Le Thoureil – a beautiful riverside village perched on the banks of the Loire

Paris is busy as always during August despite a distinct lack of Parisians! Here in the Loire we continue as normal and take pleasure in sharing our calm way of life in the countryside with fellow wine lovers looking for a change of pace. The TGV provides a direct service to Angers St Laud and yesterday we welcomed 3 couples down here for the day. With temperatures a little cooler than of late, it was fresh enough to take pleasure roaming around the vineyard examining the vines as well as doing plenty of wine tasting.

We often serve these lentils as a side to duck confit, roasted Toulouse sausages or griddled salmon. As time has gone by I have modified the recipe to make it easier and less time consuming. You can make them the day before and reheat gently when serving so they are great to do when you have people over.

Domaine Arnaud Lambert invites its professional buyers to a day of discovery and tasting every year at Arnaud’s beautiful home in St Cyr en Bourg. This year we went to take a look at the Clos du Midi.

Our furniture (that has been in storage since October) arrives on Monday. We can’t wait to get everything into place and start making it into a home after 4 months in our (lovely but temporary) home.

Hail damage is ghastly. It’s random, localised and destructive and can wipe out a crop in minutes. That’s what happened here last week.

Well it’s been a strange month. For the first three weeks of June the weather was rather dull and cool and then we got a shock!