La Vie: A year in rural France

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He plants his toes in the French earth and turns his lyrical gaze on the land, the people, the deep community spirit. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. The book is in effect a year's journal of John and his family moving to rural France, (an area I have visited as I have friends who live an hour away from this place). The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Good detail on the wildlife, farming and village life here in Charente but John's aim to live as a rural peasant is not supported by 100s of euros spent on exotic lillies, rare sheep and automatic oil pressing machines etc. He guides us with gusto around his tiny potager, his five-strong herd of Ouessant sheep with their coveted wool, his water lilies. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy.He plants his toes in the French earth and turns his lyrical gaze on the land, the people, the deep community spirit . Although it began as a practical enterprise, it quickly became an affair of the heart: of learning to bite the end off the morning baguette; taking two hours for lunch; in short, living the good life - or as the French say, La Vie. Alternately inspiring and exasperating, La Vie has all but forced me to build a potager and frustrated my dreams of evening strolls with a dog (due to lack of said canine) but is so beautifully, simply written, I missed it when I had to put it down ( to dig potager and commence papier mache dog). John Lewis-Stempel's story of a year on his smallholding in the Charente is warm and vivid and beautiful.

There are so many things I enjoyed about this book which provided a glorious armchair excursion to rural life in France. After calming the terrified animal, Lewis-Stempel leads him back to his field where the cause of the alarm is revealed: a fire salamander, basking in the sunshine. Highly descriptive, going round the year in the life of a newly arrived English peasant farmer's perspective who is hard working and accepted by his French neighbours because of who he is. What I have particularly enjoyed is re-learning French word and slang which I only remembered when reading the book, things I learned at school over 40 years ago came back to me (the fables by Jean De La Fontaine were learned by rote in "conversational French" back then.

This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees. Over that first year, Lewis-Stempel fell in love with the French countryside, from the wild boar that trot past the kitchen window to the glow-worms and citronella candles that flicker in the evening garden. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly.