In July we spent a week in our French friends' holiday cottage in rural France.  It was heaven! 

   The cottage is an outbuilding of a mill at a small river, surrounded by forests and fields.  There are no other houses. 
   You think time has stopped a long, long time ago.  The villages and small market towns consist of old stone houses and ancient churches. 

   Almost 2,000 years ago the Romans settled here and we drove across a nearby river, over the old Roman bridge that is 1,600 years old and still safe.

   There are flowers and wildlife everywhere.  Everybody seems to have time, but sadly, a lot of young people have moved to the bigger cities.

   We picked our own berries, collected firewood for the evening, ate wild mushrooms from the forests and bought wonderful farm products from the small local markets.

   Our friends' cottage is romantic and decorated with French antiques and fabrics.

   At night we listened to the barn owls and woke up to wonderful birds' singing.  It was a wonderful relaxing week and quite a contrast to flashy Paris!