14 | August | 2015 | back to life

La Chambre d’Hote

Susie decided to turn the main house into a bed and breakfast after she bought the smaller property next to the tea shop. She named the house La Bourge which in French means a lady who has to dress with everything matching; shoes, hat, bag and hat!

It’s a beautiful, traditional french house with 3 very tastefully decorated guest rooms and an attic converted into a studio that sleeps 4 people. While I was there only the guest rooms were being used and we had a steady stream of guests. They were mainly French couples and families travelling from the north to the south for their holidays and breaking their journeys in the village. Although we did have a lovely couple from South Africa who were touring Europe.

The main job in the guest house was serving breakfast and then cleaning, changing the beds and getting ready for the next visitors. At one point I considered changing my name to Widow Twanky as I washed and dried so much bedding!

Anyone visiting La Bourge is guaranteed a very warm welcome and great hospitality in a gorgeous house by a fabulous host.

Have a look at the website: http://www.chezlabourge.com, and if you are lucky enough to stay there check out the beautiful tiling on the ground floors.

Le Salon de The

The little tea shop in Le Grand Bourg I worked in is called Time for Tea, it is sandwiched between the guest house and Susie’s house. It is decked out in 1950’s vintage splendor from the cabinets to the Formica tables.

It’s open from Wednesday to Sunday between the hours of 12 and 5. The delicious lunches on offer are soup with homemade bread followed by the tart of the day with 2 salads. The tarts come in many variations such as Spanish tortilla, vegetable terrine and spicy pizza, I made quite a nice spinach tortilla which seemed to go well. My savoury muffins, however, weren’t such a great success and could have been used as a weapon when they went extremely hard after a couple of days! But I redeemed myself a few days later with a tomato and mozzarella bread straight out of the pages of Paul Hollywood’s baking bible.

For afternoon tea the customers can choose from the good old fruit scone and a variety of yummy cakes. I’m not really much of a baker but I did manage to knock up a decent coffee and walnut cake. Of course all these goodies are washed down with copious amounts of tea.

Most of the customers in the tea shop are British people who have houses in the area, although we did have a few French customers on my first weekend as there was an open garden event going on. I think only the Brits truly appreciate a lovely cuppa in the sweltering heat, although I did manage to convert my fellow Workawayer, Karet from Estonia, to my way of thinking that it’s never too hot to drink tea!