It's been a long winter, this week

Frosty trees at Javarzay
photo credit Edward Brown

It’s been a long winter, this week

A week ago, we arrived back in France having spent Christmas and New Year in England with our families. We had been spoiled rotten, meals out, centrally heated houses with plush carpeted floors, and weather kind enough to allow us to wrap up warmly and walk regularly. France hasn’t been so gentle on us; in fact, this week has been a bit of a shock to the system.

With Mum on New Year's Eve

Our journey home was rather exciting with a ferry full to bursting and way more French being spoken around us than English, followed by a dark drive in Normandy on roads that were edged in white and glowed ominously in the car headlights. As we made our way to a hotel just north of Rouen, the satnav, that has ideas of intelligence way above reality, sent us deep into the undulating countryside, where we crept along deserted roads whose surfaces resembled ice-rinks, all to avoid a one-way system on the final approach to the hotel car park. 

The drive home the following day began at -6º and alternated between freezing cold with sunshine, and freezing fog which decorated the trees in a beautiful, sparkling hoary frost. You could say it was a day where everything was freezing, but on our arrival home, the fridge-freezer in the kitchen was anything but freezing. I guess after over twenty-one years of sterling service, it was bound to pack up at some point, but to choose a week when we weren’t here was a little unfair. The first task having unpacked the car, was to throw most of the contents of the freezer into bin bags and to make up a soup with what could be saved. The second task was to call the water company, fill up as many pans of water as possible and then turn the water back off as while the fountain from the stopcock tap was pretty, it wasn’t a feature we needed. Welcome home and Happy New Year!

Snow on the back gate

The week then threw us from one challenging meteorological state to another as we lunged from an orange alert for snow on Tuesday, that became an ice-rain warning on Wednesday, only to be replaced with the strong winds and rain warning on Thursday and Friday as storm Goretti appeared from the Bay of Biscay. Deep joy. The bikes were left untouched and the car too on Tuesday and Wednesday, as I set up office on the dining room table and clicked away on my laptop preparing the spreadsheets for the 2026 season at the château as well as some promotional bits and bobs for upcoming château and library events.

New fridge-freezer safely loaded onto lovely friend's trailer

It was a relief to get to the weekend having survived 48 hours with no running water, a week using the porch as a fridge and thankfully missed the worst of storm Goretti, whose full force hit further north. Saturday was an exciting outing to buy a new fridge-freezer, and Sunday was celebrated with our first bike ride of the year. It is unusual for us to go so long without cycling as we are not generally only fair-weather cyclists, but the winter this week was intense. I’m crossing my fingers for a calmer second half to January and as I spotted some snowdrops this morning, the signs of spring won’t be far behind.

The first bike ride of 2026

Don’t forget, if you want to know the dates for the public and school holidays in France this year, and how other notable dates are celebrated, click here to read my traditional 1^st of January post. 

Goodbye June, hello July: summer in France

June hollyhocks in the garden

I’ve always liked June. It is a transitional month that promises so much; spring becomes summer, the days are long and evenings lazy, and there is a sense of pre-holiday mood all around. Normally, the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, although this year proved to be an exception. Now it’s over, I’d go so far as to say I’m glad to see the back of what has been a demanding month, with lots to challenge our routine. 

Sarlat, Dordogne

 

The month of May ended on a high with a four-day holiday in Sarlat, in the Dordogne, cycling, eating and seeing the sights. Covid-19 then reared its head and got a bit closer to home than was comfortable. Adrian’s Mum, in the UK, tested positive and was rapidly put on the new antiviral medication and monitored daily by a team of specialist nurses from her local hospital. Whilst it was worrying she had the virus, the care she received was incredibly reassuring for us and I’m pleased to say, she made a superb recovery. Here in the Deux-Sèvres, Pearl’s parents also tested positive, meaning Ed and Pearl were contact cases and we had to make the tough call to cancel a planned weekend with them. Thankfully they escaped, which was just as well as all this happened within a week of Ed’s planned wisdom teeth extraction. My poor baby had to have all four taken out, under general anaesthetic, in one morning, but thanks to an excellent selection of drugs, was remarkably chatty by the evening. My parents in the UK were also contact cases for Covid-19, but miraculously stayed clear, then my boss at the chateau tested positive. In all the time since the pandemic began, I’ve never known as many people Covid-positive, as in June. It was a timely reminder that it hasn’t gone away despite the vaccination programme and the relaxing of rules and mask-wearing requirements. 

The church in Aubigné

 

The weather in June was a real challenge, swinging from an officially categorised heatwave, that resulted in weather warnings severe enough to cancel indoor and outdoor public events, to storms that wreaked havoc. The local village of Aubigné, which had one of the prettiest churches in the area, was struck by lightning. The resulting fire felled the spire and caused major damage to the steeple. The local news was full of articles about storm and hail damage to houses and cars, as well as sunflower fields in the Charente and vineyards in Cognac and Bordeaux that were flattened by hail the size of tennis balls. Many areas around Angoulême suffered flooding from rain that once it started to fall, seemed never to stop. 

 

The thermometer has fluctuated from crazy highs of 39°c to lows of just 7°c, resulting in bike rides that have been hot and sweaty or so cold my nose hasn’t stopped running and my fingers have turned a deathly white from the Reynaud’s that normally only hits over winter. Some days at work I’ve been wrapped up in three layers, glad I’d packed my emergency vest, other days I’ve walked barefoot on the cool flagstone floors while the rooms at the top of the tower have been a stifling 46°c. 

 

If this isn’t a wake-up call to climate change and the damage we are doing to the planet, I don’t know what will make people take note and act. 

 

We tried our best throughout the madness of the weather to stick to our rule of only using the car for journeys over ten kilometres, but flooded roads and rumbling storms forced me into the car twice, which did nothing to improve my mood. 

July sunflowers and a return of the blue skies

 

July has begun with a promising start, in that there was no sound of pouring rain to accompany my first waking moments on Friday. However, at only 10°c it was a chilly cycle to the chateau for work and I abandoned my summer dress for jeans and a jumper. The Tour de France is now underway and this year we get a full month of the best of French road racing, three weeks for the men’s tour followed by one for the inaugural women’s tour, and I can’t wait. We will also have the excitement of Le Tour 79, our local professional cycling stage race, coming through our village before the final stage finishes in Chef-Boutonne. July will also see a return to village summer outdoor events, many that haven’t taken place for the last two years. Covid-19 numbers are rising here though, and masks are once again being advised, so I can only hope that the weather and the virus allow these planned events to go ahead. 

The July edition of The Deux-Sèvres Monthly

 

The blog might have been a bit quiet recently, but in the July edition of the Deux-Sèvres Monthly magazine (that you can read online here) you will find my top five tips for enjoying a visit to the Chateau de Javarzay, as well as my usual five-hundred-word column.

 

I’m also delighted to share that I’m one of the writers who has a short story published in an anthology that is available now on Amazon. I’ve Got Something MORE to Say: Transition, by Women’s Voices Southwest France, is a collection of short stories, poems and art from 45 women, on the theme of transition. You can read more about this inspiring group of women in this excellent blog by local author Harriet Springbett, who was at the launch party last weekend. Much as I would have loved to be there, work at the chateau would have meant making the ten-hour return drive in a day, and I’d rather have taken my time and gone by bike. 

 

Here’s wishing you a fantastic July, we all deserve one and I hope France will feature somewhere in your plans, even if it is just watching some stages of Le Tour de France on TV, or escaping to France in the pages of a book. Here are some links to my last book reviews if you need any inspiration:

Summer at the French Café

The Italian Job (it’s over the border but it is set in a chateau)

The French for Murder

Daisy’s French Farmhouse

Five Dead Men

  

Energy and Power

We've been out on the bikes again, roughly following the Charente Velo Circuit 34c, but as this is a 60km circuit from Mansle 16230, we sneakily cut off a corner, although still completing an acceptable 48km. But there was a problem. I have cycled further, with more hills and in hotter weather, but I really struggled today. There could be many reasons for this, one of which is having exhausted myself on Friday doing the back to school shop at a hypermarket in Big Town - so much more stressful than the normal weekly shop in our local town, but I survived, just. However the experience did leave me so tired it was 9.20am before I opened an eye this morning, something almost unheard of for me. This resulted in a late breakfast, so I decided on a light fruit only snack followed by morning coffee to be back on track for lunch. 

I'm guessing that my head wasn't quite with it as despite a plan for an afternoon cycle ride and a small breakfast, we only had a ham sandwich for lunch rather than our normal bike ride picnic of tinned fish and wholemeal pasta. That was a lesson learnt and a mistake not to be repeated. Good energy food is power and essential if you are cycling and I was so glad we had muesli bars and walnuts to nibble on this afternoon.

The route we took happened to pass through the area that was directly in the path of the storm that hit our area a month ago. Whilst we may have had a restless night, what we experienced was nothing compared to what we saw today. The power of nature was visible all around, but especially in the wooded areas that had been left totally devastated by the storm. It was a very humbling experience.

The bent trunks following the storm last month

The power of nature

Whether the weather will ever get better

It is a very British thing to talk about the weather and being British that is what I’m going to do, as it seems to me that France is being picked on by the weather gods this week. Having seen many horrid images in the local and national press the one thing I am not going to do is complain about our weather, instead I am very thankful as we seemed to have escaped the worst of it.

Mini in a flooded field

At the beginning of this week, that just so happens to be the week we will be celebrating the summer solstice, we were on an orange storm-warning alert. Storms are not my thing at all and being here without Ade just added to the stress. However, I took the usual precautions before going to bed, unplugged all computer and television appliances, checked the batteries on the torch I keep by the bed and made sure the garden furniture was stacked away. With a mug of chamomile tea and a good book I waited for it to hit. Surprisingly I awoke on Monday morning and not a drop of rain had fallen overnight. However not far to the north of us in the Vendee and north Deux Sevres and oddly enough to the south in the Charente Maritime too, they had not been so lucky. Reports of hail stones the size of golf balls and pictures of destroyed vineyards, cereal crops and damaged cars and property were all over the internet. We were lucky, but again that evening we were on another high alert. A repeat of my bedtime precautions was followed by a slightly interrupted night as thunder and heavy rain rattled around outside. Thankfully Monday had been spent harvesting as many of our cherries as possible, something I am really pleased I did. Tuesday we had rain all day, improving to light drizzle by the evening, which is not the best cherry picking weather and to be honest much of what was left had either fallen off in the night or is now going mouldy because of the rain. For us this is just a disappointment and an inconvenience, but there are many families who will have seen their income for this year destroyed overnight.

By yesterday evening reports were coming in of flood warnings from the Pyrenees all the way up the west of France to Poitou-Charentes. One of the areas badly affected was the town of Luchon where we stayed this February for our ski holiday. The shocking pictures showed the road outside our accommodation running like a fast flowing river. Many people in towns and villages in the area had to be evacuated including in Lourdes, mountain roads have been closed due to landslips and at least one person has drowned. Some pictures can be seen here. Even closer to home and not far from where we cycled last week there has been some flooding of houses this morning.

Not used to wearing wellies in June

The weather today is warm, overcast and damp underfoot but I was able to do some weeding in the potager, although the wet clay soil soon made walking difficult as it clung to my boots. As a bonus everything is growing well and I haven’t had to do too much watering, but as usual it seems the weeds are the happiest of all. Last week I was pottering in the potager with a glass of rosé wine, side shooting the tomatoes and being warmed by the evening sun and even at the weekend I took a late dip in the pool to cool down after my potager chores. I really do hope for an improvement in the weather so many more evenings can be spent outside. Summer is a special time for us, and being able to sit out in the garden watching the bats and gazing at the stars is part of what makes it so special.

The north and east of France is currently on orange alert, with warnings of violent storms and hail due later today and some of the Pyrenees is still on a red flood warning. I do hope if you or anyone you know are in any of the affected areas you stay safe and that all is well. More information on the current French weather can be found here.