Hello December, advent day one

Advent day one, a postcard from Marcillac-Lanville, Charente

Advent day one

Hello December, you have certainly snuck up on me this year, although I think you’ve made a habit of this over the last few years. I usually struggle to find my festive mojo, but so far, things are looking good - almost sparkly I’d say. Bizarrely this doesn’t seem to have affected just me, but Adrian too. Not only did he allow me to buy a little wooden Christmas decoration (in November), but he even got it out and put it on display, this morning. In addition to this, the mulled wine has been infusing all week and we are counting down the hours until we pour a first tasting this evening, before tucking into a real winter favourite, choucroute, for dinner.

 

If this isn’t festive enough, yesterday I surprised myself by attempting a bit of Christmas crafting, turning a worn-out old bike tyre, that just so happened to be a festive red colour, into a huge wreath to hang outside. It is still a work in progress, but I’m rather pleased with it so far.

 

This year has been busy, stimulating and fulfilling in so many ways. Alongside working at the château, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the history of the French Renaissance period, including attending a training course on Renaissance architecture, and dipping my toes into alchemists and apotropaic marks. To mark the end of my first year volunteering with our local France Alzheimer’s group, I’ve also been on their two-day training course, improving my understanding about all forms of dementia and the impact they have on the patients and their families.

 

Adrian and I have almost managed our twelve mini cycling adventures to celebrate our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, clocking up one thousand and seven hundred kilometres and twenty-one nights away, so far. We have cycled in all weathers and seen France change from season to season as we’ve explored from the châteaux of the Loire, down to the Dordogne, said to be home to one thousand and one châteaux, and east as far as Moulins in the Allier. While our overnight stops have all been towns or cities, ensuring restaurants and bars have been accessible whatever the time of year, our routes have taken us on back roads and cycle tracks, through quiet villages, where travelling at cycling pace has meant we have made some wonderful discoveries.

 

French village discoveries

In an attempt to get back into blogging, my plan this advent is to share a selection of the French villages that we have visited by bicycle this year. Some will have been places we’ve visited before, others we just passed through enroute to somewhere else, but by stopping, we have discovered something special. I hope these little postcards will inspire you to get off the beaten track and take the time to look for the unusual that France does so well.

 

Back in May, on our return bike ride from Angoulême, we stopped for a picnic in the village of Marcillac-Lanville in the Charente. It is somewhere we’ve often driven through, but this time we took the time to take a photograph of their Compostelle pilgrims before finding a hidden garden with picnic benches and the most colourful bandstand we’ve ever seen. It was a riot of stunning mosaics and masques in a rainbow of colours, and you couldn’t help but take your time to look all around, trying to see it all. It was the perfect picnic location on a dull Sunday in May.