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After nearly twenty years in the busines we are lucky enough to get quite a lot of repeat visits and personal referals. However guides are still a vital source of guests; these vary enormously in quality and we attach great importance to the fact that the best carry out regular inspections. One of these is Alistair Sawday, and this year we are proud to have been selected for the latest additions to his stable: Green Europe and Go Slow France. One of our guests wrote recently that we were his favourite BB&WW. WW stands for wine and walking, both are pretty green and take time for maximum enjoyment. 

Rather surprisingly our guest season is still heavily weighted towards the summer. Yet in many ways winter visitors, or at least those from the North, get more benefit out of a stay before Easter than those who come later. For the first three months of the year, even if we can't rely on sunshine all day every day, it will certainly be sunnier and warmer than anywhere North of Lyon. So with Ryanair and Easyjet offering amazing deals why not try a few days in Provence? No need for a car as I offer airport pick up and am generally happy to drive you round the area, or do the guide on a few hikes.

On the net a good source of objective up to date guest comments is tripadvisor. however two rather more literary comments that appeal to me are: 

"What you seek is here". This is a line from Horace; "quod petis hic est: est ulubris animus si te non defecit aequus". The peace you seek is here, where is it not, if your own mind be equal to its lot. The latin is now inscribed in the lintel over our front door

"little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love" ? quoted from a thank you letter from a Belgian guest(!). It's from Wordsworth's "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey" : That best portion of a good man's life. His little, nameless, unremembered ...

Although it's sunny and fairly warm during the day, we generally light a fire for tea in the drawing room, and a slice of fruit cake can go down well, particularly after a walk. So here is our recipe:

Preparation time : 20m

Cooking time : One and a half hours

Ingredients : for 12 persons

Butter 125g brown sugar 150g black chocolate 50g water 85g black rum 100g

chopped walnuts 30g chopped raisins: currants 75g: black 170g: white 170g chopped mixed peel 40g flour 110g 2eggs self raising flour 40g powdered cocoa 40g, mixed spice 3g

Preparation :

Soak the chopped dried fruit in the rum for 12 hours. Butter a cake mould 14x21x7 with greaseproof paper in the bottom of it. Heat the oven to 150°

Heat the butter, sugar, chocolate and water in a medium sized pan until the sugar has disolved. Off the heat add all the other ingredients and mix either by hand or in a food processor. Put the mixture in the mould and cook for 90 minutes

Variations:

The cake can be decorated with a mixture of 80g of melted black chocolate mixed with 60g of fresh cream. Some of the raisins can be replaced by prunes or other dried fruit: pears, glace cherries etc. If you like it, the rum ration can also be strengthened

Preservation :

A week in a box, or a month refrigerated