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The Charente roofs of red terracotta tiles bleachedwhite 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 LewisStempel 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 selfsufficient to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming And so buying an old honeycoloured limestone house with bright blue shutters the LewisStempels began their new life as peasant farmers

Over that first year LewisStempel fell in love with the French countryside from the wild boar that trot past the kitchen window to the glowworms 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

It reminded me all over again of why I threw up everything for the magic of La Belle France Carol Drinkwater

2023 John LewisStempel P2023 Penguin Audio