether wonderful museum, but the enamels really were the star of the show.

Limoges

Whilst planning our trip we realised we would be passing Limoges on our way home from the Périgord, and it was an opportunity we felt we couldn’t miss. One of the things that appealed to us is that we’ve been looking for some new plates for the chambre d’hôte, and haven’t seen anything we like. So we booked a couple of nights in the city, which by all accounts is quite beautiful. So when we arrived, before heading to our hotel, our first stop was to visit some of the porcelain shops.

They really do have some gorgeous porcelain, but for my dinner plates I like a very traditional white plate, which is fortunate, because you could easily spend a small fortune here. We soon found some that we both liked and made our purchase. Job done, we drove into the city proper.

Brian had booked us a room in the centre of Limoges, which was great, as we could easily walk to all the places we wanted to visit. Limoges really is a beautiful city, old buildings mixed with new, boutiques mixed with department stores, and bistros, cafés and tea rooms dotted all over the place.

We popped out to explore, and after a bit of shopping, we headed to the market for some lunch.

It’s a lovely old cast iron structure, with fish stalls, cheese stalls and all sorts, but they also had great little places to buy drinks and food to eat at the communal tables.

After lunch we wanted to visit the musée des beaux arts, but first we decided to take a look at the cathedral, which is just next door. Slightly odd from the outside, it was very welcoming and bright inside, mostly as some of the stained glass was missing, and had been replaced with just clear glass panes. That said, what they did have was really beautiful. It was also a great place to cool down.

We had a fun time exploring the city so far, and now on to the musée des beaux arts.