Well, I really enjoyed July this year. With the very wet winter / spring and having been so busy with the B&B during May and June, I was feeling very tired and a bit disillusioned with it all at the start of this month. I was struggling to stay on top of things in the house and garden and was often too tired at the end of the day to get out and enjoy the long warm evenings.
With this in mind, we closed off some days in July that we still had free (and to avoid the dreaded 4-room-changeover days) and after a couple of days at the start of the month with the house and garden to ourselves, I had already started to feel better about life and I am ending the month in such a better mood than I started it đ
Of course the B&B, the village and the whole region have been extremely lively with the school holidays underway, but the atmosphere has been great. The night markets, marchĂ©s gourmands, live music, apĂ©ros at the chĂąteau and of course the big party for La FĂȘte Nationale on 14th July have been a lot of fun.
La FĂȘte Nationale Française is a big deal and is celebrated right across France. For the 3rd year running we headed down to Parc Bretou where volunteers had set up trestle tables, a stage, marquee tents and were selling food and drink. With a band playing, the dancing and the fireworks it was once again a lovely summer evening.
July also saw the return of the ApĂ©ro Cadix events on Thursday evenings in the garden of Eymet chĂąteau. Organised by Le Comice Agricole with a strong focus on local wines and food, with live music followed by Wholly Vinyl disco and in such a beautiful setting, this is one of my favourite events of the summer. To mark our 3rd anniversary of moving to France Tom and I had a night away in Bordeaux by train where we did some shopping, ate some lovely food and soaked up the atmosphere.Weâve had B&B guests attending 6 different weddings during the month which I think is a record for us and it looks like next yearâs wedding plans are being firmed up because weâre receiving bursts of long-weekend reservations for next summer. Meanwhile we are now in the middle of our first proper heatwave of the year which is making everything a little more challenging!
