About

Bonjour!

This blog is about ourselves, Brian and Sheila, an English couple and our life in Le Puy Notre Dame near Saumur in the famous Loire Valley of France.  After varied careers in the UK we finally decided to take the plunge and, in 2001, moved, lock stock and barrel, to a country which we both loved and where we had spent many happy holidays. 

We looked all over France for our first home and finally decided on the Loire Valley because we loved its “Douceur”, its gentle way of life, its people and, not least, its food and wine. Not to mention its history and Chateaux etc. 

We first moved to the tiny hamlet of Cléré sur Layon where we were instantly welcomed by the small community and made many friends who we still see now, even after moving to Le Puy Notre Dame, a wine village in the heart of the Saumur vineyards. 

As in Cléré sur Layon, we have created two gites which we somehow successfully manage to fill for most of the season. We hope by creating this Blog we can help other people thinking of living in France, explain why we love it to those who do not quite “get it” and, of course, to have some fun in explaining our trials and tribulations, our happiness and true, sometimes our despair at living in this corner of the Loire.

Feel free to add any comments, questions or anything you like, (within the bounds of decency!) and we hope, together, we can make it an interesting place to spend half an hour. The posts are arranged in chronological order, the newest at the top .

Please click this link If you have not come here from our website and are interested in finding gites in the Loire Valley or would like to find out more about the region from the pages on our site.

Thank you and Happy Blogging.