Sunday 21st April
I hear it over every other voice in the chorus, over the chatter of Tim and Rufus, who is perched on the end of our bed, I hear it through the glass of our bedroom window; the cuckoo calling, rhythmically cooing into the morning air, the sound of true spring for me. I have been waiting for him, wondering when I would hear him, if he would be back? I shhhhh everyone and we listen to him call.
There are just two beds left to weed and mulch in the cutting garden, but the first is full of self-seeded verbena. If ever there was a plant I regret sowing in the cutting garden, it’s this one. From four plants have grown a million progeny. They grow in matted clumps, impossible to just pull out. They barge and elbow past anything else I try to grow, though last year the snapdragons put up a good fight.
I am determined to curtail this year’s verbena crop if I can. I hack through them with my knife, leveraging out thickets of tiny seedlings so determined to cling on that it takes me several hours to clear one bed. I want to say that it was satisfying, but it’s slow and frustrating. I know I haven’t got them all, but my back, knees and wrists are just glad it’s over, for now.
Monday 22nd April
We work as a team today, clearing sycamore seedlings, bind weed and potentilla from the shrub bed under the sycamore trees. Mum and I crawling between the last of the tulips, pulling out weeds, Dad emptying our buckets and trundling wheelbarrows of debris to the compost.
Alain has left us a tractor trailer full of bark chips and we make use of two boys on school holidays to rake the chips from the trailer into waiting wheel barrows, trugs and buckets. The boys and Dad keep Mum and I supplied with chips, and we spread them carefully over every inch of soil between the plants, a thick layer of mulch to retain moisture and keep down weeds.
The boys are flagging, energy waning, attention dropping, whinging increasing. I feed them biscuits to keep them going. There are just enough chips left to mulch the front borders too, Mum and I trying hard not to squash the just-emerging lily of the valley. Laurie shuttles buckets of chips backwards and forwards to me in the flower beds, Rufus sweeping the very last chips from the trailer. And then they are gone, disappearing into the house before we can find them another job.
Tuesday 23rd April
I first heard of les saints de glace from our friend Maryse, a very kind and hardworking dairy farmer, who loves gardens and flowers. My conversational French relies heavily on small talk about the weather. Il fait beau, la pluie arrive or il fait froid aujourd’hui. A safe subject that I have vocabulary for. I remarked one late April morning about the ice in the air, the unseasonable chilliness (though in far simpler terms). It’s the ice saints, Maryse told me. Fait attention, it’s not safe to plant out anything tender until les saints de glace are over.
There are eight ice saints scattered through the next few weeks, starting with St George today on 23rd April. They bring with them cold nights or icy mornings, unseasonable cold snaps to catch you unawares. The last should be around the 6th May but if you want to be truly safe you wait until St Gervais has been and gone on 13th May. My dahlias only go in the ground after the 13th May unless I’m feeling very brave or the forecast is unswervingly mild.
This morning St George has brought a frost. It sparkles on the grass as the sun rises, the temperature dipping below zero for the first time in weeks. I am grateful that I swaddled my ranunculus in a layer of frost cloth last night, its surface is crisp, starched stiff with ice crystals, but happily the plants underneath are untouched.
We spend the morning with a measuring tape and concoction of extension cables and heavy wire, plotting an x pathway across the back meadow. Last year François ran out of time to cut our wild flower meadow for hay. By mid-summer it looked unwieldy and purposeless. Cutting neat paths through it will allow us and our guests to easily walk amongst the flowers, and if it doesn’t get cut again this year it will at least look tended.
There is much head scratching. Much yelling from top windows. Much working out if we go with straight-straight or by eye-straight. And where actually is straight because it really depends on your perspective and what you’re using as your centre point? Eventually we get there, a network of garden canes and wires marking out an x through the meadow. Tim makes the first cut, no one else willing to take responsibility. It looks neat and even, a pretty path through the emerging flowers. There are oxeye daisies beginning to sprout, the tiny vines of common vetch scrambling through the blue bugle, the last of the cowslips still hanging on. That job done and we go back to weeding and tidying, Tim painting windows, hauling out garden furniture. Our opening day getting closer.
Wednesday 24th April
Mum and Dad leave after breakfast, we hug them tightly, knowing it will be a good while before we see them again. They have been such a help this week, getting the gardens tidy and ready to start the season. I don’t want them to leave, not just because I’ll miss them, but because their leaving means the summer is truly stretching ahead of us, busy and full, with all the craziness that comes with juggling it all. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared. Nervous of how we’ll manage it all again, worried that the gaps in the calendar won’t fill up, that we’ll have forgotten how it all works.
I want opening day to be here now. Even though there is still so much to do, once that day arrives it will be too late and anything left on the list will have to wait until the autumn. There is a certain easing of pressure on the job list when the guest season arrives. There’s no time to get anything else done around caring for our guests, the to-do list is put away and we ease into the rhythm of the summer. There’s a shift of gears and a change of pace until the days shorten again.
We leave the list for a few hours today for a quick pre-season catch up lunch with Erin and JB in Le Mans. For two and a half hours we talk fast, sharing plans and fears for the summer. Grateful as ever for the support of friends who understand just how strange and demanding château life can be.
Thursday 25th April
Tim is stuck at the computer sorting out spreadsheets, TVA bills and accounts. Nicki and I cleaning the gîte, sorting linens, making beds, organising everything we need in place before the summer season starts.
There are pages of lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, if-we-have-time lists. For everything I tick off, something else gets added. By mid-afternoon I need to be still. I pull out the ironing board and work my way through the ironing pile. The methodical folding and pressing of napkins and tablecloths calming my mind. By 8pm I’m in bed, sleep arriving fast after a day without pause.
Friday 26th April
I walk in the early morning sunshine, taking in the greenness of everything, how fresh the trees and fields look. It’s unusually quiet today, no rumble of tractors or swoosh of cars down distant country lanes, no wind in the trees, just birdsong and the crunch of gravel under my feet.
It’s bittersweet this walk. This is the last morning that all of this will belong to just us for a while. For the next six months we will share the garden, grounds and half of our house with our guests. These paths, that have been mine all winter, will be walked by many feet over the summer, their magic shared and hopefully appreciated by lots of other people.
I breathe it in, soak it up, smiling to myself that my summer walks happen so much earlier than anyone else ever thinks of getting up when they’re on holiday, that I really don’t need to worry selfishly about sharing at all. I head back to the kitchen for a birthday breakfast of bacon sandwiches cooked by the boys, I’m 44 today, ancient they tell me.
I spend the day in the kitchen making sweet treats of fudge, rocky road and pâte de fruit for our guests, the house sweet with the scent of caramelising sugar. We organise the larder cupboards, packing away a mountain of shopping, everything fully re-stocked for the start of the season. Our first gîte guests arrive this evening, the chambres d’hôtes opens tomorrow. Another early night for me, rest at a premium.
Saturday 27th April
It’s raining, pouring in fact, a steady torrent making the ground soggy underfoot again. Tim walks with me this morning, both of us needing fresh air to get our brains moving. We linger in the woods, slow to get back to the house and get on with the lists.
Tim hauls in logs for the fires, while I brave the rain again for Solomon’s seal, hawthorn and apple mint, fresh greenery to tuck into the ranunculus that I picked from poly tunnel last night.
I fill vases while a fresh batch of granola bakes in the oven, a batch of chocolate mousse setting in the fridge. I scatter my vases throughout the house, bringing life and colour back to gloomy corners, the sky outside still grey and drab.
We light the fire and the candles, making everywhere cosy for our guests, who are travelling all the way from Canada to see us. Hopefully spring will return for them tomorrow, until then it will be crackling logs and candlelight, a warm welcome despite the weather.
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Belated happy birthday Rebecca! You are just a youngster at 44. Try adding 25 to that and you will know how I feel. How I wish sometimes I could turn back the clock.
The chateau and grounds look amazing , as always. Wish we could come and stay again, maybe next year.
Enjoy the season xxx
Rebecca:
Happy Belated Birthday! Please tell your boys that 44 is not old, at all. 44 is just a number, and you have more energy and “get up and go” than most of us have. I hope you had a wonderful birthday and that all the family spoiled you. You deserve it.
So the chateau is in full swing, and I’m sure everything is going smoothly and all is well.
Take time to breathe.
Take time for yourself and family when you can.
Get rest when you can.
Escape to your garden, and let your garden help take care of you.
You will be crazy busy, but “you got this, Girl!”
This is what you are so good at!
Barb