Some of you will know that I've been writing a blog over at Blogger for 4 years now: a few have even trailed along with me through the agonies (and dust) of our renovation process here, our attempts to get to grips with French administration, the joys and tears of growing vegetables and a hundred and one other bits and pieces of our life here.

Having a break from guests for a couple of months while we work on the new summer kitchen, have a new bathroom installed (for us this time!) and 'relook' our own kitchen means that it's also a good time to put other bits of our house in order, so to speak. So this site has had, and will continue to have, a bit of an overhaul, with (so far) four new pages on walking and walking holidays, some new photos I took during the year (including the one that now forms the background to the site) and this new blog page, which will by and large take the place of our old Blogger blog. 

So, what can you expect to find here? Well, we'll keep you updated with some of the news and gossip from life at Maison Grillou; we'll take you with us on some lovely walks and to local events and fêtes; we'll introduce you to some of our local food producers. And most importantly, lots of you lovely guests have asked for recipes for things we've served for dinner or breakfast, so I'll be posting some of those here too. If you'd like to subscribe so that you don't miss out on a new post, either add your email address to subscribe via email, or if you already have a feed reader set up just click on the RSS button over on the right. We'd love to have you!

The old blog will stay up, so you can always go back and discover some of what we've been up to since 2008 if you've nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon, or indeed you just want a good laugh at us covered from head to toe in dust :). But for now, let me just wish you a very warm welcome, and a very happy, healthy, peaceful and of course Slow 2013!