Loire Valley bed and breakfast, France
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Our flower gardens are designed to encourage wildlife especially birds. We provide food for the birds in winter and therefore enjoy a variety of birds and wild life in the garden. We have seen, over the years various woodpeckers, hoopees all sorts of tits, robins, wrens, srikes, swallows, redstarts and overhead twice each year the cranes.
Our vegetable garden provides most of the vegetables that we eat each year and we ensure that there are no chemicals involved and although that is very time consuming it pays big rewards, lettuce tastes like lettuce and the tomatoes are wonderfully flavorsome. We have had to fence around the area as the rabbits thought they were in heaven, now they have to eat the grass and stuff outside the area.
In the evening you can sit on the terrace and watch the bats and peacock months doing their duty, keeping down the mosquitos, also in the spring hear the frogs calling from the local ponds. Bats are regular visitors and can be seen feeding on the wing at twilight from spring to autumn and occasionally in winter. In 2010 we built and installed a bat box on the south wall of the main barn.
Over the years we have converted our heating system to wood which is much more economically sustainable than oil, which we now only use when it is exceedingly cold.
Community
We have all the literature from our local tourist spots and encourage our guests to visit them, we are close to the wine regions of Sancerre, Pouilly fume and Menetou Salon all being classed AOC and we find it our duty to test them from time to time.
We are also very near the UNESCO village of La Charite and are happy to discuss the history and the village to all our guests if they are interested.
We also support our local nature reserves, both by sending guests and by helping out when our business allows the time.
We also respect our neighbors with our business and ensure that they are happy and we make sure that each year our french improves, the language and the culture are very important to us. Our neighbors down the road keep horses and their house has the same visage as ours so we have had a sign made to ensure that our guests do not land at the wrong house if coming back late at night when the dark does not allow you to see the little differences.
We always attend the village events which vary from dances to fundraising and to taking care of the elderly in the village, either by visits for company or help with the house work or by sometimes taking meals round.
