Live Website... Enfin

So after 10 months of being here, we now, at last, have a beautiful new website. It went "live" yesterday, and I am contacting everyone I know (and many that I don't) to tell them about it and get some feedback.

And I've just had the most sublime morning at friends Ali and Lizzie's newly acquired Mazet (see picture) - 10 acres of garrigue where vines, olives, cistus, aloe vera, pines, pyrocanthus, heathers and herbs abound... My mouth is watering at the prospect of the spring evenings we can spend up there with secaturs and Muscat Sec.

I'm off to Margot's now for my weekly dose of French conversation and sweetness which is the Margot experience.

And I've just the most fantastic idea... to make one of our apartments available year round for volunteers. We always have gardening, painting, fixing, refurbishing to be done, and perhaps there are lots of people who might want a free holiday (with food included) in exchange for skills and labour. Let's hope it takes off.

End of autumn?

There was this incredible day where the colours in the vineyards, on the hills and in the garden were so clear and colourful it defied belief. And now, suddenly - two days later - the leaves are falling hard (like massive matresses of stuff) the temperature has dropped, and the fields all at once look ragged.

Work on the Gatehouse moves on quickly, but not without the usual horrifying discoveries (like the bathroom floor is about to collapse into the kitchen downstairs - years of shower water gently leaking through the tiles). However, the space itself is inspiring (a huge - well - triangle really) and I'm already planning colours and how I will use the space.

Our four-year-old daughter and her friend Louis are screaming about the garden at the moment pretending to be knights (or starship troopers or something) and look pink and rosy in the chilly sunshine. And I'm working with Lizzie on the website... So much to do, and so much space to do it in!

The first entry

La Maison Verte is currently on holiday itself, i.e there are no guests as we are closed for the winter. However, that doesn't mean we're lolling about doing nothing. Oh no. Our glorious November sunshine means that we are busy working on the garden while the tall boys, Ioan & Lee set about knocking down walls in the Gatehouse to make it lusciously open-plan.

Our plan with this blog is to keep you up to date with things here in sunny Roujan. We'll tell you about what's going on at La Maison Verte, and, when we have the chance to go out and about, we'll let you know what there is to see and do in the area.