This morning we have nobody for breakfast , tonight no-one for dinner.
We can now slop about the house all day in our dressing gowns and I can do my famous imitation of a parsnip, on the couch.

It is a moment to look at the logic of two middle aged Irish people who , having worked all their lives , reared children , passed through that incredible balancing act of managing to provide shelter , food and security for a family while running a business where you had to provide all these things for your employees. Why should this couple then not rest on their laurels and fade gracefully into the sunset ?

You know the answer as well as we do , we would be bored silly.

Just because I happen to be sixty two (and Síle some years younger) is no reason whatsoever for us to act our age- and anyway what is our age?
It begins to appear that the sixties are the new forties.

I think one little surprise about this business is that it is much more work than we expected , the other surprise is that that work is so painless.
When you get to a certain age getting out of bed early – even to feed others breakfast- is not much of an effort- chances are you have been lying there awake for some time anyway.

An unexpected bonus is the making of new friends ,especially at our age .
There is something about a shared dinner on the terrace that brings all people together.

As well as scores of Irish people , lots from Waterford – old customers of Dwyer’s – we now have had visitors from the UK , from most of the continental countries of Europe , from the States , some from as far away as South America and from Africa as well as people from every corner of France.
Christmas cards are going to start costing us a fortune!

I suppose I should state here that we had fantastic advantages for our new jobs and made very suitable preparations.
Síle has fairly faultless French, learned on several exchanges to Brittany when she was a teenager , mine is (very slowly) improving but some time working in a kitchen in Anjou in the seventies , a passion for French Chanson and constant attendance at Alliance Classes in Waterford have helped me to at least sound proficient.

I was always a person who welcomed visitors- a trait I inherited intact from my mother , and Síle , in her new role as chatelaine has discovered that she has a natural talent for making people welcome- a happy extension, if you think of it, from someone who spent years keeping four year old boys happy.

So now it is five years since we bought Le Presbytere and heading for three since we had our first guests, so it is really pleasant to find that we have no regrets and have great hopes that we will be able to keep doing this work for some time.