Chateau de la Ruche
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The table and bench in the workshop are dotted with Bonne Maman jam jars full of foraged flowers and herbs. Kate teaches our guests how to press the flowers into clay and then cast them in plaster to make a bas relief floral plaque to take home as a memento of their stay with us. I find it hard to stay away from the workshop, nipping back and forth from my jobs in the house to watch the process and see what everyone creates. Flowers and foliage are arranged on the slabs of clay, carefully everyone pushes them into the clay by rolling the rolling pin back and forth, back and forth, leaving a perfect imprint behind. Every scrap of foliage, petal, leaf and flower is lifted from the clay surface and the edges of the clay gathered up around the wooden frame to stop the plaster leaking out. I watch as they all nervously pour their plaster, shaking their designs to make any air bubbles rise to the surface. It doesn’t take long to dry; after 15 minutes they carefully pull the clay from the edges of the wooden frames and the plaques release, revealing the shapes of the flowers captured in plaster forever. Each tile is unique, the flowers and foliage chosen reflecting the personality of each person, each one beautiful. It’s wonderful to watch and to see how proud everyone is of their work. It’s a highlight of our Summer Flowers Retreat for me, a weekend full of flowers, food and creativity. A weekend I can’t wait to do all over again next year. A huge thank you to Kate @uniquekr8ivity for teaching such a brilliant workshop To @niwaki.hq for their amazing flower snips And @floreagarden for their gorgeous gloves and seeds. You can go behind the scenes of our Summer Flowers Retreat at the château in this week’s journal, and find out about next year’s on our website - all the links are in our bio.
2025-10-09
1700
1700
September has blown in on a westerly wind with storms in its tail. Much needed rain soaking deeply into the garden, making the trees sigh with relief. The temperatures have dipped a little, the pink-skied mornings are cool and misty, but the afternoons still say summer if you find a sunny spot. We cosy up the house with the flickering of candles and a crackle of fire in the grate if the nip in the air gets too keen. We’ll drape a few extra blankets over the arms of the chairs so that every quiet corner of the house feels warm. I’m still hoping for a few more mild and mellow days for this little château of ours and its last few guests of the season, the last gasps of the Loire Valley summer are yet to be had I think.
2025-10-09
1342
1342
We may have served our last dinner on the terrace for this summer. Tim setting the tables out in the garden for one last time, flicking on the festoon lights and lighting the candles to gutter and shine as the evening ebbed away. We draped blankets over the backs of the chairs for our guests to pull around their shoulders as the temperature started to cool and night began to fall. The rest of September might be too cool for eating outside, but you never know, perhaps there’ll be one last balmy evening to come. If not we’ll make the salon cosy and serve dinner by candlelight inside instead. There’ll be lots of lasts in these coming weeks, as our summer season draws to an end for this year and our time to rest approaches. But that’s the best thing about seasons, you get to change things up and then you get to do it all again next time. Another summer at the château to come next summer - maybe you’ll be coming to stay?
2025-10-09
1733
1733
For months I have planned and plotted, planted and picked, hoping and hoping that come August 9th there would be flowers enough to host a workshop. I worried about sun and rain, sometimes too much of one and not enough of the other. I doubted myself, questioned my plans and my abilities, imagined it all going wrong. And then suddenly the guests were here and I was filling market baskets with seeds and gardening gloves, beautiful flower snips and candles scented like the garden. After weeks of careful deadheading the cutting garden with in full flourish, flowers tumbling over themselves in shades of pink, burgundy and apricot, just waiting for us to fill our buckets. Over months we turned an old tool shed into a flower workshop, with the cameras following every step. On Sunday it was full of happy women, creating and crafting beautiful table centres with foliage foraged from our hedgerows and flowers picked from the garden. We chatted about growing and harvesting, cutting and arranging, talking as we worked together to set a long trestle table in the shade at the front of the house, ready for a beautiful summer lunch. Every moment of worry was worth it. Every sleepless night, every second of doubt, all erased by happy faces and all the flowers. I want to say a huge thank you to our amazing guests for being so lovely, to @chateaudiy for capturing it all on camera, to @floreagarden for so many seeds and gardening gloves and @niwaki.hq for the beautiful snips. To @t1mjones for always supporting my crazy plans and to @simplybyarrangement and @eva_nemeth for telling me I could do it in the first place. I loved it so much that we’re going to do it all again next year.
2025-10-09
3591
3591
July swept in over hot, golden fields, and out again on a cool northerly breeze. The garden began to fill with late summer flowers, the hydrangeas and Japanese anemones in faded pinks, turning dusky in the long sunshine days. Cats and guests have spent warm afternoons dozing in the garden, soaking up the peace of our quiet corner of France, the heat providing the perfect excuse to do nothing much of anything. The markets have been full of sun ripened apricots and sweet red tomatoes and the preserving pan has been on an almost constant bubble in the kitchen; the larder shelves filling with jars of summer saved for winter. It a month of abundance and harvest, of long, busy days and lots and lots of guests, our bed and breakfast full, the gite too, our feet flying from job to job making sure everyone has a happy holiday
2025-10-09
1223
1223
Autumn is here, the daylight hours starting to dwindle, the light changing, shifting slantwise and golden across the garden on sunny afternoons. Our quiet time is coming, our busy season coming to an end as the days start to shorten. The mornings rise misty, the air cool enough to pull a little colour into your cheeks, cool enough for socks and a cosy jumper. Candlelight flickers in every corner, adding warmth and life to each room, the flames shining brighter in the softer light of late afternoons. While other people dread the darkening days, I love this time of year, in fact it’s one of my favourites. There’s a peace to autumn, a slowing down, time to reflect and make plans and take a breath. I get the same sense of anticipation that a new year brings, as we start to prepare for our off season. It’s time to sit in a quiet corner with a notebook and pen and make some plans. To set some intentions and plot out how we want to spend our time until the days start to lengthen again. Working out how best to spend our time, while making sure we have a good long rest too.
2025-10-09
981
981
The sun’s heat is tempered by clouds and cool breezes, our beautiful Sarthoise summer has finally arrived. It’s still warm enough for dinner on the terrace, tucked in amongst the flowers, but cool enough for our guests and us to sleep deeply as the rain falls over night. Somehow it’s almost the end of July, summer slipping onwards, our rooms busy with guests, our feet hardly touching the ground. This week was full of food, friends and family, our side of the château as busy as the chambres d’hôtes. Read all about it in this week’s journal - just click the link in our profile.
2025-10-09
1429
1429
I love this time of year, the last few weeks of summer, there’s something very precious about them, a sense of everyone scrambling to hold onto something fleeting. The light in the early mornings is golden and soft, the air has the slightest chill, and the evenings swoop in just before you expect them to, a sudden gloaming that makes you switch on a lamp so you can see properly. I’m in no hurry for autumn, though I do love it. It feels really as if the summer is just getting going, some of my dahlias are yet to flower, their first buds about to open, the tomatoes in the greenhouse just getting into their stride, ripening nicely in the late August sunshine. I’m holding onto the slow pace of summer, because while our summer days are some of the busiest of our year here at the château, there is still that sense of time slowing, the hours stretching with the sunlight, the days seeming endless. So I’ll sit on the back step, watching the breeze play in the trees, the cats chasing butterflies and the swallows swirling on the air currents. I’ll take it all in because before we know it the seasons will have shifted and we won’t get this moment back again before another year is out.
2025-10-09
1580
1580
There’s been an abundance this week, of sunshine, of flowers, of cherry plums. The only thing we seem to have been short of is time to make the most of it all. I’ve tried to snatch tiny moments to take it all in, late walks and early morning harvests, time to myself to bookend each day, capturing a little bit of summer as it passes quickly through our fingers. Read all about the rest of our week and our winter project to come in this week’s journal - find the link in our bio.
2025-10-09
1010
1010
