After nine years of owning a house and running it as a business for six of them you forget some of your loving acquired details. Having a few months off here this winter has let one notice some of the details again.

This is the lampshade in the front hall, we found it somewhere in the house when we arrived and gave it a new home. it was certainly hand painted by someone.

The backdoor, rarely used as we go onto the terrace from the French windows in the living room, has become what I will politely call a repository, given a bit of purpose by a potted plant.

Another repository here at the back of the front door has Madame’s abandoned crutches and a lovely bag for bags in just the right colour left behind by Carmel Somers of the Good Things Cafe.

A different lampshade, this one from Edenderry via Skerries and Síle’e family.

An old brocante find, a primitive St Roch- the patron of the house. The original of this is on Mont St Michel

An old Singer base inherited from friend Isabel, painted by friend Finola and topped with some Kilkenny Marble, an off-cut from the kitchen by friend Clive. It has now become an information stant for the guests.

My father’s old shoe lasts, his father had a shoe factory and he used to hand make the shoes for the family. Note where a black patch was put on one to indicitate a place of easment for a bunion.

In La Petite Chambre is a small but beautiful washstand bought in an antiques fair in Pezenas and some framed Mucha prints, a present from the daughters, now perfectly a l’epoch.

These pen and ink sketches were a present from old friend Bogart who inherited them in a sketch book from an old lady in Graiguenamanagh.

A present from Isabel which she inherited from Orchard Corner in Cork on an old Edenderry tray cloth on a walnut secretaire which spotted in an antique warehouse in Beziers. They now all sit together happily in the Chambre Chemineé

These are our much loved encaustic tiles from the Chambre Famille, celebrating the houses renovations in 1926 and they also remind me of Mary quant’s ’60s logo.

The tiles in the Chambre Chemineé, much effort (and success) was put into matching their base colour with the wall paint.

Also in the Chemineé are these painted over and faded images on the top of the chimney breast. They are extremely difficult to photograph !

And in the downstairs loo is this little bashed and worn cupboard bought for €10 in a troc in Carcassonne- it just perfectly houses the spare toilet rolls.