Day in the life of a Bed and Breakfast and Tea room in Fontevraud l'abbaye,

Day in the life of Chez Teresa/A Taste d'Angleterre a Bed and Breakfast and Tea room in Fontevraud l'abbaye, Pays de loire..

Managed to buy an abundance of fresh strawberries at the market in Montsoreau yesterday morning.  Fruit just on the turn, but has made for the most terrific tasting jam! I've put a few pots of it for sale in our shop at 6 euros 80 la piece so hopefully it will sell.  The jars look rather pretty with their rich fruity contents, red and white check tops plus the jars are embossed with berries so all in all they look good I think.  It will also be nice to give the children who are staying here tonight at Chez Teresa.  Booked in by their Aunt, who lives in the village, there are four of them aged all under 10.  They are performing in some sort of playlet,   but as their Aunt doesn't have enough space for them at hers she has booked them in here.  Anyway they will be my guinea pigs in the morning and we will serve home made strawberry jam for their petit dejeuneur.  They have already put in a request for their morning drink in the form of Chocolat Chaud, which always makes me think of the young heroines in the novels of Colette....very French.

After a quiet day yesterday, well we were competing with the Grand Prix, Wimbledon and the World Cup, we have just had a lovely family in from Reading who seemed to enjoy their lunches very much and gave us a very generous tip.  How very kind.

Our Maire came round the other day to inform us that we should not have hanging baskets on our walls as they could pose a health and safety threat to the public.  I can see the headlines now, "Loire Valley death threat posed by hanging basket on the avenue Rochechouart, in Fontevraud...beware passing tourists...."  Thing is I cannot for the life of me see the logic of this and when I cannot see the logic of something I find it difficult to comply.  In the end we left it that we can continue to have our hanging baskets, but we must sign an official document stating that if any accident occurs as a result of them then we must pay for any damages.  Sods law and knowing our luck, despite the fact that we've had hanging baskets on a walls for a number of years now and to no-one's detriment that I am aware, one of our baskets may well fall on some innocent bystander and then we will be for ever in torment about it.  We also have to remove our pot plants from along the wall...but there again our Maire has said that a 20cm trench will be dug along our wall by a member of the commune so we will be able to plant a few shrubs including a couple of our roses, so let's hope that they flourish.  What with the road works of the past two years, fortunately now ended, our poor plants have been through quite a lot of upheaval and not all of them have survived, but we will have to see.