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Where Laferriere is located
What makes it so special
Gite 1 Les Pins Parasols
Gites 2 and 3 Le Four a Pain
Booking Form
Prices
Links to useful websites
FAQ
The Small Print
Tennis
Praise for La Ferriere
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| Praise for La Ferriere! |
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Paul Cheater and his family move away from the French beaches to a holiday village. They find themselves in the middle of la campagne, with everything they want – and more. Grandmothers, I have learnt, have an irritating habit of (a) hitting nails on heads and (b) proving that they are invariably right when their children (and children-in-law) are usually wrong. Thus, when my wife announced to her mother that we were forsaking la plage for un village de vacances a la campagne, the grandmaternal interjection of ‘so there’s no beach’ stopped us in our vestiges. Unabashed (hitting nails on heads is where it stops in our family), we escorted our three children (14, 12 and 10) away from cloud-covered, rain-soaked Southampton, through cloven skies to the sun-drenched maize field that grandly assumes its alter ego of Bergerac airport. Thence to La Ferriere, our ‘village de vacances’, a short and simple hired-Megane’s drive from the aforementioned acreage. La Ferreire is run, on-site, by Paul and Tracy Faulkner (sans enfants), Tracy’s brother, Tim Williams and his wife, Chloe, along with their two children, Joscelyn, 10 and Cameron, 8. The final piece of the familial jigsaw is filled by Chloe Williams’ mother, Wendy, who offers comfort and security to the anxious and seems not to have been harmed by being a beachless granny. Three years ago, the family (all of them) decided to do what the rest of us dream of doing: giving it all up and hopping across La Manche to run a gite – er – complex, although complexity is one quality that, thank heavens, does not feature at La Ferriere. Paul Faulkner worked for a leading music publishing company, Tracy was a secretary, Tim Williams ran his own business and Chloe was following a career in marketing. As a result of all that, no conversational stone need ever remain unturned. Beyond La Ferriere’s prettily gerania-bedecked wrought iron gates lie, in addition to the pricipal, substantial family home, three gites, three pools, a ‘play-park’ (grace a Dieu not another play ‘area’), a fine, newly refurbished tennis court, a massive barn where a table tennis table shares room with an array of bicycles (10 euros a day if you’re feeling energetic) and numerous lawn mowers and equipment whose purpose is lost on the likes of oneself. Its crowning glory, towering above all else, is its own, gloriously retro wine bar, rejoicing in its wonderfully anglicised etiquette, ‘Le Flower’! If you are seeking class, style and trendy chic, then you would be better advised to avoid this tiny idyll of South West France. St Tropez it isn’t. Nor is it trying to be. The three gites offer good, basic comfort, well-equipped fitted kitchens and pleasant, modern bathrooms. One new feature this year is the introduction of Sky TV in the three gites and just in case you are the type that utters pious statements about ‘getting away from the box’, then wait until it rains (as it does in the Charente sometimes) and see whether visiting a monolithic church or playing an interactive game on CBeebies is much of a match.) The largest gite, called Les Pins Parasols, has its own pool, whereas the other two, though two-storeyed, share another pool, which, though slightly tidier around the edges, is a degree or two colder, or so our friends who used it and shared ours, tell us. (Although with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Centigrade, that may be a positive boon!) The locality has many attractions and the welcome file does a very good job in listing such venues as the subterranean, monolithic church at Aubeterre or the (rather grandly-named) water park at St Aulaye. Markets are listed, where and when, as are restaurants, the range stretching from fashionable and pricey to quirky and basic – and next to a lake where beavers and coypus bathe. Honest. We went there. Every product, we are told by the marketing people, has to have its U.S.P. La Ferriere’s is its management team. (On-site owners.) Their informative and helpful welcome file informs guests that nothing is too much trouble – and it isn’t. You want your croissants delivered to your doorstep every morning? They will be. You want your pool cleaned? It will be. You want une biere in Le Flower at some ridiculously anti-social hour of the morning/afternoon? You got it. The four of them are indefatigable in their efforts to ensure that their, er, guests? Punters? Ah – friends, are happy and comfortable. They are family people and they run the place on family lines. So much for the starter and the main course, then. What about the pudding, the dessert if you prefer, that supreme ‘tour de force’, that vocational equivalent of la crème on le crumble? Is there one? Indeed there is. It’s called, as only a place that has a wine bar called Le Flower could be, ‘Eat in your gite’. (Or ‘Gavez-vous en gite’, probably, if you’re French.) This wondrous arrangement is the brainchild of Chloe and Tracy, whose culinary skills complement the beautiful rurality of the area in which they live, like saumon fume and champagne. A daily choice of four course repast is offered each week, and, if ordered before the sun passes the yard-arm, a meal of positively gargantuan proportions will be borne, in procession, down to your poolside by the cooks themselves. And then, as if that were not enough, they will transform themselves into waitresses, remove your plates at the end of each course and replenish your table with what is to follow! All you have to do is wield le tire-bouchon. If les enfants terribles don’t have much of penchant for coq au vin or full-blown curries then they can enjoy a child-friendly ‘snack’ from the ubiquitous ‘Flower’. Add to all this a ‘welcome barbecue’ on your second evening (wine not included), opportunities to learn how to salsa (guess where), attempt ‘aquarobics in the pool with Diana’, or calm down after your stressful poolside quaffing, in a yoga class and the formula is complete. True, it doesn’t have a beach nearby, well, not a real one anyway, but it does have everything else – and it does have a granny. And you know what I think about grandmothers. Paul Cheater flew from Southampton Airport to Bergerac with FlyBe (£120 return) and hired a Renault Megane from Europcar. La Ferriere’s website is www.gite-holiday.com |
 tdw1@orange.fr |
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