is the opening line of William Wordworth's poem about walking and it's so relevant to our region of Corrèze. When we bought the house we had no idea that there we had glorious walks (and cycle paths) from the village. We have wide skies and tree covered lanes and you're never far from the sound of water. In winter when the water level is high there is an energy to the river that's invigorating. Summer brings quiet pools, perfect for paddling and cooling down a hot Mortimer. Footpaths in France are well marked and easy to follow, most are colour coded with cycle paths tending to b ..read more

Enjoying the spring sunshine Shelley was quite right, spring always comes but it did seem to take it's time this year (bit like this blog post!) Last time you dropped into the blog, winter had just begun, as had another lockdown and I feel like not much has changed. We thought winter had finally been banished a couple of weeks ago when it was warm enough to take coffee and croissants to the river and I wore sandals. But the old saying 'ne'er cast a clout til May is out' held true as bitter north-easterly winds swept through this week. We lost some blossom on our magnolia but some of t ..read more

Just two weeks after writing my last post France went into confinement for the second time, scheduled to last for the month of November. Only essential shops and services were open and once again we were limited to one hour a day exercise and no more than a kilometre from home. It's fair to say we found it harder than the first one. In March there was an optimism, summer round the corner and the fact that many of these types of virus tend to peter out during warm weather. Covid-19 is more tenacious than most and it didn't disappear. The view from the barn is ever changing We have been ..read more

"It's the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!"* Okay so there aren't many dropped leaves yet, they're not even really turning red. You can see a change in the colour on some trees but I think we're still a couple of weeks off. Finally after a very dry summer we have had a reasonable amount of rain, enough for mushrooms and fungi to spring up everywhere. The weather has been cooler, much to the relief of Mortimer who can once again enjoy longer walks. Our evenings are getting chillier now so we've had ..read more

August ended with a feeling of comfort for me. I dislike the phrase 'a comfortable life', it has a touch of middle-class smugness. 'The children have marvellous careers, there's a decent car in the garage, pensions are doing really quite nicely thank you and a cheeky little Merlot is ready for Sunday lunch'. It's hard to explain but I realised how much contentment life in Corrèze gives me and how comfortable it fits with me. I didn't realise quite how much until we returned from holiday last weekend. But I'm getting ahead of myself. August was always going to be a busy month. Work on the h ..read more

Hello? Anyone there? I suspect you've all abandoned me by now. For someone who thinks blogging should be a weekly affair then this is a pretty poor show! I have no excuse, Mortimer has not eaten the wifi cable, floods and tempests have not swept through Corrèze, it's just life really. And deadlines. Now I know that a practitioner of slow living shouldn't really be concerned about such things as deadlines but sometimes we have no choice. Our focus over the past few months has been twofold, for Andrew the house rewire and for me the pointing. I understand that these don't sound too bad but t ..read more

Many of you know that I can't resist a rummage around a second hand store. Whether it's Emmaüs, a ressourcerie or vide-grenier, I'm there. Why do I do it? Several reasons really. I dislike waste, so much modern furniture and household items just end up going into landfill as a short shelf life seems to be the norm now. I also have concerns over the manufacturing processes on new items, the exploitation of people who work in the factories not to mention the environmental implications. The quality of older items is often so much better, yes it may need a bit of work but it's worth it. And there ..read more

For the life of me I can't understand where May went! I know, I know, I'm getting older and so the years seem to shrink but it's getting a tad ridiculous. Last time I posted it was the 3rd of the month and tomorrow it's June. It's not as though we've been gadding about. French lockdown restrictions have been eased, and will do a little more from Tuesday but even so. I've had to have a look at my photographs to see what we've done this month. So here we have a pictorial record of May 2020 at The Old Notaires House. It was the month that I noticed the bearded iris around the village. I had neve ..read more

Since we've lived in Corrèze we've got used to the beautiful walks that we can take from home. There are several marked trails, we can pick up a section of the Chemin de Compostelle or just make up our own. Sometimes I just let Mortimer (our labradoodle) guide me as he usually picks a pretty decent route. The freedom to go where we want has been curtailed slightly over the last few weeks but this has made me more focussed on what we have on our immediate doorstep. Moss and lichen covered wall I set myself an Instagram challenge to really look at our village, and the kilometre from it ..read more

Come in, come in - the gates are open. Can I offer you a glass of wine? Let's take it down to the table at the end of the garden. Come in - the gates are open I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to invite you over but with all the work converting the barn and now the house restoration the garden gets somewhat forgotten. Also I'm not much of a gardener, I love having one but I don't spend hours planning and working in it. I know a lot of people buy property in France so that they can get a couple of acres and become self-sufficient but not us, in fact this was bigger than was ideal ..read more