In summer we might be islands in the stream, but in winter, I feel more like a castle in the snow, don’t you? And, since it’s escapist Friday, we won’t even worry about the heating bills!
Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating, and a happy end of the calendar year to everyone! Hope you get a chance to rest and recharge your batteries!
I gather there is a film currently on one of the streaming services featuring a popular novelist who can afford to buy a Scottish castle just in time for Christmas, so I couldn’t resist combining two of my favourite topics: castles/palaces/manor houses and snow. Of course, not all of these are ‘chateaux’ strictly speaking, but ‘palaces in the chalices’ or ‘castles for the passels’ just don’t quite have the same rhyming resonance, do they?
I start the year as I mean to go on: planning my move into a wonderful chateau complete with delectable grounds. Here are a few to set you dreaming as you digest all of the rich holiday food!
Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to an excellent 2015 for all of us! I will be travelling for work over the next 10 days, so I won’t be around much to either blog or comment or tweet, but thank you for your support and fun interactions over the past 2-3 years and I hope there is much more fun to come.
I know you’ve all missed my ever-so-useful posts about acquiring the chateau of your dreams in France or thereabouts. Fear not: I’ve continued avidly collecting information and pictures (my future as an estate agent seems secure!).
And, finally, one that is not for sale. It’s been converted into a hotel and restaurant, it’s not that far away from where I currently live… so I still dream of having a civilised supper with friends on the terrace at some point…
Not for me a timid manor-house, a larger-than-average barn:
Towers, sculptures, crenellations are things I yearn.
A place where my imagination and I can gallop unfettered,
where no one has tethered my quiver so impatient.
Castles in Spain? Pah! I scorn!
It’s the chateaux in France that I adore!
It’s Friday, it’s been a crazy week, so I felt like having a silly little ditty to accompany the pictures below. I am also responding to the prompt over at dVerse Poets, where we are asked to experiment with slant rhymes: the ones that sound nearly but not quite right, and are so much more interesting than perfection!
They probably have libraries already, but just in case you are looking for the perfect one… (I may have posted this picture before, but it’s just the most romantic chateau library I have ever seen).
Castles in Spain, chateaux in France, what’s the difference? Somewhere to dream, explore, write – and never mind the renovation work required. Happy Bank Holiday, for those who are in the UK, and hope the weather will be better than our soaked holidays to date…
I’ve included the last picture although the image is less clear because this one is quite a special house (and it is more of a modest manor house than a chateau): it was David Bowie’s house on the hills above Lausanne for 10 years and it has appeared in the Claude Chabrol film ‘Merci pour le chocolat’.
Following on from my previous post, speaking of great settings…
Some of the crucial scenes of my crime novel in progress (3rd draft, thank you for asking) are set in a mountain chalet [of the public rather than the posh type]. However, seeing these pictures of French castles, I couldn’t help wondering if I could set my next novel in one of those places!
Incidentally, all of these castles are for sale, if you have a spare few million euros to invest in buying and renovating. More pictures and estate-agenty type details are available from websites such as http://www.bellesdemeures.com, http://www.avendrealouer.fr and http://www.maisons-et-chateaux.com.
findingtimetowrite 