Living in the UK as we do, at this time of year we have to make do with snatched visits to France but the Vendée has never let us down so far. We’ve enjoyed November barbecues, trips to the beach, sun drenched October meals in La Rochelle and my children are often still in the pool at Halloween. Yes, with the last of our guests gone for this year, autumn with all its golden hues and crisp, bright mornings, is the time for us to relax and enjoy our gîte at last. Well isn’t it?
We’re lucky enough to start this new season by spending the end of August and the beginning of September at Le Moulin. Arriving as we did this year on the day of the last guest’s departure, my first job was to re-arrange the furniture. It’s not that I’m obsessive but a single bed had found its way downstairs (no mean feat with our steep narrow steps) and our candle sticks and kitchen chairs were found at the far end of the field! And whilst I don’t mind at all if a guest feels a compulsive urge to re-arrange my cupboards so that all the plates, cups and glasses stand in regimented order of height – I really would prefer it if they had spent their time relaxing instead. Were my cupboards so very bad?
The next job of the autumn is the rubbish hunt. I nearly always find a bag or two hidden in a cupboard or shoved through a window in one of the barns and this year one of our guests had also considerately washed and saved 53 little yogurt pots for me. A kind gesture perhaps but honestly, there’s no need. And that’s after I’d waded through a pile of dirty linen that practically touched the ceiling – how does a party of five use 11 beds and 23 towels in a week?
Finally it’s a case of working out what has been broken or damaged. Accidents happen and I’m not going to charge you for a broken dish or glass but it really does help if guests let me know, rather than let me find out that that all important serving dish has a great big crack in it just as I try and serve up our first evening meal.
We were also blessed this year with guests of a new kind, as a family of baby whip snakes moved temporarily onto the lower terrace. So another of my end of season tasks was to gently relocate them one by one to a more peaceful and desirable residence in the woods.
While I’m doing all that, the other half, who is a great deal more practical than I am, paces the grounds assessing the need for structural or mechanical repairs and planning the next phase of development. It’s an old mill with lots of outbuildings so there’s nearly always something needing fixing. Last year, on the day my husband returned to the UK leaving me with the children, the water tank and accompanying pipe breathed its last and I awoke to the sound of gushing water. And not in a good way.
Walking in the Mervent woods in autumn (left)