As warmer weather sets in - a glorious 28C outside today - we are making the most of the opportunity to prepare for another dreamy and peaceful Summer.
Mark is planting iris and tending to our front courtyard, weeding and clearing away winter overgrowth, while I m getting ready to paint the big shutters on the front of the manor house - rather a lot of them - to make the place look even more handsome.
Our plan is to - eventually repoint all the front garden and barn walls, plant wisteria to wind its way all around the doors, and to returf the front lawn and create new flower beds in front of our cottage.
With an architect standing by for our future plans and lots of support from neighbours and ex-pats who are more experienced renovators than we are, and a growing list of trade contacts, we feel blessed and are looking forward to making more progress over the next five years or so.
Internal renovations on the manor house will start in 2026 when I start drawing my pension, but there is more than enough other work to keep us busy: apart from painting shutters, we will be decorating all of the rooms in our cottage and panelling the salon.
In the front courtyard our cherry plum tree has born magnificent blossoms this year, but it was before the bees visited and, unfortunately, also before a cold snap, so we may not get the stunning harvest we got last year - 25kg from our tiny little tree! - but we still have jars of compôte, coulis, jam and pickles in our larder from last year, so there is still much to enjoy.
The largest of our plum trees, located in the far reaches of the rear meadows garden, is in full flower, and is quite a sight to behold. We suspect this tree will be our saviour and deliver rather a grand fruit harvest. Last year there was so much glorious fruit, our neighbours explained it was a 'mast year' - this is when fruit trees produce a bumper crop and it only happens every few years - so we were spoiled and shared everything with neighbours. We could not have possibly picked or preserved all of it. Even though we were happy for them to pick fruit off our trees, they still - modestly - restricted themselves to picking fallen fruit, much as the law allows hikers to do in the UK when they walk through orchards.
I have to say that picking fruit fresh from the tree has to be one of my greatest pleasures in life - I just adore it - and quietly simmering, scenting, bottling and labelling fruit is such a peaceful moment, it takes me right back to one of the happiest times of my childhood, when I played with my friend Helen in her parents' garden and her mother would be making jams for their pantry. All the aromas of warm fruit driftrf across the rose bushes into the depths of the garden around us. Those were, for me, simply unforgettable times and I lived through those moments intensely, feeling them being etched into my heart as they unfolded....when I look back on those times, and relive that joy all over again, I think to myself...how lucky was I?
We had our first few guests stay with us last year and hope to have many more, so if you, dear reader, are one of them, we have no doubt you will be able to sample some of our luscious fruit - cherries, peaches, strawberries, wild raspberries, blackberries and plums of course, or maybe some tartlets which I make from time to time. May you have a wonderful Summer and we look forward to seeing you here.
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