Bonjour,
I hope that you just and yours are properly.
Thanks a lot to the many individuals who’ve written to inform me how a lot they’re having fun with the spring challenge of The Good Life France Journal. In truth, it was such an enormous hit that it prompted a short lived technical glitch, so when you missed it – right here it’s once more, completely FREE:
The Good Life France Journal Spring 2025
In the meantime, it actually does really feel like spring right here – and the clocks go ahead in France on the final Sunday of March (therefore the picture above)! My neighbour Claudette’s cockerel has been kicking off within the very early hours of the morning and retains hopping over the fence to woo my women, although he can’t get to them as I’ve needed to improve safety since a fouine (like a pole cat) acquired at them some time again. My chickens bat their eyelids at Monsieur Cockerel, stick their beaks out by the fence and name to him coyly, particularly Zsa Zsa Gabor who’s a little bit of a flirt. I believe it could even have elevated their egg output; I’ve acquired a good few to take to the native bar on Friday to swap for beer!
Claudette, nonetheless spry in her nineties, is planning her personal celebration this 12 months, and I’m serving to with the cooking. Clearly, my culinary abilities are bettering, as I’ve by no means been allowed this honour earlier than!
The oven in Claudette’s kitchen is just not fairly an vintage, but it surely’s undoubtedly classic. It was a much-loved marriage ceremony reward in 1960, and Claudette has used it day by day since. It’s form of boat-shaped, with a kingfisher blue enamel façade over that are sprinkled vibrant enamel flowers. Powered by wooden, it additionally heats the home and gives sizzling water. I adore it greatest on a stormy day when the skies are the color of graphite or when the air is icy, and wisps of smoke shimmy out of the chimney of her roof, and Pierre, the farmer’s canine, comes out from his barn subsequent door to see who’s mad sufficient to be out and about on such a day. I knock at her door with its amber-coloured, rippled glass home windows, wipe my toes on the towel on the doorstep and on coming into stand and anticipate my glasses to clear as they steam up within the heat air, whereas she places an historic tin espresso pot on the oven prepared for a chinwag (natter). Little doubt she’s going to sprinkle our conversations with fantastic quotes from her favorite authors, and at such occasions, I all the time consider this one from Victor Hugo: “A home is constructed of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers. A house is constructed of loving deeds that stand a thousand years.”
Wishing you a really bon weekend from a easy village in the course of nowhere,
Bisous from France
Janine
Editor
Learn the entire publication right here
Janine Marsh is Creator of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My 4 Seasons in France: A 12 months of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Dwelling the Dream in Rural France all obtainable as book, print & audio, on Amazon in every single place & all good bookshops on-line. Her newest e-book be French – is a celebration of the French life-style and artwork de vivre.
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