Wild Orchids

In the springtime, the meadow facing the front of the house is full of wild orchids, and at night you can hear the nightingales sing. I was lucky enough to be able to view the last orchids of the season a few days after arriving. There are many wildflowers that surround them, including wild honeysuckle, dog violets and wild pulmonaria. The three orchids growing in the meadow in most abundance are lady orchids, tongue orchids, and monkey orchids. How beautiful they are....

Market Day in Carmaux

France is famous for its markets, and here in the Tarn, we are within reach of half a dozen. The most popular in the region can be found in St. Antonin-Noble-Val each Sunday and is as Orlando says, a market with all the bells on. The local market is in the small town of Carmaux. It is down to earth and smaller in scale, and where you can find Laura & Orlando most Friday mornings. Think of it as a smaller, country version of the farmer's markets back home. Carmaux was an old mining town for 400 years, until the 1980's, and today is notable for its extreme plainness. Shops here close early on Monday's and every day between noon and 2 p.m. You can find anything you wish in Carmaux, and while rather plain, there is nothing they do not sell. Treasures spotted on my first market visit to Carmaux: large French pink garlic used to make our garlic souffle starter at La Manoir, huge artichokes, Peter's favorite French cheese shop, herbs, produce, plants, plastic flowers for grave sites, cherries, pigeon, guinea fowl, spices, decadent homemade scalloped cheesy potatoes, peas that must be potted, honey, fresh flowers, fresh baked bread and French peaches. We stopped afterwards at a local patisserie, and than it was back to the Manoir.

The Magnolia Tree

As I sit here on a teak pool lounge chair next to the garden shed, looking south towards the Pyrenees, I giggle as Orlando scrunches by me back and forth to the garden. He laughs at the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch sound his shoes make, as he travels on the multi-colored gravel past me. In a perfect world, he would spend all day in the garden. Oh, that's right, he does. The magnolia 'Nimbus' tree just to my left, grows against Peter & Orlando's most favorable wall and smells magnificent, wafting scents of lemon and vanilla through the afternoon breeze. It has big, perfectly shaped white beautiful flowers, and is a constant reminder of the nature Le Manoir has all around. Transported to France from the U.K. by Peter & Orlando a month before they moved here, it's Orlando's favourite tree on the property and is quickly becoming mine as well.

The Learning Curve

I arrived to a chaotic couple of days of crash course training on boutique guest-house management; French country cuisine, French cheeses (there are so many!), local wines (and where to locate them in the vast wine racks in Peter's secret hideaway) guest relations, reservations, pool maintenance (yes, this includes scooping the frogs out each morning), setting, serving, and clearing six courses each night for up to 14 guests (never have I appreciated fine dining more now that I know what the front of house does to make it so nice!), welcome drinks and which of the five house biscuits to serve with each drink, aperitifs, French language 101, housekeeping oversight for Monique & Josie (neither of whom speak any English), picking and arranging flowers for the house, reconciling sales and expenses from 2008 for the tax guy (Mike, I know I am channeling you in some way all the way from Buffalo! and...deciphering French receipts when I don't speak the language and quickly learning the VAT nuisances the first couple of days was so time consuming!!!), how to make coffee (yes mom, I actually make great coffee now even though I still don't drink it!), front of house responsibilities, crisis management & basic maintenance (for example when Josie came to me with the shower faucet handle from Mauricette in her hand, or the Bonne guests told me there was an inch of water on their bathroom floor, or when we ran out of decaffeniated coffee) and oh by the way, be sure you don't pick the poisonous plants growing right next to the mint for the after dinner tea...all in preparation for Peter & Orlando to leave Le Manoir for a few days to Laura and I while they attended the Jesmond Dene Food Festival in Newcastle, where Orlando was invited to cook dinner for 80 guests and do a food demonstration. Laura, a professionally trained chef from Leiths in England and pool scrubber extraordinaire, is here for six months to learn Orlando's top secrets and master his recipes, although she still finds time each day to take a swim before dinner. Between her cuisine and my guest relations, we sailed through Orlando & Peter's Newcastle trip-although as Laura says, at the end of the couple of days, we were both pretty knackered!! Orlando and Peter returned home to find relaxed and happy guests, so we deemed it a success and figured we made quite the team! Hooray for us!

Le Manoir de Raynaudes - Am I Really Here?

It's raining the day I arrive in Toulouse- a wet May spring rain that drenches Peter and I as we race to the car. Yes, a spontaneous email in the middle of the night in April as I ponder my life ahead, finds me just a week or two later managing an upmarket boutique hotel in a beautiful, 19th century farmhouse in the Tarn for the summer. The house, built in the early 1800's, sits in the cradle of hills, on a hamlet, sheltered from wind, surrounded by 13 acres of gorgeous countryside - lake, meadowlands, and woodland. The tall grasses surrounding the farmhouse flow gently in the breeze, and the wild orchids in the meadow have just finished blooming. The wildflowers are sporadic now, but beautiful blues, yellows and purples are still standing tall in patches. The Tarn is a poor rural region of South-West France, famed for its long views, and over the terrace looking south you can see the Pyrenees, and Montagne Noir to the left. The lifestyle here is relaxed, gentle and calm. It is famous for its picturesque countryside, hilltop Bastide medieval fortified villages (taking you back more than a 1000 years), old bridges, Gaillac wine, and architectural gems from the 13th, 15th and 16th centuries. The local village, Raynaudes (nicknamed "The Hamlet Time Forgot"), just around the lake out front, has just ten residents. Le Manoir's guests love to meander through the small village, admiring the vegetable and flower gardens of each home. Friendly to the core, the local small village residents of Raynaudes welcome you with spirit, bright smiles, and enthusiasm. I hear the neighboring tractor now, as Mr. Regourde fires up his tractor and begins cutting his grass to be baled into hay. In a month's time, the local farmers will be here at Le Manior de Raynaudes to harvest our grass. It's beautiful today, and one of the first afternoons I've had in two weeks to just enjoy the surroundings.