Last week, during the French la Vie,
we were invited—unexpectedly—
by an antique dealer I’d met years ago.
His 1600s farmhouse.
The kind of place you remember with your senses.
Stone underfoot, time in the walls.
A drink in the garden—why not.
I wrote of his home the other day,
but here’s the garden:
a little wild, just how they like it.
The farmhouse is a kind of place with low beams and high stories. And a garden as a halo.
A path—not straight—
weaving itself in and out of shadow and green.
Pond here.
Vines and orchard trees there.
Fruits. Flowers.
A place to bathe,
and a corner to change clothes, if you’re shy.
Nothing manicured.
No deliberate design.
And yet, everything exactly where it should be.
We drank something fresh—
mint and fruit picked right then,
like it had been waiting.
I like this kind of moment.
No signposts. No schedule.
Just a gate open,
and someone who’s lived here long enough
to know which roads turn towards the center of the universe..
This isn’t château France.
It isn’t a storybook.
Not the polished version.
But the France that lives behind the garden gate
and doesn’t even glance at the clock.
At the edge of the path,
a border—
not made,
but gathered.
A quiet place – that says
We are here while the rest of the world carries on.
It’s the kind of beauty
that asks nothing
and gives everything.
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