An English Garden in Normandy

28 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in France, Normandy, Property in France, Things to do

Tags

architecture, France, Gardens, Gertrude Jekyll, Les Bois des Moutiers, Lutyens, Normandy, Varengeville

This is a month for visiting gardens. After showers in April and May, Normandy in June is in greenish bloom. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the most famous garden in Normandy. Shortly after, I visited another, less famous but equally wonderful garden–let’s call it the most famous English garden in Normandy.

The house and garden Les Bois Des Moutiers were created from 1898 onwards by the Mallet family, who hired the then young English Arts & Crafts era architect Edwin Lutyens and the wonderfully named and widely influential garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.

Gertrude Jekyll is famous for creating gardens that feel like series of outside rooms. Each one has its own scheme of colour, scent, and seating.

Look at this amazing wisteria, trained to grow as a tree. The gardens, with their hedges and bushes and secret paths, create a wonderful natural playground for children.

You can hike around the extensive land behind the property, and there are wonderful views. The house can be visited by private appointment only. And should you love it enough, ask about buying it as the family are seeking to sell to the right, suitably considerate, buyer. Price on application only.

The property is situated in the charming Varengeville-sur-Mer, which is south of Dieppe on the Normandy coast and just over an hour, cross-country, from Les Iris. Hike up the road outside the property to the church at the top for a spectacular view of the sea.

Market Day in June

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Food, Normandy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

asparagus, decor, Food, herbs, Market, Pont-Audemer, shopping, shops, strawberries

It’s strawberry-and-champagne season in England, with Ascot this week and Wimbledon next. It seems the right moment to share these sumptuous strawberries.

These pictures were taken in early June in our local Norman food market. I love the range and shapes of the herbs on offer. Absinthe! And the beautiful curly handwriting.

So much white asparagus everywhere in June, and then it will disappear. For me the flavour runs too mild. I wonder if I’m not cooking it correctly. Please send advice!

Our local food market is in Pont-Audemer, which was once a great producer of leather goods, and the centre is cross-cut with these marvelous little canals which provided water to the tanning trade.

Should you visit on a non-market day, there are some attractive shops including this one for traditional French decorating ideas.

Awards Season

18 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in France

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blogs, Versatile Blogger Award

Solaner has very kindly nominated chaumierelesiris for the Versatile Blogger Award. This is a kind of chain-letter award, where bloggers nominate other bloggers, following the award rules:

Thank the person who gave you this award.
Include a link to their blog.
Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award
Tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

I’ve been meaning for a while to create a list of some of the France-related blogs I keep an eye on, and this has provided a reason to do just that.

My French Country Home–Exactly what it says on the tin. Life in a French country home, with a focus on interior design and shopping at brocantes. Opportunities to buy from the owner’s shabby chic boutique or even go brocante shopping with her. Warning: jealousy-inducing lifestyle alert.

Paris Déjà Vu–An American writer on parenting and shopping in Paris

The French Market Maven–if you’re not close enough to shop in these markets, second best is to browse through mouth-watering pictures of market offerings around France

French Mamma–All you ever wanted to know about having a baby in French. Except, finding a partner. For which, there’s…

BritChickParis—Blogs at the Huffington Post UK about the highs and lows of Parisian life

My French Heaven–Professional hotelier Stéphane blogs eloquently on the subject of French body & soul food. An inspiration.

Hip Paris–Do not even think about visiting Paris without getting the inside scoop here first. With brilliant illustrations by Baudade.

Living the Sweet Life in Paris–The blog we all want to write and the food we all want to eat, from David Lebovitz. The Paris Pastry app is tempting.

A Woman’s Paris–On French style and taste.

From Koegas to Paris–A South African family relocates to France

Buxton’s Blog–British travel writer and wine critic Nigel Buxton replublishes “work which I think deserves a second lease of life”. He’s right: it does.

The Displaced Nation–Not just about France, but a vibrant collaborative blog written by and for global voyagers.

Free Range Kids–Also not about France, but an attitude I find it easier to adopt when in France.

Chez Loulou–A woman whose goal is to taste every cheese in France. Respect.

Lunch in Paris–The novelist continues life in Provence.

Hidden in France–Lovely French design ideas.

And last rule – here are 7 things about me – on a Norman theme

1. I love that in Normandy the weather never lasts very long. You get a week’s worth of weather in a day so you can never, ever make plans based on the weather.

2. Whatever the weather, the sky is large and the light is beautiful.

3. I would like to read Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in French (now known in English as In Search Of Lost Time – thanks MomVee!), while sitting on the Deauville beachfront.

4. It’s so hard to get things done in France. Like having wifi installed. Or arranging home improvements. So I hardly do anything when there. It’s so relaxing.

5. Another thing I love: in Normandy, you get places faster than the satnav predicts.

6. Creme d’Isigny. With anything. Or straight out of the pot.

7. Waking to the sound of the village church bells. At 7 am. Even after 7 bottles of wine with friends around the table the night before.

The most famous garden in Normandy

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Culture, France, Normandy, Things to do, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art, Flowers, Gardens, Giverny, Monet, Normandy, paintings

Giverny–where Claude Monet lived and painted for 43 years–is certainly the most famous garden in Normandy, perhaps in all of Europe or even the world. It was here that he created the water garden with its iconic Japanese bridge that he painted over and over and which hangs, in reproduction, on a million institutional walls.

A visit to Giverny, however, doesn’t start with the lily pond, but with the rather fabulous–and previously unknown to me–Clos Normand, his magnificent wildflower garden.

The garden, which fronts his house, is laid out in corridors of colour: one purple, one yellow, one pink. Flowers and rose arches rise on either side. Even though it’s crowded – on a midweek afternoon during school season we waited 20 minutes for our tickets – you can lose yourself wandering through the fragrant lanes.

We visited in early June, and the flower garden was bursting with colour, all poppies and peonies and hollyhocks and irises.

All those poppies recall the Monet print that hung in my childhood nursery, the one of a girl and her mother walking through a poppy field, the girl wearing a boater not unlike my school uniform hat, and the mother wearing a scarf and carrying a parasol.

The gardeners were busy at work, tending to all that wildness.

If the flower garden offered more than I expected, then the water garden was slightly underwhelming. The two gardens are intersected by a busy road, and there is noise from the traffic on the road. And to be fair the day was grey, the light flat. The pond is really very small, and not as lovely as it is painted in oil and hanging on the walls of the world’s great museums. It reminded me of visiting the most famous gardens in Japan. Like this one they were perfect on a small scale, and elbow to elbow as crowds of tourists sought just the right picture for their holiday blog.

Monet’s house is worth a look. It has been renovated recently, and rooms on both floors are open for viewing. The bedroom overlooks the gardens. The painter’s bed is curiously small for two people, and the ensuite bathroom is luxurious. What is known as the yellow kitchen is in fact a dining room with a large table, with a smart blue kitchen beyond it. It seems that the Monet family enjoyed their entertaining–and who wouldn’t, in such a spot?

The children brought along The Magical Garden of Claude Monet, which takes a child and a dog on a tour of house and gardens. They enjoyed discovering the places shown in the book – especially Monet’s boat.

There are a number of official and unofficial websites dedicated to Giverny, of which we found the best for visitor information to be the Claude Monet Foundation website.

chaumierelesiris

~ A fairy-tale cottage by the Seine in Normandy

Monthly Archives: June 2012

An English Garden in Normandy

Market Day in June

Awards Season

The most famous garden in Normandy

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