Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France
The temperature dropped well below freezing overnight and there is a thick mist around the Chateau this morning. After a quite late night and a long day, I slept really well and had a very leisurely start to the day. A bit of yoga first thing, some reading in the bath and breakfast in the Great hall at 9:00 or so.
First photo of the Chateau , the view from the apartment across to the gallery first thing in the morning and -3 degrees
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I discovered this morning that the children are home-schooled and their routine is set around their work on the farm. I am very interested in home-schooling as we would have done this for Emma if we'd had to stay in London longer than we did do.
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Pippa had time to give me a quick tour of the entire house and then she had to take one of the dogs to the vets. I was free to explore as much as I then wanted to. So I have started to draw a plan and take the first few pictures of what will probably be loads. The Chateau has a very complex design and it is actually quite hard to really see how it all fits together. But it is an amazing place and will be perfect for us for next year, I can tell that already.
The Great Hall
One of the twin bedrooms - this one is the Tour Forge
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After a long and detailed go round the entire property, I took a walk down to the far end of the valley on the pool side of the property. This shows just how vast and imposing the place really is.
The fog seemed to be clearing slowly so I then set out for a drive to Villeneuve-sur-Lot. I hadn't got very far before the fog descended again and rather wiped out any more photography for today. Villeneuve is a biggish town about 25km away and had quite a pretty cathedral in the centre. I was mainly looking for hypermarkets (of which I found two) and tourist offices where I could pick up loads of leaflets for local attractions. There was a Christmas fair in the centre of the town with a very cute highland calf.
As it would be dark by about 5:00, I didn't stay long and travelled down to Agen and across to Moissac. I should have come through this town on the way last night but missed it somehow. On the way back to the Chateau I had a call from Linda and Emma who had reached Boston in a blizzard, which might cause problems for their return if there is more snow. When they rang they were waiting for Victoria's Secrets to open, so seemed well set for some shopping.
Back at the chateau and two hours spent drafting some ideas for the "Learn to Relax" themed week, listening to Amina on the ipod - an Icelandic group I saw supporting Sigur Ros and one of my favorite new bands. I have a very rough outline with one or two sections beginning to get filled in. Today's work was mainly on introductory ideas. Also, in order to get myself better acquainted with the chateau, I have been trying to sketch out our introductory talk to the group, explaining everything they'd need to know.
Another terrific dinner with the family this evening. A thin soup that was delicious (not sure exactly what it was, but it may have just been a homemade chicken stock), followed by chicken and vegetables. Pippa called it typical local "peasant food". Given the conditions, it was perfect. And interestingly, the house red wine, which I'm really enjoying has turned out to be from a local co-op and can be bought in 10 litre plastic bottles for about 1E a litre! This will be an excellent way to serve wine on our breaks.
An earlier night tonight before tomorrow's early start and huge drive.
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