Sailed back from France last night and, for the first time ever, I didn’t have to change my watch as the time, obligingly, changed with me.

Our New Godin Stove arrived today and with some blood lots of sweat and (close to) tears was installed this morning.

The internet magazine of that name has written an excellent article about Our Wonderful French Adventure here

Ovens in

Listening to RTE via satelite this morning in France one can feel the excitement bouncing over from home.
What is more surprising is the French excitement at our win.
The local Midi Libre has a whole page about the rugby, an article on what the papers are saying (best bite is from the Observer ; Ce n’etait pas du rugby,c’etait un scene du bataille)
It also has a long article on Declan Kidney; Kidney a trouve l’equation in which I discover that he taught Maths in Pres in Cork before he took over the Irish team.
I wonder how my old Alma Mater Christians, Pres’s ancient enemies, have reconciled themselves to this.

This ancient rivalry went deep, an English friend as yet uninitiated to its importance was intrigued by an argument between two small boys, representing both establishments, on the top of a bus in the city in the sixties.
The Coup de Grace was delivered by the Christians boy who reduced his rival to pulp by saying “Anyway, you wear shorts for Confer and we wear longers ”
Game, Set and Match

For strangers I should perhaps add a note of explanation.

Confer is the sacrament of Confirmation, taken about the age of ten, when the boys were kitted out in immaculate school uniform.
The boys from Christians College wore long trousers under their Blazers where as the Presentation boys wore the more childish shorts.

Just a little note, and not at all a gloating one I promise, that (thanks to my new Wi-Fi connection and a temperature in the mid twenties) I am writing this and the last piece on the terrace of my house in Thezan with just the gentlest breeze and the whole village silent and no doubt soporific have just consumed Le Repas de Dimanche Midi

As someone who spent most of his secondary education in Christian Brothers College in Cork strenuously avoiding all contact with compulsory games (read Rugby) I have become a very late and rather luke warm fan of the game.
This is partly because in the Languedoc the only thing people know about Ireland is about the rugby team.
(Yesterday the local chemist gave me antibiotics, without perscription, solely because Ireland were going to be playing for Son Premier Grand Chelem en 61 ans and he was horrified that anyone would have been too ill to enjoy it.)

I am a luke warm fan because the prospect of playing the game still horrifies me and I still blanch when I watch the risks these people subject their bodies to, in fact I still find it quite difficult to watch so I was delighted to find myself in France yesterday where the only version of the match I could access was via the internet and on radio.
I decided that i could just listen to it as background noise but I was entirely mistaken. From the begining when Wales started to lead it was totally engrossing and I ended up rivited.
Any author or playwright might envy this teams ability to keep the ending a total surprise until the last 20 seconds.
Any author of playwright might envy the teams ability to offer as much joy as they did with the stunning double try just after the interval-sorry half time.

So my prediction which I made on my birthday has been proved true and just as the Triple Crown was carried up the Lee on the moment of my birth so will the Grand Chelem be carried into Dublin today.

Well done all.

Sile and I at the front door of Le Presbytère Thézan-lès-Béziers last summer

A lot of people have been asking me about our French venture Le Presbytère Chambre d’Hôte in Thézan-lès-Béziers so I have put together a piece about how it has come to pass, when we hope to open, some stuff about the area and at the end our proposed charges.
This is meant to be the start of a more dedicated page which I hope to start work on with the daughter, Caitriona, after Easter.

It has been a life long desire of Sile and mine to end up in France in some way or other and we have spent the last thirty years as we holidayed throughout France sussing out various locations where we would end up.

As we explored the country we moved further and further south, into Provence and the south west but eventually we decided that the spot which was for us was the Languedoc.
This is far enough south to be wonderfully sunny but neither subject to the winds and rain of the Atlantic as the west coast is nor as expensive as Provence and the Cote d’Azure to the East.
Also, and most important for us, it was very well serviced in Carcassonne with flights from Ireland, from Dublin, from Shannon and from Cork.

This made an area where we knew we would have easy access from those who we saw as our primary customer base; the Irish.

With that in mind we started our search, this was in the summer of 2006, we wanted the house to be within 100klms (one hour) of Carcassonne, to have at least two lettable bedrooms, ones where we could fit en suite bathrooms, with at least another bedroom for our selves.
We had a limited budget so didn’t want to buy into an established business and pay for their good will.
We had seen a lot of houses in and around the Carcassonne area before we hit pay dirt.
We were taken by an estate agent called Charles to see an old presbytery in a little circulade village called Thezan Les Beziers in Herault.
The circulade is basically a spiral town, usually built on a mound, with a church or castle in the middle.
From the outside the presbytery wasn’t much to look at, a house in a terrace, with a north facing front door.
The house was pitch dark inside but Charles was hiding a secret up his sleeve.
“You didn’t say that you wanted a view” he said, “but my experience is that once you see a house with a view you will!”
He threw open the shutters onto the terrace and we were hooked.
The house was on the top of the village and the terrace faced south on to a wooded hill across a valley and a view to the west right down as far as the Pyrenees, 150 klms away.
Furthermore it ticked all the boxes, four large bedrooms, all big enough to take bathrooms on the first floor and a further two in the attic along with a large unconverted space. It had two separate cellars and a courtyard and a garden.

We were sold, and we bought it.
Now two and a half years later we are approaching completion.

We have converted most of the ground floor into a huge kitchen/living/dining room. All dominated by the French windows out on to our terrace.
On the first floor we have four bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, and on the top floor what has become our “flat” with two bedrooms, a large bathroom and a living room with kitchenette.
It is a substantial property, bigger certainly than we originally intended.
All of the building and plumbing work is now finished, as I write Clive Nunn is installing the kitchen and between now and September we have just the decoration of the entire house to do.
I say September because we have decided that that must be our deadline and we have accepted bookings for that month.

We have decided that we will produce dinner five nights a week, which will be in the tradition of the French d’Hôte and will include wine.

The sort of holiday we imagine people taking with us would be people who enjoy exploring and taking advantage of the beautiful area around us.

For those who enjoy the sea we are about 20 minutes from the Mediterranean and from the huge sandy beaches of the Languedoc. You can choose between long isolated beaches with sand dunes and the busier resorts with restaurants and shops.

For those who enjoy river swimming there are fabulous river beaches close to the village, including one in Roquebrun which has a weir which makes it ideal for children.

Just to the north of us is the National park of the Haut Languedoc with wonderful walks in the hills where you may even spot a wild sheep or an eagle.

If you are, as I am , a lover of French Villages then there are beauties to explore in the area, Roquebrun is spectacularly sited over the Orb with a Mediterranean garden at the top of the village and Olargues, has a beautiful Roman bridge the most amazing Medieval streets, even a 12th century enclosed public stairway and one of the best brocantes in the area.
A little further off is the seaside village of Agde, and the marvellous town of Sete and the beautiful villages of St Guillhaume le Desert and the untouched Templar village of Couvertoirade.
Those who like cities will enjoy medieval Beziers, just 15 mts away with its cathedral perched over the River and Narbonne with its museums and Roman remains.
Carcassonne is of course world famous for its castellated city and is a world heritage site as is the beautiful Canal de Midi which flows along between Carcassonne and its nine locks in Beziers.

Montpellier city is just 45 mts away and really easy to get to as there is a tramway park and ride just off the motorway, next to Ikea, which brings you to the Antigone Centre and the amazing Musee Fabre.

The Languedoc is a great place for wine and you could happily spend a day tasting terrific wines from the area. St Chinian and Faugeres are renowned reds and my favourite white tipple Picpoul de Pinet is just down the road.

The climate is terrific with all months of the year enjoying sunshine, the summer itself extending from Easter to Halloween and September and October are warm and sunny as the grapes are gathered for the vendange and the trees at the roadside are covered in Pomegranates and Quinces.

Of course another selling point in the mix will be my obsession with good food and my love of cooking it.

I am blessed here in the Languedoc with great supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables, delicious fish available from the nearby Mediterranean with particularly good Mussels from the Bassin de Thau where their unique savour is thought to come from the high salinity of this inland sea. We are just south of the Massive Central where some of the best Lamb in France grazes.
The village of Thézan has a superb butcher, its own baker who also make great patisserie and a market two days a week.
It is going to be easy here to indulge myself in my favourite occupation,cooking great food.

Just to get down to the nitty gritty of costs we have decided to start off by matching the prices in the area for Chambre d’Hôte which comes in at €60 for two people in a double room for bed and breakfast, the Dinner, which will include wine (a bottle for two, an aperitif and a digestif) will be €30 a head.
Therefore dinner bed and breakfast comes in at €60 per head for two sharing.
This compares fairly favourably with Irish (and even French) prices.

If you have any questions or want to book contact me here

Martin Dwyer
107 Griffith Place,
Waterford
Ireland
In France:

Le Presbytère
14, Rue René Lenthéric
34490 Thézan-lès-Béziers
France

France Mobile
+353 (0)87 2725872

Irish Landline
+353 (0)51 352930

web: www.martindwyer.com

French Landline
+33 (0)467487018

martin@martindwyer.com

Hugh Leonard was not the most popular of our artists but he was always a friend to Dwyers Restaurant and always gave it great praise both in his column in the Independent and on his appearances on RTE.
I always found it easy to like him for that.

In the film about his life on RTE last week; Odd Man In they gave a sound bite from one of his plays which I cannot remember accurately but will give my best shot at; I just love it and it reminds me of his terrific wit.

It was spoken with a lady with a cuttingly south Dublin accent.

“All this business about richmen, and camels and eyes of needles is all rubbish, as Father O Sullivan explained it to us last Sunday that doesn’t apply in places like Dalky or Kiliney where poverty has been eliminated”