The turn of winter

A journal of château life - 26th January - 1st February 2025

Sunday 26th January

Tim comes home with rustling pink and white paper bags full of croissants and different loaves of bread. Since our perfect little bakery closed we’re now on the hunt for a new one, looking for a replacement for our favourite breads and pastries. The croissants are beautifully buttery, the baguettes have a good crisp and salty crust, but there’s no replacement for my beloved bucheron bread. Good brown bread can be hard to find in France. The search will have to continue.

We spend the afternoon visiting Francois-Xavier and Marie, who we met when Tim bought their old sit on mower for spare parts (and managed to get it going again - much to Francois-Xavier’s chagrin). They’re renovating a little farmhouse a few villages away and we sit in their cosy sitting room talking about the trials and tribulations of old houses.

As I listen, my mind whirring with French words I realise that this is the first time in weeks that I’ve been comfortably warm. The log burner is roaring, the flames flickering as the logs crackle, the sofa is deep and comfortable, I feel I could happily curl up here and sleep.

I realise too how much I long for a cosy sitting room for us, how I dream of a room that doesn’t have crumbling walls and cobwebby corners, where the panelling isn’t slowly rotting away and the one radiator doesn’t struggle to heat the space. I long for sofas you can sink into and a crackling log burner to watch as I look up from reading a book on a cold winter afternoon. It occurs to me that I’m getting a little bored of making-do in our side of the house. Our sitting room still feels such a long way off though, perhaps it will be another two winters away yet. But at least, I tell myself, the laundry room is a step in the right direction.

Monday 27th January

Sunny intervals, clouds being blown across the sky by stiff winds, sometimes white and fluffy, sometimes dark and full of rain. When the sun shines I’m outside, stripping old leaves from my roses, cutting back dead wood and weaving and tying the stems, encouraging them to grow horizontally so they produce more flowers.

When the rain starts I run into the house and load up the caulk gun. After last week’s trip to the hardware store I can finally finish the new kitchen cupboard properly.I could write an ode to caulk; it’s truly the most wonderful stuff, filling tiny gaps between walls and the tops of skirting boards, hiding slivers of air between door frames and walls. I run the caulk gun around the frame of the cupboard, running my finger over the bead of caulk to smooth it into the gap, wiping away the excess with a damp cloth. In a few days, once it’s dried I can paint the walls around the cupboard and this job will be finally ticked off the list.

Tuesday 28th January

The kitchen is dark, lit just by one lamp. I riddle the Rayburn, close the dampers, open the air vents and pile logs onto the embers in the fire box to bring it back to life. The crackle of the fire instantly makes everywhere feel warmer.

I put a pan to heat on the stove and whisk up some pancake batter. Rufus is doing a stage (work experience) this week at a local pépinières, a plant nursery. I want to send him off with a full stomach for a day working in the cold. He spreads his pancakes with homemade raspberry jam and is soon out of the door, off to work before it’s even light.

The day is dry-ish and I spend it in the garden, fighting with the Constance Spry roses. I love them for their magnificence in June, for their beautiful flowers and gorgeous scent. But they’re vigorous, thorny beasts and they only flower once. Taming them each winter is days of work, and as the longest, thorniest stem pings up and catches my face, leaving a deep scratch from lip to cheek I wonder if it’s worth it?

The light is fading anyway so I retreat back to the warm kitchen, it feels like a day for a pudding. I spoon marmelade into a buttered pudding dish, then make a simple cake mix with eggs, sugar, flour and butter, I grate in some clementine zest and add a slosh of grand marnier. The batter is poured over the marmelade and then I struggle for a while to tie a piece of pleated baking parchment around the top of the dish with butchers twine. The paper slipping, the string refusing to tighten around the bowl. Eventually the paper lid is secure and I lower the dish into a pan of gently boiling water, pop on a lid and leave it to steam for two hours. A hot sticky pudding with custard for a cold winter night.

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Wednesday 29th January

The sky is tinged pink as the light slowly gathers in the garden, pushing night back to the edges and into the shadows under the trees. I catch a glimpse of it through misted windows, the promise of a sunrise tugs me out of my warm bed and hustles me into thick socks and warm jumpers.

Outside everywhere is sodden, ditches full of rain, fields pooled with water, those near the river turned into lakes; it’s been a very wet winter indeed, we’ve never seen our lake and ditches so high.

The rosey light reflects in the puddles, the clouds in the sky streaked purple, red and orange, the trees black and angular against them in their winter nakedness. By the time I reach each puddle the pink glow is gone, the trick of the morning light turned back to muddy water.

In the woods Monty leaps, springing over the undergrowth, bounding like a new born lamb in spring. I know he’s seen something he wants to chase. The hare dashes away from him, but I’m right in his path, he hasn’t seen me yet as he weaves left and right, his powerful legs keeping him just out the the dog’s grasp. Monty isn’t listening to me, his ears turned off in the hunt. I don’t know which way to move. I see the hare’s eyes flash as he finally sees me, they’re full of panic and fear. As he swerves into the bushes away from me the dog gains, he’s so close now.

From nowhere a roar bubbles up and out of my mouth, a deep, terrifying bark, I growl Monty’s name and he stops, stock still, motionless on the spot, staring at me in shock and a kind of respect. The hare disappears into a tangle of brambles and is hidden from sight. I clear my throat and say in my normal voice, “off we go then,” and we walk back through to woods towards home.

The puddles were a prophecy on the morning, we’re given just briefest glimpse of the sunrise, a scant snatch of golden light caught in the moments just before the grey cloud of January sinks back down and we’re smothered again. The rain falling all day as I work through the admin list.

Thursday 30th January

My penultimate French lesson with Virginie, my mind stumbling over negation and the future tenses as we chat. Afterwards I think what a difference these 20 hours have made to my life here. My French is still a long way from perfect, the boys in fact, still say it’s terrible and tease me mercilessly, but if nothing else I can understand when they’re using words they shouldn’t.

Gently and almost by stealth in our weekly chats Virginie has taught me tenses, tweaked my grammar and made sure I know slang words and the everyday French that often leaves me baffled. I’ve noticed now that generally I can hear all of the words in a sentence separately, rather than just picking out one or two. My brain is faster, not having to translate the words I know and piece together the meaning of a sentence around them. Instead the words just run through my brain, I don’t even necessarily translate them, I just know what they are.

I still feel nervous when I have to speak with anyone but Alain, but I can if I have to. I’ve even made and managed a phone call in French. A summer of speaking English stretches ahead of me and I’m worried my progress will disappear, but Virginie and I make a plan for October, another 20 hours to make progress. It’s truly the best investment I’ve made in myself this year.

Friday 31st January

A sharp frost covers everything, a crystalline coating on every blade of grass. As my breath billows away in clouds and I wrap my arms around myself for warmth I’m grateful that I came out here in my pyjamas last night. Happy that by the light of the headlamp at bedtime I carefully covered all the plants in the greenhouse with frost cloth again. My night time sally into the icy garden was definitely with it.

The ice is soon melted away by the return of the rain, it pours all day, pours for the whole of the long, dark drive to the Vendée, stopping only as we turn into the driveway of Château de Bourneau, where Erin and JB welcome us into their warm kitchen for dinner and cocktails by the fire. We chat away until the smallest hours of the morning, wearily climbing the stairs to bed in the darkest part of the night.

Saturday 1st February

Imbolc, candlemass, chandeleur, a day to celebrate the coming of spring and the return of the light. When we reach imbolc we’ve made it through the darkest days of winter, the twelve weeks either side of the winter solstice when the light is low and scarce and it’s hard to muster the energy to do much of anything.

Today marks a turning point in the winter, you can almost smell it in the fresh, lightness of the air. I know from here on out it will be easier to get things done, the energy of the year rising with the light.

Monty and I slip outside and into the woods behind the château, weaving through paths lined with bracken, exploring new territory. A man in orange steps from the bushes, making me jump and sending Monty into a frenzy of barking. I realise we’ve stumbled into a chasse. Heart beating fast I hastily apologise. He smiles kindly, radioing his fellow chasseurs, stopping the hunt and escorting me to a safe path out of the woods, away from the guns.

As we trip our way through the brambles, Monty pulling at his lead, we send a deer bounding from its cover in the undergrowth, it darts away with a flash of white tail, away from me, away from the hunt, its life protected by me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The rest of the day is safer, a wander around the twisting streets of Fontenay-le-Comte, looking at beautiful old houses that would make magnificent renovation projects, stopping for a drink in a street cafe, heading home with fresh bread and pastries for an afternoon in the sunshine exploring the grounds of Erin and JB’s chateau and talking over our plans for the coming year. This weekend with friends the morale boost we all needed.

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