Sunday 23rd June
It’s warm on the restaurant terrace, the summer sun filtering through its straw mat roof, I sip my kir and relax into my chair, it’s so lovely to be out. Tim’s uncle David was passing through and suggested a quick lunch, so here we are at the Mariette in Saint Marceau, a small and pretty village just down the road. It’s busy, every table full, people bustling back and forth to the buffet to collect their starters.
I love these traditional French entrée buffets, and this one is particularly special; whole sides of poached salmon, terrines and pates, huge prawn and shellfish platters, thin pink slices of smoked salmon, bowls full of concombre a la creme, céleri rémoulade, carrot rapé, tomatoes and red onions in a mustardy vinaigrette, sweet slices of melon, pickles and charcuterie and beautiful fresh bread from the bakery over the road.
I fill my plate with salmon and salads, trying to be sensible. I have a grilled fillet of seabass with a langoustine sauce to come. The food is perfect, simple and fresh. Tim has duck breast with a honey and cider sauce and David just keeps filling his plate from the buffet until it’s time for pudding. A fraisier - layers of strawberries, cream and a light sponge cake. We’re stuffed and sleepy from a good lunch in the sunshine.
After a brief siesta I pick raspberries in the late afternoon, surprised to fill a bowl, given that the bindweed is choking every cane. It’s going to be a scant harvest though, the canes struggling to compete with the voracious weeds, I’ve tried everything to keep them at bay. I get distracted by the tomatoes in the hot and steamy greenhouse, cutting back the bottom leaves from each stem and tying in the new growth. I give them a feed too, the first baby tomatoes are just setting in.
Monday 24th June
I throw spent roses to the floor, snipping stems and flinging the dead heads behind me while clinging to the very top of the ladder. Tim ducks and weaves as the thorny stems rain down on him as he stands below me footing the ladder. I can’t look down to see where I’m throwing, I tell him, it makes me wobble. He’ll just have to take the hits.
The Generous Gardener on our side of the house is growing beautifully, it’s almost to the roof line now. But that means I have to climb higher and higher to dead head and prune it. I hang out of the windows too, trying to reach as many faded flowers as I can from the inside. Back on solid ground I rake up the debris, moving on to the next rose, and the next and the next. The rest are much lower, the ladder work less precarious, so Tim cuts lawns and strims edges, both of us too hot, working in the afternoon sun, but it’s the only time we have today.
Tuesday 25th June
We close the back shutters against the sun after breakfast. Today is going to be hot, the sun already beating down on the terrace and dark granite steps. Penny has retreated under a bush after baking her old bones in its heat for half an hour. I hate this enforced darkness, but I know it’s necessary to keep the house cool. We leave the front windows and shutters open, letting the breeze flood in, we’ll close those as the day heats up and the sun moves around the house.
I spend the morning in the gloom of the kitchen, a batch of bolognese, one of chilli, portioned up for family meals at busy times, chocolate mousse for tonight’s guests, two recipes for the chateau newsletter, my favourite herbed butter with radishes and fresh baguette and a simple summer tart.
I set a table in the shade outside to take pictures, but it takes so long to get everything organised that it’s almost in full sun by the time I’m ready. Pictures and videos for the newsletter and social media, the sun drumming down on me, making the butter melt. I move as fast as I can in the heat, back and forth to the kitchen with plates and glasses until eventually it’s done.
I retreat back into the shade of the house for an afternoon of admin and recipe writing, my mind whirring, overwhelmed by the to-do list, trying to get everything done before it’s time to cook again.
Wednesday 26th June
I throw open the windows to capture the coolness of the morning air, it’s already heady with the scent of jasmine and lime, the warmth of the sun pulling the perfume from the flowers even at this early hour. I stand in the window letting the breeze wash over me, trying to capture its freshness to last through another hot day. It’s going to be busy.
The camera crew is here. Here to capture the cutting garden which by now should be full of flowers, but because of the cool summer and the voracity of the slugs it isn’t. I’m disappointed. I’d imagined it looking beautiful, with waist high cosmos, the snapdragons in full bloom, a bed full of larkspur where there are now none.
There is a swathe of nigella to be grateful for at least, the snaps are flowering but only the pink ones, the lavenders, burgundies and crimsons yet to burst. The dahlias and scabious are budding, another two weeks and there would have been abundance, but we are at the mercy of the filming schedules and the weather and there is nothing we can do.
They film me cutting snapdragons and sweet peas. Capture me trundling back and forth to the house and the cutting garden time-after-time in the bright sunshine, pulling my rattling garden trolley behind me. It’s the hottest part of the day, the very worst time for cutting flowers. The sweat is pouring down my back, the mic pac clipped to my knickers under my dress, digging into my skin. It’s all far from glamorous. I tell myself to think cool, as for the 18th time they film me cutting a flower stem from another angle.
Tim is cleaning rooms in the house and between shots, while they film cutaways and close ups of the garden and house, I rush around making beds and getting my normal jobs done.
I’m a sweaty mess, my sun hat has left a red mark on my forehead, but now they are filming me arranging posies for the house. Asking me questions as I go, my hot brain trying to pull together coherent answers that will likely end up on television.
A wrap-up interview with us both, standing on the lawn in front of the house, answering questions over and again, sun still fierce in our faces. I have no idea how the crew do it day-after-day standing in this heat, just two of them, one filming whatever needs capturing at each place, the other assisting and organising, travelling for hours in between. They are gone by mid-afternoon and we snatch an hour for a nap in the cool darkness of our bedroom. Finally I feel my temperature dropping again.
I spend the evening picking raspberries, searching through the bindweed fortress for the canes, saving the ripe, sweet berries from its choke hold. I cut the fruiting stems of my blackcurrant bush too, piling them into a wheelbarrow to take back to the house. I sit in the shade on a chair from the kitchen, pulling currants off the pruned stems and into my bowl as the sun begins to set behind the farmyard. A good two and half kilos of currants, my hands stained purple with juice. At last it’s finally time for bed, trays of raspberries and currants tucked in the freezer for puddings throughout the summer.
Thursday 27th June
The tractors are rumbling, the hay has been turned and dried, the green turning to a dry gold, sweet and dusty. The baler is working in the meadows, neatly wrapping huge round bales in twine, scattering them like ancient standing stones around the fields, a monument to a farming summer. The hay harvest almost done.
I cut more flowers today, in peace by myself, slowly, methodically, my trolley standing in the shade rather than the sun to keep the flowers cool and fresh. Tim stowed the leftover flowers from yesterday down in the cellar to keep cool, but it turns out that the cellar has its own population of slugs and snails who enjoyed a feast over night. Those that haven’t been eaten are already wilting, picked at the wrong time of day. Luckily I have enough to pick more for the house so there are fresh flowers for this weekend’s guests.
It’s slightly cooler today, a breeze blowing in through the kitchen window as I stand at the ironing board working my way through the napkins and table runners. I chat to mum and dad on the phone as I work, listening to tales of their latest epic walk through Sweden and Norway, stories of the people they’ve met and places they’ve seen, amazed as ever by their stamina and dedication. Wishing I could give them a hug to say welcome home.
Friday 28th June
The busiest day of the week, a full house turnover and the gîte to do too. Happily Nicki is back this week so we have help, but somehow it’s still 2pm before we have time to eat lunch, my stomach growling in angry protest by the time I sit down.
It’s a beautiful day, much cooler than earlier in the week, but sunny and golden, the light hazy, a breeze ruffling the trees. I sit for 10 minutes in the garden with an ice cream, watching the butterflies dancing over the grass, twisting and twirling, pausing on a patch of clover, darting away again, weaving in and out of each other, pausing to soak up the sun.
I could sit and watch them for hours, but I don’t have hours, it’s time to light the candles, to slice and de-stone another crate of apricots for jam and puddings, to collect the boys from last days at school, welcome our guests and make sure everyone is fed. My bed at the end of the day a most welcome sight.
Saturday 29th June
Monty is eager to walk after breakfast, looking at me with big, wide eyes and then tilting his head to the kitchen door, tail wagging, a wordless plea to be out in the morning.
He uses the same tactic to pull me onto the field, an amble beside the ripening wheat, ditches for him to leap. The martins and swifts are skimming the field, dipping and diving, white belly’s flashing as they whirl and curve, scooping up insects as they fly.
There are butterflies and damsel flies everywhere, banded demoiselles with black wings and jewel-like jade bodies catching the light. The wheat gives a sigh as the breeze ripples through it and we turn towards home.
Monty picks the bluebell path in the woods and I see it’s covered in spires of tiny white bell flowers - enchanters nightshade glowing in the gloaming of the trees, lining the path and leading us homeward.
Back in the kitchen the preserving pan is bubbling again. Another batch of apricot jam on the stove. The jam shelf heaving under the weight of all the preserves, it never lasts long though, there’s fresh bread, croissants and homemade jam for our guest breakfasts seven days a week here after all.
In the late afternoon Alain arrives in the old Massey tractor, a gyrobroyeur grass cutter on the back. He drives up and down our meadows shearing them short (no one needs our hay again this year, there is plenty elsewhere). The back garden suddenly looks huge, the towering grasses cut back, the expanse between the avenues of trees opening up. Everywhere suddenly neater and less wild. More lawns for the boys to mow during their summer holidays.
Alain sits in the kitchen with a beer, chatting to me as I cook dinner for our guests, Tim in and out with drinks and plates between courses. I try to speak French and cook at the same time, struggling to grapple with both, but I get there in the end. Beer finished and Alain is back in the tractor, making his way back to his house across the field, and I’m back to the stove, another guest dinner ticked off the list.
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Hi, I had no idea the filming was so stressful for you both, with endless retakes. You are an angel to put yourself through this, for the benefit of us viewers.
I have been offered a gardening job by a local artist while I was visiting her studio today.
June is always Open Studio in Suffolk. It reminded me of the last time I helped in someone else's garden , at your beautiful Château. 🥰🥰🥰
This weeks journal is particularly welcome. It’s a wet and cold snap in Sydney so reading your description of the final arrival of summer helps me escape the awful weather and enjoy a brief respite from it💗