The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles,bleached-white walls,windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back,while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church,the sound of bells skipping across miles of rolling,glorious countryside.
For many years a farmer in England,John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing,as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. He wanted to be self-sufficient,to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming. And so,buying an old honey-coloured limestone house with bright blue shutters,the Lewis-Stempels began their new life as peasant farmers.
Over that first year,Lewis-Stempel fell in love with the French countryside,from the wild boar that trot past the kitchen window to the glow-worms and citronella candles that flicker in the evening garden. Although it began as a practical enterprise,it quickly became an affair of the heart: of learning to bite the end off the morning baguette; taking two hours for lunch; in short,living the good life - or as the French say,La Vie.
Publisher: Transworld Publishers LtdISBN: 9780857526458Number of pages: 208Weight: 331 gDimensions: 222 x 144 x 23 mm
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'John Lewis-Stempel sets off from the UK to the rural far west of France - la France profonde - where he and his wife settle to a farming life in a draughty house with a small menagerie of pets and farm animals and a few acres of vineyards. Life on John's blustery Charente escarpment is a far cry from our sun-baked Olive Farm in Provence. Still,I was quickly drawn into his world and his fascinating pot-pourri of all things French. His is a good-natured universe of horses and hares,hoopoes and hens. La Vie is a pleasing,gentle read. Like the dormice who nest in the attic,you soon want to snuggle up in the spare bedroom. It reminded me all over again of why I threw up everything for the magic of La Belle France.'- Carol Drinkwater,author of The Olive Farm
John Lewis-Stempel
Widely recognised as one of Britain's finest natural history writers,John Lewis-Stempel is a farmer,journalist and writer whose works include The Wild Life,Meadowland,Where Poppies Grow,The Running Hare and The Secret Life of the Owl. He is a two-time winner of the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for Nature Writing.
Visit the John Lewis-Stempel author page
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