Bonjour to all our readers!
Les Muguet, (Lily of the Valley) given as a gift on May Day here in the Loire Valley.
We are fast approaching May day. It’s the Fete du Travail or Fete des Travailleurs (National Labour Day) and a public bank holiday in France, but it’s also the celebration of the start of the Spring season.
A long standing custom here in the Loire Valley is to buy or pick sprigs of Lily of the Valley as a ‘Port-Bonheur’ (lucky charm) for your friends, neighbours and loved ones, and they call it La Fete du Muguet (Lily of the Valley Day).
These beautiful little bunches of fragrant spring flowers are on sale leading up to May Day in shops and supermarkets, either as cut flowers or as plants in little pots. They are indeed a perfect gift for anyone even though they are only last a few days.
We are so lucky to have lots of these delightful perfumed flowers in our garden at Le Clos des Guyons.
Our Muguet patch. With a bit of luck it’ll be flooding the garden with its aroma by Mayday.
They fill the air with their aroma as you walk from the courtyard into the garden and soon and I will be making pretty bunches for our neighbours in rue du Moulin and, of course, our gite guests too!!
Some Asparagus that Brian missed this morning – not to mention the string. Wait ’till I see him!
Another sign of Spring (albiet very late this year), is the masses of Asparagus that are growing at an amazing rate in the hot sunshine. Brian clears the bed in the morning and the next day there is as much again. They’re clearly making up for lost time.
And so in accordance with French customs (of which there are many), here’s wishing you all a Happy May Day!!
‘Bonne Fete du Muguet’
Sheila and Brian
PS. A lovely balmy evening, sitting on “la terrace” heavy with the aromas of our Wisteria and Lilac trees. We have a chilled glass of Franck Bimont’s “Vente du Nord”‘ in hand and listening to a Nightingale singing his head off from the top of a huge Walnut tree! Heaven!
Gites in Loire Valley
One of the things we love about late May and early June is the cornucopia of wild flowers which appear alongside the ancient stone walls and in fields and spare ground framed by vineyards and fields of hay. This year, because of the worst spring weather in living memory, many of the late flowering plants have actually come into their resplendant best at the same time as later flowering species making a superb display.
Gites in the Loire Valley 