Le Vert Vallon

We're in St Omer in Northern France for the weekend, and on the way we went to have a look at our old house in the village of Buysscheure. The house is called 'Le Vert Vallon' which means The Green Valley, and was built in 1867. As you can see it's surrounded by fields, so it's name suits it well.

We bought the house in 2005 when we still lived in the UK. It had been empty for 2 years so needed quite a lot of work, and because it was an old house, we furnished it in keeping with it's age. There was a lovely orchard at the back with Apple, Pear and Gooseberry trees, and Alan built a decked area at the very end of the orchard where it got the early evening sun.

We spent lots of time there, but after moving to Belgium and being only 2 hours away, ironically we didn't use it as much, so we sold it three years ago to a young French couple. We drove past today to have a look at what they've done to it, and whilst the work they've done to the house looks of a good quality, they've completely removed all the trees from the orchard, and have laid a garden. They've also added extensions to the back of the house, and it seems to have lost it's original charm and character which is a shame, but it was still nice to see it as we have a lot of fond memories of our time there.

Once in St Omer, we went for lunch at our local bar and saw our friends Dominique and Muriel, and then we went to see Francois Felix in his shop. He opened a bottle of Cider for us to share and we had a nice chat before going shopping in the sales. There's a lovely handbag shop and Alan bought me a gorgeous Longchamp bag which was reduced by 50%, then we went and bought some clothes for him - he needed to buy something long sleeved, as it's been cloudy all day and only about 20 degrees. After the hot temperatures in Belgium he didn't bring any warm clothes, just shorts and tee-shirts, but it was a good excuse to get him to go shopping as like most men he prefers not to! Anyway it was a success, and he actually bought 3 tops.

We're now heading out to dinner at a restaurant called La Cygne which we've only been to once before, which was very nice, and have booked a table outside on the terrace.

Hope you're having a good weekend, and I'll catch up with you later!