It's all about the cherries
A journal of château life - 8th-14th June 2025
Sunday 8th June
From the top of the step ladder Tim is making a highly logical point about the price of cherries. He’s telling me that picking our own makes no sense at all, economically, unless we consider our labour to be entirely free. He makes this same argument often about growing our own vegetables, pointing out that when our courgettes are in season, so are everyone else’s and therefore they cost next to nothing to buy. “When you add up the seeds and the compost and the irrigation and the time spent weeding, add the hours wittering about slugs, you’re talking about five euros a courgette,” he’s saying. Or something along those lines, I’m not really listening, because I’m happily filing a bucket full of bright, garnet red cherries from my own tree.
To me these cherries are free, they taste better than any cherry available in any shop because they were grown in my garden, my hands are sticky with their juices because I’m picking them on a sunny Sunday afternoon in France and that is perfect and romantic, the best way to pick a cherry. Tim does not understand the romance.
Fortunately he absolutely cannot make the same argument about the cutting garden. Flowers, especially the pretty ones, cost an utter fortune in France, so I have free rein to grow as many of those as I like. The numbers and the romance work with the flowers. Despite his boring logic he is still at the top of his ladder, as I am at the top of mine, filling a bucket with kilos of our own cherries.
Monday 9th June
The cool morning air is full of that sweet, grassy hay scent of summer, and the only sounds are the birds singing and the frogs chorusing in the pond across the meadow. There were no guests staying over last night so I’m up and in the garden before breakfast. Instead of setting tables I’m deadheading roses before the day gets too hot. I cut deeply, taking each stem down by at least three sets of leaves and cutting spindly ones even deeper.
I thin out any new growth that points into the centre of each rose in the hopes of letting the air flow through to prevent black spot as the summer heats up. Petals scatter onto the terrace as the faded roses finally fall with an exhausted flump. They’ve reigned the garden all of May, each flower slowly fading, velvety petals thinning, turning to whisper thin silk before at last letting go.
My feet crunch over the gravel of the terrace, and even though there’s no one else here I’m still tiptoeing. Today is a bank holiday in France, the boys and Tim are still sleeping and the countryside is so quiet that it seems rude not to.
My wheelbarrow is piled high with finished flowers and I have a jar full of roses to fill my vases later today. The sun is just beginning to climb in the sky, the heat building as Tim calls me in for breakfast.
Tuesday 10th June
As I walk I realise the light has changed. That pin-prick-sharp light of spring has mellowed, there’s more gold in it, it seems a little softer, it catches in the gossamer strands that the spiders have draped from one tree to the next and slants through the tall grasses that ripple along the fence.
The countryside seems suddenly quiet after the rumble of hay making is finished. The farmers taking a breath for a while, waiting for crops and calves to grow. Red poppies dance over the top of the wheat fields which are just beginning to turn from green to golden and the verges are full of tall frothy umbels of hogweed and purple blue splashes of wild sage.
Everywhere feels calm and still as I drive through the countryside to meetings and errands. I smile ruefully to myself as I head into town, knowing that this weekend the quiet will be rumpled by thousands of people arriving for the Le Mans 24hrs, the burr of engines and helicopters serrating through the quiet air, puncturing the peace until Monday.
Back at home Alain has found the tallest ladder and has climbed right to the top of the cherry tree, gleeful to be in the presence of a homegrown harvest, heading home with a bucket full of cherries and plans to come back later in the week for more. “See,” I say to Tim. “Alain gets it.”
Wednesday 11th June
A sticky fop, fop, fop comes from the preserving pan, the sign that this batch of tomato and chilli jam is almost done. The sound has changed from a watery, rolling hiss to this thick, sticky fopping. I get up from my chair, grateful to tear my eyes away from the computer screen, to stir the chutney.
I lift the wooden spoon out of the pan and hold it horizontally, watching the juices run back into the pan, quickly at first, then slowly dripping, the final few drops stretching into the v-shape that tells me it’s pretty much set. My tomato and chilli jam doesn’t really set like fruit jam, it’s more of a thickening, a sweet, spicy stickiness that is perfect in a cheese sandwich.
I ladle it into hot jars from the oven, wash out the preserving pan and start a second batch, making the most of the big, sweet, in-season tomatoes that Tim brought home yesterday.
The kitchen is dark, the shutters closed against the sun, which is fierce and hot. Too hot for gardening or doing much of anything really, so I’m tackling admin in the dark, while the tomato and chilli jam blips away and the chutney shelf is restocked.
Thursday 12th June
The storm rumbles around us, thunder roaring in first one direction and then the next, then suddenly straight overhead, an angry boom that’s so powerful all the windows rattle and you can feel its energy surge through your body.
Rain pours from a black sky, the occasional flash of lightning cracking and illuminating everything. I hope this will ease the pressure a little, loosening the vice that has been clamped around our aching heads for the last day or so.
The air is fresher once the rain stops, the dry ground hissing and sighing as it soaks up its much needed drink. But as the sky clears the heat soon starts to build again, warm winds adding to the stickiness rather than taking it away.
I shake raindrops from the flowers as I pick. Cutting nigella and sweet peas and the very first cosmos. The snapdragons and scabious are almost ready to burst, the phlox already starting to flower.
It’s only once the sun begins to dip behind the trees and the back of the house is in shadow that we get some respite from the heat. A comfortably warm evening on the terrace for our guests, the lime blossoms still scenting the air, Monty and the cats providing entertainment as I cook and Tim hustles back and forth with plates and drinks.
Friday 13th June
Fresh, cool early morning air sweeps in as I open the window and push open the shutters, the jasmine that climbs the front of the house adding a little of its heady scent. This is one of my favourite moments of the day, letting out the hot, stale nighttime air, and leaning on the garde corps, elbows resting on the top rail, my chin in my hands as I stare out at the garden. A little moment of calm before my day properly begins.
I whisk sunflower oil and honey together and then stir them through the oats, seeds and cinnamon. Spread flat on a tray, the sticky oats go into the oven to bake, while I melt dark chocolate and butter for a batch of brownies on the stove.
I bake while our guests eat breakfast, before I eat breakfast myself, all to avoid the heat of the ovens later in the day. The kitchen smells of chocolate and cinnamon, a sweet scent that lingers all morning as the granola and brownies cool under their old fashioned net food cloches and we’re busy getting the house and gîte ready for her next guests.
Some old friends of Tim’s arrive early afternoon, in town for the race. They sit in the shade of the trees chatting away, catching up. I slip away, upstairs to my cool, dark bedroom for a little siesta after a busy morning of changing beds and cleaning rooms. Gathering my energy to work on into the stormy evening.
Saturday 14th June
Everything is dewy, beads of condensation glistening on almost every surface, the steamy heat of yesterday trapped beneath a blanket of pale grey cloud that shimmers ferociously. The humidity is crazily high. But somehow by mid-morning the heat seems to be held at bay, warm enough to sizzle away the moisture but enough cloud building to temper the strength of the sun.
After breakfast I make the most of the slight dip in the temperature and the overcast sky to weed the cutting garden beds and give the dahlias a little boost with the last of bottle of liquid tomato feed. The first buds are just beginning to form, by the end of next week the first flowers might just be beginning to open.
It’s a quiet weekend in the house, most folk are away at the track to watch the race and those that aren’t are just here to soak up the peace, the only disturbance the rumble of the mowers as the boys cut the lawns and thrumming pulse of the helicopters flying the well-heeled back and forth.
Previous posts you might have missed…
Almost by accident
I’m am still often in awe of how I came to be here. I never dreamt of France, nor of châteaux. I never imagined myself living anywhere but England. But somehow I am here. I’m not sure I ever really decided to come.
Clutching at life
I wrote this a long time ago, but I have never shared it anywhere or in fact, with anyone. It was hard for me to write and I share it here because it is an important part of our story that I haven’t really talked about before. That night sticks in my mind like a film, I can watch it play out. I can remember how it felt. It was a night that was both terrifying, but also full of hope, after an incredibly difficult time in my life. Without this experience, I think it is highly likely that I would never have bought a château and moved to France. It is evidence, for me anyway, that the light, more often than not, follows the dark.
Picnics and pots
Sunday 1st June
There are low tables arranged on a patch of grass in the shade of some trees by an old manoir, each is set for lunch with napkins embroidered with strawberries and bottles of flowers in shades red. There’s a seagrass pouf with a cushion at each place for us to sit on and we gather around the table to eat our picnic.
What you say about the cherries made me smile. We faff about with a few tomato plants, caring for them as if they were newborn babies, yes they are cheaper to buy but they keep us occupied and although they don’t look perfect they taste so much better than the bought ones. It’s not always about economics, why hand knit a jumper when you can pop into a shop and get one instantly and cheaper? You are right Rebecca, it’s the romance!
Rebecca,
Every Sunday morning, ever since I found you on Substack, I have read your weekly post as I sip my morning cup of tea. Sometimes I am joined by my kids who curl up next to me on the couch and I read aloud news from the French countryside. It has become a quiet ritual that has started to mean a great deal to me. Thank you so much for bringing us along. Best of luck with everything!