Chateau de la Ruche

Chateau de la Ruche is one of the top influencer with 44214 audience and 5.69% engagement rate on Instagram. Check out the full profile and start to collaborate.

Audience

44.2k

Engagement Rate

5.69%

Channel Accounts

Feed

The sky woke blue and the edges of the morning sun crept through my bedroom window, calling me up and out.

I woke Rufus and we pulled on our boots and, basket and snips in hand, we headed out to pick elderflowers before anyone else was up.

We had the sunrise to ourselves. The air still crisp in the early mornings of this chilly May, smelling sweetly grassy, of hay-in-the-making.

Alain’s cows followed us along the drive, puffing and blowing, a surly guard along the fence line, keeping an eye on us as we walked.

We waded through long meadow grasses to the hedgerows, our trousers above our Wellington boots soon soaked through with dew.

We searched for the tell-tale white-froth-against-dark-green of the elderflower. Dismissing cow parsley, hawthorn blossom and the last stitchwort, until we finally found some.

It’s still early in the season and many of the heads are stubbornly tightly budded. But we found enough for our first batch of cordial, even if it meant sending Rufus over ditches and up banks to snip the final few heads.

We wandered home through the woods, soaking up the bird song and planning a pancake-breakfast.

But first we’ll pick through the heads of tiny star-shaped flowers, removing any rogue leaves and wildlife. Then we’ll leave them to soak, with lemons and limes, in sugar syrup overnight.

Tomorrow we’ll have fresh elderflower cordial to drink just in time for the weather to start warming up.

** if you’d like our cordial recipe there is a little film of last year’s elderflower pick with the recipe at the end on our IGTV - I’ll put a swipe up in stories.**

The sky woke blue and the edges of the morning sun crept through Read More

Four years ago we visited the château for the second time. We snuck out of our hotel early, driving down the country lanes to the house, many hours before our appointment, hoping to catch the sunrise over the meadows. Feeling like intruders in someone else’s garden.

The house looked sad, shutters closed, facade tired. She sat lonely in her circle of trees, quiet and peaceful. I wondered about the family we would meet later that day. Would they approve of us? Would they agree to sell us the house? My stomach turned and churned with nerves.

The sky darkened and storm clouds blew in. Rain poured down as we nervously ate lunch, waiting for our 2pm rendezvous.

The estate agents opened up the house and we stood in the hallway staring out at the rain. We expected to meet two of the sons of the Pousset family, who owned the château; but when the car pulled up there was just one son, Xavier and his mother, Madame Pousset too.

I felt my cheeks flush, feeling awkward to be stood in her hallway as if I already owned the place, while she stood outside under an umbrella.

Xavier gave us a tour of the house, telling us stories, in beautiful English, about his childhood ranging around the gardens, building dens and fires in the woods and cycling to the village station to get the train to school.

We talked about our plans for the house, explaining that we wanted to move our family in, rescue and restore it. “I need you to tell my mother that,” said Xavier.

Nervously we approached her and I repeated our plans while Xavier translated. She took hold of me, her hands on my elbows and looked into my eyes. “I want you to look after this house, bring up your family here like I have done and fill the rooms with happiness and laughter,” she said. Her approval meant so much to me and I felt a lump rise in my throat and tears falling down my cheeks.

We hugged then and our offer was accepted. It’s a moment I will always remember, the passing of a baton, one woman to another. I will always be grateful for that hug and I will always do my best to keep my promise to bring love, laughter and happiness to our home.

Four years ago we visited the château for the second time. We sn Read More

The trees are in full leaf and the house sits nestled amongst them in a sea of green. The back lawn, which we leave to meadows at this time of year, is full of wild flower buds and grasses waiting to burst. The lime trees on the verge of blossom. All we need is a little sustained sunshine and there will be an explosion of colour and scent.

I always forget how hidden we become in the spring and summer. In the bare winter months, if you know where to look, you can just glimpse the house through the trees. Like a lost and forgotten estate, left to go wild by itself, calling out to be rescued by a passerby.

But as everything grows she disappears, secluded in her secret summer grove, quiet and peaceful. Just the wind shivering through the grasses, the crickets and birds singing and the rustle of leaves.

So secret was the house that when our Maire introduced us at a village lunch, many local folk had no idea that our little château was here. She’s quiet and unassuming like that, and that’s how we like her.

Many folk have found her though, and have fallen as in love with her has we have. Our guests are always so kind and she manages to charm even the most weary travellers.

So much so that for the second year running she has been awarded a @tripadvisor Travellers Choice award. Given to the top 10 per cent of business on Trip Advisor. We couldn’t be prouder, or more grateful to every lovely guest who has taken the time to review their stay with us.

It won’t be long now before we can welcome you all safely back (mid-June as long as things stay on course). So we’re keeping our fingers crossed that soon you’ll all be winding your way down the drive to our little château in the trees.

The trees are in full leaf and the house sits nestled amongst the Read More

Despite the unseasonal coolness the flowers are still slowly arriving. The mower is broken (temporarily I hope) and the front lawn is scattered with wild salvias, clover and buttercups - usually clipped short in the name of neatness.

I gather hawthorn blossom and cowslips from the hedgerows, the purple fronds of the salvias from the lawn and mix them with guelder rose, ranunculus, tulips and anemones. An abundant twist of homegrown and wild. Made possible by failed mechanics.

While the weather is still cool the risk of a blackthorn winter should have passed. The ice saints as they are known here in France - their feast days falling on the 11th, 12th and 13th of May - bringing with them the last chance of frost. Once they have gone on their merry way, we gardeners can safely plant out our tender flowers and fruits to grow on through the long days of summer.

Between the showers I shall be planting out my courgettes and squashes, trussing up the tomatoes and tucking sunflowers and cosmos into the borders. And keeping my fingers crossed for the harvest to come.

Despite the unseasonal coolness the flowers are still slowly arri Read More

I’m chasing moments of sunshine between the showers. Getting up early to catch the sunrise before the clouds close in.

I stand in the sunshine and let it soak into my bones, easing the aches and pains of renovation work.

The air is so fresh after the rains, sweetly honeyed, with the occasional base note of the manure that the farmers are feeding their fields with. The scent of the countryside.

The woods have turned wild. At this time of year they feel otherly to me. The canopy of leaves so thick that twilight reigns all day, a cool and constant gloaming.

I feel watched as I wander through my well-trodden paths. I know they are there, the hare, the deer, the birds. They scatter occasionally, darting across my path and away. But mostly they stay hidden, watching me. Making sure I’m friend not foe.

This is nature’s time. The nettles, the brambles, the elder, they expand into every sliver of space, welcome or not. We do our best to maintain a balance between wild and tamed. Knowing that if we give an inch now we’ll be rewarded with a bounty soon enough - elderflower for cordial, lime blossoms for tea and at summers-end blackberries to smoosh onto bread with honey and creamy fresh goats cheese from the market.

It’s a privilege this country-life however you look at it. And it’s one I try never to take for granted.

I’m chasing moments of sunshine between the showers. Getting up Read More

A day in the garden, fighting back against the weeds trying to twine themselves around my roses. A somewhat fruitless battle it feels at times.

The heavy air called in a storm; dark clouds and rolling thunder. Big heavy raindrops that had me sheltering in the greenhouse and then sent me inside earlier than planned. An enforced rest.

Tomorrow we will be back in the gîte. Working on bathrooms and painting endless metres of skirting boards. It’s all so close though - a few more weeks.

A few more weeks too until we (all being well) will be able to welcome you all safely back and summer will begin in earnest. And you’ll be able to see it all then, in real life, instead of just in tiny squares.

The rooms will be full again of voices and laughter and families and friends gathering together to have a good time. It hardly seems imaginable. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

A day in the garden, fighting back against the weeds trying to tw Read More

A silence descended as the rain shushed down from motionless grey skies. Rain with steady endurance, no big dramatic raindrops, no squalling winds, but sheets of even wetness falling directly from sky to earth.

There was a pause in spring. A semi-colon in the season, a breath between stanzas. Even the birds were silent. Retreating to nests, hiding amongst the leaves, only making trips out for true necessities.

There was a sigh, an audible outward breath, a thank you for the much awaited rain. And then this morning the sun rose again into blue skies and the colour and noise of spring was overwhelming.

Washed clean by the raindrops, everywhere seems greener, brighter, fresher, louder. A second coming of springtime.

And finally the swallows have arrived. Swept in by the rain. They swoop and twist over the lake, skimming the water line, catching insects in their beaks. They twist and twirl on the air currents, flying so close to me as I lean out of the window of the gîte that I can almost feel a brush of feathers.

Their return has calmed my heart. We have been leaving the atelier doors open for them, hoping that they would come and nest as they have always done. But their late arrival had left me worrying that our constant presence as we work had chased them away.

We hope they’ll stay and nest, if not in the atelier, perhaps in the old barns. It won’t feel like summer without their lakeside dances. We’ll leave the doors open to welcome them in.

A silence descended as the rain shushed down from motionless grey Read More

A moment of sunshine between the welcome rainstorms. The lake is getting a top up and you can almost hear the dry earth sigh with relief. The farmers are definitely happy.

I have been watching the grass seed, eyeing the long, golden grains with a bird-like beadiness. For almost two weeks they have lain, dormant, unyielding, on the dusty earth. I have watered them with almost religious regularity, watched the sun shine on them and had begun to despair. Not one little sign of life.

And then, all of a sudden, half-inch, needle-fine blades of green. They appeared over night, as if the work of a moment. A slight, shivering haze of new lawn over the mud. An alchemical mixture of conditions waking them up.

Of course this new lawn will be strewn with wilderness. I did not dig out the comfrey, the buttercups, daisies or vetch. Rather I seeded the bare patches with new grass to weave itself through the wild flowers.

Not for me a bowling green lawn or even perfect paths through the new potager beds. I shall probably rue the day that I didn’t dig up the dandelions. Remind me of my love of the wild when I start to curse about dandelion clocks amongst the carrots.

This house does not want her grounds manicured. She likes to sit amongst the meadows and let nature scramble with abandon. Which is lucky because that’s just the sort of lazy gardener I am.

A moment of sunshine between the welcome rainstorms. The lake is Read More

There is a wild energy whipping around us. A mischievous spring wind slamming doors, flinging open poorly-latched windows and flipping shutters against the walls of the house.

It’s tearing the delicate new leaves from the trees, leaving their edges torn and tattered. It sends the cats scatty, chasing them around the garden their tails fluffed and their ears pricked. The dog too, paces and bolts in the breeze.

As the meadow grasses bend and the trees bow, birds flit in pairs everywhere. Twirling on wind currents, flirting in the air. I watch from the window frame I’m painting, feeling slightly intrusive. A third wheel in their courtship.

There are couples everywhere. Two hares hopping as if paw-in-paw, winding their way along the tree-lined drive. A mallard and his duck causing a traffic jam by the post box. Leggy herons making eyes across the pond.

The beginnings of new lives, new loves. A hopeful stage of the year. Full of promise, full of fresh starts, with just a little bit of wild on the breeze.

There is a wild energy whipping around us. A mischievous spring w Read More