Lord and Lady of the Manor

Dear Friends and Family, The days have somehow gotten away from me. Believe me, that can happen. There are days when I can’t seem to remember which day of week it is. Fortunately a kind of paranoia sets in and I reset the calendar of my mind. On Friday afternoon, our hostess, Ann, took off to England for friends’ 40th wedding anniversary. It sounded very swanky with dinners, and concerts, etc. She does not return until Tuesday, September 25th. So, for 4 days, Polley and I got to pretend that we were the owners of our very own French farm. It was all ours, at least until Tueday. Having said that for a brief period of time we were the lord and lady of the manor, I thought it might be nice to revisit the various buildings of the place. We have had two sets of friends, Jeff Gauthier and Noelle Guest and Herman and Susan Asarnow (Baillet) stay here. But there are, no doubt, others of you out there who would love a week or two in this idyllic setting. Ann and her husband, Malcolm, bought the crumbling 12-acre farm about 1992. They completely redid it. Unfortunately Malcolm passed away in about 2003 and Ann has stayed on. Their daughter, who is married to a French man, lives a short distance away. However, one of the great joys, when you stay here, is going through the very detailed photo scrapbooks of the complete process of resurrecting it. Fascinating! First, you see the complete farm (minus some of the fields not pictured) from the long drive as you come off the main road

The gravel drive leads you up to a place to park the car, nearly hidden between the barn and bakery. Ann likes having the cars stashed away, so as to not tarnish the look of the place. And who could blame her. Ann lives in the main house

It has a small kitchen, a dining room and a lovely, warm living room. Up stairs is an office and bedroom that has the feeling of a sort of loft. One of the best features is at the far left end of the house. There is an old sort of wagon or coach barn. Ann has made that into an outdoor living/dining room and for a good part of the year, she takes all her meals in this covered, yet airy addition. Across the way is the old barn. It is now considered a place for family and friends.

As you might expect, it is huge and has at the far right end a complete apartment with bed, kitchen, dining table, siting area and bathroom. One the left end is a whole sort of family room. It is a spacious area that could be used for another family to sleep in or for children to have a separate area. It is also a great place to sit and watch movies on the DVD player in the evening. In Ann’s opinion, we must have moved up in the world as we now stay, when available, in the barn. Just outside the barn is the swimming pool area

It can get very warm in summer here and the pool is an ideal gathering spot and sits just outside our door. The third building is the bakery.

This was, in fact, the old bakery for the group of farms in this area dubbed “Poujoulou.” It was a sort of communal oven for the daily baking of bread. It is now a delightful apartment just perfect for two people or a couple and a child.

Ann has decorated it in absolutely charming fashion, as she has all the accommodations. When you arrive you can always expect lovely Fren-milled soap, a stocked refrigerator and a good bottle of Cahors wine waiting for you. So, that’s it! Oh, I did leave out the cats that come with the place: Pepper and Pumpkin. Pepper is a bit shy and certainly does not like to be in a room that her brother, Pumpkin, is already occupying. Pumpkin, on the other hand, loves to just move on it

Polley obviously has a god friend in Pumpkin

Hopefully, you get some sense of why we come back here again and again. It is a great place and Ann is the perfect host. She knows every restaurant, every market, every site. A perfect delight. You should try it sometime.