Layout of upstairs sleeping area

People have been asking us about the open-plan upstairs sleeping arrangements. It’s so difficult to describe, so we thought the best thing to do would be to post some photos here in an attempt to explain….

This is the main bedroom, with its gorgeous views out of the window. When we stay at the house, we always use this room (the children sleep in the triple bedroom at the other end of the house). This photo is taken from the middle of the house, looking towards the bed. You can just make out the pine wardrobe on the left.

And these two photos are taken from the bed, looking back towards the pine wardrobe and the middle of the house. As you can see, we do have a screen which can be used to help privacy.
 

Now we are in the triple bedroom at the other end of the house. These are two views looking towards the sleigh bed (note that they were taken on different days and just to confuse we have moved the dolls house and the rug! But in the second picture you can see the end of the sleigh bed to the left).

 

This next one is taken from the sleigh bed and looks back in towards the centre of the house. You can see the bannisters at the top of the stairs, behind which is the large central room which we use for reading and playing games (blind man’s bluff is a firm favourite!). Then looking further back you can just make out the main bedroom at the far end of the house…

Notice that this bed has a pull-out “truckle” underneath which incorporates a fully-sprung single mattress, so when pulled out, this room in effect has three single beds.

 

Visitors from the USA!

We’ve just had a lovely family staying, they are from the US but they are currently living in England and they are keeping a blog of their own experiences during their time in Europe.

I was a little apprehensive about what they would think of our little farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere in rural France, but when I read their blog this morning I was thrilled to read that they had a good time, and they even included a link back to our website so I guess I can heave a sigh of relief that they had enjoyed themselves. I am always fretting about our guests and hoping that everything is hunky dory, to the extent that I feel I have to apologise if the weather is not gloriously sunny every day as I feel personally responsible even for the weather!!!

You can read about their week in France, along with their amusing opinions on life in Europe, by clicking here.

 

Your Holiday Matters (Holiday Rentals from Owners Who Care!)

We love staying at Le Gaillon, but when we are not there, we are pleased to be able to rent it out to holidaymakers. This is good for us as apart from helping us to pay the mortgage(!) it also means that the house is not left empty and unloved. It’s also good for the village as it provides employment for our caretaker, cleaner and gardener, and hopefully our guests also spend money in the local shops.

We take our responsibilities as self catering holiday rental owners very seriously, and we subscribe to a website for gite owners to get together and discuss aspects of renting out properties to holiday makers – and hopefully for us all to improve our service.

One of our pet subjects is the various holiday listing sites, and in January this year, one of the members started off a discussion called “I had a dream” about how we could probably create our own listing site given the range of people contributing to the website and the range of skills and experience we all have. This snowballed and about 30 of the members got together (in cyberspace!) to set about creating this website. It has now been launched: www.yourholidaymatters.com. The tagline is “HOLIDAY RENTALS FROM OWNERS WHO CARE” and basically the main criteria for inclusion on the website is that we would only include properties where we feel the owners REALLY care about providing a superior service to their guests and where we ourselves would want to spend our holidays. The website is being run on a non-profit basis and is free to advertise.

All rental owners who wish to advertise have to go through a detailed and stringent application process, and not all of them have passed as the site is being kept small with only high-quality properties.

 

9836 has had her Calf!

Great Excitement! David’s favourite cow, 9836, had a calf a few days before our arrival. We went over to the main farm (it’s about 2 miles away from the house) to see them both.

What a sweetie…

  

 

Life is a Bowl of Cherries here in the Beautiful Normandy Countryside…

We were a bit naughty and took the children out of school for a couple of days. It was July 14th (French Independence Day), the house was unlet for four days, the sun was shining, and we just felt a need to be out there! So off we went and had a marvellous few days just chilling out in the sunshine. The garden was looking particularly lovely now that Serin has started doing our gardening on a regular basis.

       

Normandy really is such a lovely place to take a holiday, and we hope that people will like staying in our gite as much as we do!

Driving off along the country lanes to a July 14th barbecue at La Belliere…
(Double-click on the arrow to watch video clip)

 

Yippee – we’ve been accepted by Alastair Sawday!!!

Got a letter today to confirm that we are going to be included in the next edition of the Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay guide. I am so excited – this means a lot to me as I have always been a fan of these books and I always use them when I am looking for a Hotel, Bed & Breakfast or Gite (holiday home).

 

Monet’s House at Giverny

We’ve finally been to Giverny and it was everything we ever expected and more. We’d been looking forward to seeing the garden but had never realised just how interesting the interior of the house would be too. We came home totally inspired and brimming with ideas for paint colours for the interior of the house – particularly the kitchen (which we will be refurbishing in the autumn) and the bathroom which is currently a very boring white. Watch this space…

Giverny is only about an hour from Le Gaillon, and definitely definitely worth the visit…