Category: Interior Design

We are staying in a beautiful airbnb gite in France, south of Poitiers. We always manage to find interesting places to stay and many of them offer us a little ‘home from home’ in the sense that they are in very quiet locations with plenty of garden and inspiring views. We arrrived at Sommieres-du-Clain later than originally planned, as the over-night crossing did not work out. There were no cabins available, and we cannot cope without a good night’s sleep. Hence we had to leave the UK at the crack of dawn on Friday morning instead. We arrived at our gite just after 8:00pm and found a most delightful home waiting for us. My task was meant to be preparing the dinner; I brought with us non-perishable food to cook, which meant pasta with a can of tomatoes and a can of tuna, enhanced by onion and some mild spices. Paul was bringing the luggage in whilst I made a start on the preparations. However, I went upstairs to choose a bedroom – there were three to choose from. I told Paul that although there was a lovely bedroom with a big window and a view to look forward to, I’d rather go for the other double room, as it had the advantage of an en-suite. It had a velux window though, so no view.

We slept well, but the next morning Paul went and looked more closely at the other two bedrooms. The middle one has bunk-beds. He informed me that there was an en-suite shared between these two rooms! How on earth had I missed it?! He was also lamenting the fact that we were not benefitting from the glorious view from the window. I must have been tired and muzzy-headed, as if I had thought more clearly I might have wondered why on earth a house would only have one en-suite and no communal bathroom or second en-suite. We decided that it would be much better to move into the nicer bedroom; this meant that Paul had to swap the bedding, as it seemed unfair on our host to have two sets of bedding to wash. Although the colours and design of the bedrooms is fairly simple and minimal, we noticed that in fact the rugs in each room match the colours of the bedding. Oh well, another task for Paul will be to swap the bedding back before we leave…. Our domestic division of duties means that Paul changes beds and I do the clothes washing and of course all the cooking!

The first two photos are of the bedroom we slept in first (but after Paul had changed the bedding round!) The next photos are of the room with a view that we moved to!

To return to our first evening and my attempts to make a quick, simple dinner. I was relying on using canned products and we usually buy cheap cans in the cash and carry with no ring pulls. However, every kitchen has a can opener doesn’t it? Well there was certainly a can opener in the cupboard, but it was well past its life of usefulness and did not work! Paul having already been to visit our host next door to find out where we might find matches or a lighter for the fire, he sent me on the next errand. Just like home, our gite was dark outside, not being on a street, and I was also greeted by very friendly black labradors. Unfortunately our host did not have a can opener as she, like most people, buys cans with ring pulls. However she was able to give me a can of tomatoes with a ring pull. She did not have any tuna, but gave me half a dozen eggs instead, from the resident chickens. So disaster averted and we had a lovely supper of spaghetti with tomatoes, topped with a poached egg.

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