Open the front door of Le Chateau, take a right turn and continue along the path. The fields are bursting to the brim as far as the eye can see with sunflowers. Scattered in between are fields of newly harvested wheat, their stumps creating a deep golden ragged carpet. On a clear calm morning such as today the entire vista is picture postcard perfect. Le Vent Marin, a warm marine wind from the Mediterranean blew this week though, and boy did she blow. It made the girlie's dance, shake and lift their faces to shiver and shimmy in their flouncy yellow dresses. It was too violent to open the windows, the old shutters groaned and strained on their hinges and I lost two of my beloved flowerpots as they flew over the terrace discarding their jolly bright red geraniums. I sat and cursed silently, pacing up and down as I watched the pool water level plummet and imagined the garden shrivelling up and dying in front of my eyes. I valiantly struggled out to pull some weeds but they were thrown back in my face as the wind laughed at such foolishness.
Progress though, and this is depending on your viewpoint or maybe its just a sign of the times, took place the other day with the installation of English satellite TV in Le Chateau. Apparently its now a real clincher so I hastily added this vital gobbit of information on the website and am now sitting back awaiting the flurry of late enquiries as people tire of waiting for the great British scorcher which hasn't arrived according to my sources and decide to come to the South of France for their own Indian summer in September/October. I'll let you into a little secret, and I don't often do this but I will on this rare occasion. I stared long and hard at the most ridiculously cheap flights in October last night but in the end decided there was nothing I wanted to do more than to stay put.
We lead such an exciting life here you see. You never know when a phone calls going to come through and you're off for a 'jolly'. Take the other day for example, completely out of the blue there's a film producer on the line wondering if 'The Grand Duchess' (my 1951 Riley motor car) can pootle along to the utterly charming Chateau de Saint Michel de Lanes . We didn't take much persuading and the old girl was given her customary buffing. Sadly though the heavens decided to open on July 14th this year so it was a rather soggy affair to say the least. By the time we arrived back home it was too late to go and see the fireworks in Carcassonne but as it was Bastille Day I rather reckoned that French TV would, at the very least, have some footage of the old crooner Johnny Hallyday warbling in front of the Eiffel Tower whilst rockets zoomed into the night sky as the whole of France revelled. No comment. Nothing. Zilch. The air turned blue.
I daresay you may be thinking that I can't have it all. Sunflowers, Chateau's, film shoots and she wants the fireworks too ?
Well yes, that's the sort of person I am.
Easy going.
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