Sunday 1st September
I love September, it always feels like a fresh start, an opportunity to take stock, make tweaks and get back into a regular rhythm of life after the craziness of summer.
Our August is always busy, it always feels chaotic and slightly uncontrollable. I feel swept along with a constant tide of ever changing people, the days merging into nights, into days, into nights without ever seeming to pause.
It’s hard to convey the 24hr nature of this job. Hard to explain the feeling of always being responsible for other people. Even on our nights “off” when we don’t serve dinner to our guests, or in our scant hour of downtime between chores each day, our guests are still here in our home. We are still ultimately responsible for them, it’s hard to completely relax when you’re always waiting for the next knock, text message or “excuse me”.
When September comes there seems to be a release of some of the tension, a deep exhalation and a feeling of relief. The boys will be back to school this week, we have fewer one night stays, and hopefully a change of pace. We can slip back onto normal routines and work our way steadily to the end of the season and the deep sleep that will come with October.
We spend this “last day of freedom”, as the boys have termed it, as a family; a final lunch out and a lazy afternoon together while the rain falls outside. Then the usual rush of bag packing and bus and train pass finding and much chivvying towards an early night.
Monday 2nd September
The garden is becoming so wild that it’s beginning to climb in through the windows, stealing thief-like through the shutters; the wisteria curling around the wrought iron of the garde corps and feeling with its tendrilled finger tips for the edge of the Honey Suite window sill, testing to see if it might sneak into the house unnoticed.
I’ve been watching its steady creep around the window frame, every now and again uncurling a spiralling twist of vine from a shutter latch or window hinge, torn as ever by the romance of a climbing garden and the practicality of being able to actually close the windows and shutters. I rescue a section of shutter today, gently uncoiling a leafy frond of wisteria and encouraging it to climb instead along the wire at the front of the house.
There’s been no time lately to tend the garden. So I dead head as I pick flowers for the house. Trying to get two jobs done at once and probably making both take longer than they should. I’m late hauling the buckets full of flowers back to the kitchen. Glancing always at the clock as I wash the vases and refill each one with fresh flowers, the minutes disappearing, the new guests getting closer.
We’re just ready by check-in time today. Lighting the candles, putting away the last of the shopping as the guests begin to make their way down the long driveway to the house. Perhaps we’re getting slower as the season moves on? Or the hours in between guests are getting shorter?
Tuesday 3rd September
There’s wood smoke on the air, a distant bonfire somewhere smouldering in the damp early morning. My days start even earlier now that we have to factor in buses and trains, almost too early to walk back through the woods, but I brave it.
The first grey light is just easing its way through the trees and I feel like an intruder. I have a deep sense of being somewhere I’m not quite welcome yet, I imagine multiple sets of eyes watching me from the bushy understory of the woods, peering out at me from between the bracken and butchers broom. I pick up my pace, walking quickly for the edge, feeling a sense of relief as I step into the lime avenue and see the house, a welcome light glowing through the kitchen door. Next time, I tell myself, I’ll walk back down the drive.
Both boys are back at school now, full timetables, lessons all day, the house strangely quiet. I put the cushions back on the sofa and they stay there all day, undisturbed, and there’s a distinct lack of cereal bowls with a puddle of milk in the bottom on the kitchen side. There’s also no one to empty the dishwashers, so Tim and I add that back onto our morning chore list.
We clean windows today too, the errant window cleaner never making a comeback. It looks like we’ve done a competent job with our vinegar spray and lint-free cloths, until the sun shines and the smears appear. I sigh, there’s no time to go over them again, and it’ll probably rain again in a few days anyway.
Wednesday 4th September
Thinly sliced onions are softening gently in butter in a frying pan, slowly turning golden and brown. I sprinkle salt over slices of my greenhouse tomatoes to draw out some of their juice, setting them aside while I roll out some puff pastry.
I spread the pastry generously with Dijon mustard and scatter over some of the sticky sweet onions and a handful of breadcrumbs. I blot the excess juice from the tomato slices with kitchen paper and arrange them on top of everything else, shaking over some herbs de Provence, garlic, salt and pepper and a few more breadcrumbs.
Quickly I fold over the edges of the pastry, which is getting a little warm and sticky now, to make a sort-of-galette and contain the tomatoes. I brush the pastry with beaten egg, pour a little drizzle of olive oil over the tomatoes and slide the tart into a hot oven for 30 minutes or so until crisp and golden.
I slice more tomatoes and a few balls of creamy mozzarella for a salad, and fry off some courgettes with onions, thyme, lemon and lardons for a courgette clafoutis. An impromptu lunch for Dale and Marianne, made with what I had in the house. We eat in the garden, on the terrace in the sunshine, the guests out for the day and the garden ours again for just a few hours. Dale and Marianne have popped in mid brocanting trip, and after a quick catch up over a lunch and a glass of wine, they’re off again in search of thrifted furniture and fabric for upholstery projects.
Thursday 5th September
I can hardly reach the sunflowers now, I teeter on my tiptoes, gaining an extra inch by balancing on the wooden plank that makes the side of the cutting garden bed, hoping that I don’t break it.
I fill buckets with sunflowers, dahlias and cosmos. The cafe au lait royales stealing my heart at the moment, the pale dusky pink veining through the swirling ivory petals. The perfect centre piece in a little jug of flowers for the hall table, tucked in with some raspberry red cosmos Rubenza, some pink snaps, deep burgundy scabious black knight and a froth of ammi visnaga; each colour somehow toning in with the next, pulling the best from one another
I harvest tomatoes too, in shades of red, green and yellow. Slicing them up, salting them and letting the flavours mingle as I make salmon niçoise for our guests. The evenings are getting cooler, but everyone is keen to cling on to dinner on the terrace, pulling the blankets we leave on the backs of chairs around their shoulders as the night draws in, the festoon lights sparkling around them, candles on the tables flickering.
Friday 6th September
I wrap my thin coat around me, hugging it to me for warmth on this cool morning. The air is full of mist and a sweet scent of damp hay, the sun just beginning to rise into a pink sky. Margot and Tilly are charging about around my ankles, dipping in and out of the hedgerows in search of mice and birds. Monty keeps glancing upwards, his sights on for the telltale flash of red that signals a squirrel. I’m just walking, breathing in the fresh air, soaking up the peace of the morning before the usual Friday hustle begins.
But when it comes to it, the chores pass quickly today, the gite clean done in record time, all the guests in the house staying over, so there’s no beds to change. We manage to eat lunch at lunchtime for once. I wrestle briefly with the idea of getting in the garden, making the most of this surprise few hours, but then I admit to myself that I’m truly tired. Tell myself to be sensible and rest, promise to tackle the weeds another day.
I wake up two hours later, my limbs heavy with sleep, my mind groggy. I really must have needed the rest. It takes a while to come to, I’m slow to wake up and get going again. But once I do, I’m grateful for this little reset, energy levels restored just in time to make grazing boards for our guests and to tackle a busy weekend ahead.
Saturday 7th September
I open the shutters to stillness, the garden unmoving, not a breath of wind in the trees, the sky a solid pale grey, everything seems frozen in time. But the birds are still singing, their voices quiet, songs gentle and sweet, their simple, calm, autumn melody far removed from the spritely spring one.
Outside the kitchen door the Japanese Anemones stand tall and motionless, their petals closed around their little faces, waiting for the sun to arrive, for the day to warm up and coax them to open outwards.
Our favourite bakers have been on holiday for two weeks, but they’re finally back and Tim comes home with a hunk of their fruity randonneur bread, spiked with hazelnuts for our breakfast. I eat mine as it is, spread with salty butter, with a juicy white peach on the side. Tim has his toasted until golden, so the butter melts into the sweet bread. Our Saturday morning treat before we get to bed changing and bathroom cleaning.
A storm rolls in in the late afternoon, boiling and growling around us for a good quarter of an hour before it finally breaks, heavy rain falling slantwise across the garden, tearing leaves from the trees and battering the flowers. I stand in the kitchen watching it all swirl around us, the still quiet of this morning forgotten as the garden bends and submits to the onslaught. There’ll be no dinner on the terrace tonight, the salon candles are lit and the tables set inside, summer seems to have eased into autumn before it ever really got going.
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I am on vacation in Newfoundland, Canada for 2 weeks. It is so beautiful here: rugged, the people warm and friendly. I have gone from being a hostess to a guest and it is difficult to switch roles. I find myself stripping my bed, stacking my dishes...lol. Your place is on my bucket list.
Lost in your words i come to realising what summer we had is over and grateful our winter easing in Cyprus is very close. Snuggle up when you can and enjoy the fast approaching ‘only us’