Back in the “before times” I loved heading to Europe and the UK for their winter. Many find this strange, but I have never been a lover of the hot Australian summer and France, Italy and England in the winter means less crowds, cheaper airfares, twinkling fairy lights reflecting against snowy backgrounds and all the hot chocolate I can drink. As an avid gardener it also means that I can visit important gardens, and study the bare bones of the garden design – often without another visitor to disturb me. And for all of these reasons and many more – my husband and I found ourselves packing to spend the winter months as caretakers and gardeners of a beautiful chateau in France in late 2019.
I am accustomed to the cold, and so long as I have good boots and my trusty travel coat, hat, gloves and scarf I am ready for anything that the Northern hemisphere can throw at me. However, I don’t like being cold at night – and I was worried about sleeping in a large, old chateau and being far from my trusty electric blanket. In my previous travels to France and Italy, electric blankets were very thin on the ground -so I packed thick, fleecy pjs for us both, warm socks and even purchased (faux) fur lined dressing gowns with hoods. I need not have worried for our chatelaine, (French for the woman who owns a castle), was one step ahead of the French winter and all beds in the chateau were fitted with a deep, luxurious underblanket. As a result the bed was so comfortable, and super, snuggly warm. After a day of working in the large walled garden and running up and down three flights of stairs – climbing into bed at night was pure luxury and soothed my aching bones and muscles. I had overpacked with our ready for Antartica pjs, and noted that I must investigate these underblankets when I returned to Australia.
Long story short – a global pandemic cut short our chateau stay and we eventually arrived back in our beloved home town of Warragul. We have made peace with the fact that it will be a long time before we can travel and visit our beloved France and Italy again. So if KB can’t go to the chateau – then KB will bring a little chateau life to her – which is how I have ended up repurposing a building in our garden to become a chateau themed cottage for our friends and family to stay in when they are visiting with us.
Super husband and I have spent six months restoring furniture and building a canopied bed, complete with built in reading lights, lavished with French brocade and toile de jouy fabrics collected from our travels – and even topped with a gilded wooden carved garland lugged back from France, in a much too heavy suitcase. I wanted to make the bed up with the same luxurious feeling that we had experienced in France, and so I have used beautiful ladder stitched sheets and pillow cases, made quilts with precious fabrics from travel all over the world – and to my joy, found that the Aussie Wool comfort underblankets made right here in my home town, are a perfect replica of the comfort we had become used to in our brief snippet of chateau life.
We also used the Aussie Wool comfort pillows and pillow protectors to make up the bed properly. I really like the pillows – they are so comfortable to sleep on, and very importantly – they fill out the pillow cases really well and sit up on the bed beautifully. I do despise a pillow that doesn’t honour the quality linen it is dressed in. The pillow case covers are wonderful – they zip off and wash up a dream – making changing the bed between visitors very easy.
All of our visitors so far have reported that the bed is a dream to sleep in, and I am going to put underblankets on all of the beds in our home – hopefully we can stop using electric blankets and sleep warm and cozy while we dream of borders re-opening and exploring more gardens through the world.
Escape to the French Chateau in Gippsland
