New Chambre D’hôtes in Limousin

Sometimes it helps to have a deadline.

As you will have seen from Facebook, we have been working on our new chambre d’hôtes in Limousin (B&B rooms) throughout the winter. We just don’t seem to be able to finish them though. We still need a double bed for one of the rooms. The other two rooms have charming beds with headboards and footboards.

This is all very well, but we would like our third double to be really large. We have many Dutch guests and have been struck by how incredibly tall they are. I think our next bed needs to have no footboard at all so that tall people’s feet are able to dangle off the end if necessary.

I said to one guy last summer as I craned my neck to stare up at him, “wow – you Dutch people are so tall. If you weren’t so laid back, you could take over the world”. He grinned at me laconically and said (in perfect English, of course), “well, we kind of did that already in the 18th century, so we don’t need to do it again.”

Anyway, regardless of our state of unpreparedness, our first B&B guests at our chambre d’hôtes in Limousin arrive tonight. We have two rooms ready and waiting for them, although we keep taking it in turns to scurry upstairs with items that we have forgotten – a towel, a tourist map, and a coffee machine. They are, bien sûr, from Holland. I am sure they will be comfortable, nevertheless. I get to share the first proper pictures of the two finished rooms – Hirondelle and Chevreuil – with you.

Chambre d’hôtes in Limousin

We are excited to have these rooms done, and they will be advertised and available for booking shortly. (When the marketing and bookings department has finished potting up her courgette plants and making hot-cross-buns.)

More excitement was had this week with family visiting and the Mayor’s granddaughter, who was with us for a week, to help improve her English using the “total immersion” method. This meant helping us clean gites and listening to our fascinating stories about tea, rain and other aspects of life in England (!). We taught her to say “put the kettle on” and explained the cultural significance of this.

She was delightful, and it was a pleasure to have her around. Her family came round for a little l’aperos this afternoon and brought us the most amazing haul of flowers and chocolates to say thank you. We are completely set up chocolate-wise for the Easter weekend. With the gites full, our first guests in the B&B, and a house full of chocolate, life is good at Le Moulin de Pensol this spring.