La Villonnière Chambres d'Hôtes

Bed and Breakfast near Argenton sur Creuse, Saint Benoit du Sault, Eguzon and La Souterraine a few minutes drive from junction 20 off the A20 autoroute, approximately half way between the channel ports and Mediterranean

An ‘About Us’ page seemed like a good idea at the time but now we come to write about us we realise that we are so boring no one would actually want to read about us. we will therefore keep this short.

Previous visitors to this page can skip most of this and go to our update

Click here to read our 2nd update

Click here to read our latest update

Sarah, Chris and Maggie and yes, she does like sausages.

We are Chris and Sarah Hill, in 2002 we moved from East Sussex, a very beautiful area in England, to L’Indre a very beautiful area in France, hoping to achieve a more relaxed way of life, this having been accomplished we then decided to open our home to guests, ensuring that we were then constantly busy, cooking, cleaning and generally rushing about, we enjoyed this so much that we are now entering our sixth season and loving every minute of our new way of life.

In March 2006 we had our official inspection from Gîtes de France, they came to classify our rooms, this was quite scary but happily all went well and we were delighted when they announced their decision to classify us three Epis (ears of corn) the French equivalent to the ETB star ratings

For those of you who are not familiar with this part of France, La Villonnière is at the very south of Indre on the borders of the Limousin, very rural, peaceful and largely unspoiled. We adore living in this area and will happily share all our knowledge of it with you.

In 2004 our lovely old cat died, he had travelled with us from England and we had expected him to stay around for years, we felt a bit empty and decided to look around to see if there were any cats that needed a good home, the result of this was Maggie, very definitely not a cat but very much in need of a good home, she is of doubtful origins, mum was certainly a Fox terrier but dad…a donkey perhaps?  just look at her ears!

Maggie loves to have guests staying and is always more than happy to join in any walks, but if you have an allergy to dogs or just don’t particularly enjoy canine company, please say, it is no trouble at all to ensure that Maggie stays with us, we are aware that many people are not over fond of dogs, particularly ones that bounce, Maggie is a great bouncer!

Maggie the adorable puppy

On the subject of dogs, we always try to accommodate guests who are travelling with their own dogs, all we ask is that they are well behaved and sociable but we are conscious that some people would not want to sleep in a room where a dog has been and we therefore do not allow dogs to sleep in room two or the family room. We find anyway that owners usually prefer to leave their dog to sleep in the car; we are rarely asked if a dog can sleep in the house.

Maggie the menace

Click here to read our latest update

Another update at last!

My good intentions of writing an update to this section every few months came to nothing, it is now March 2007 nearly a year since the last update. In my defence 2006 was an extremely busy year
at La Villonniere. Thank you very much to anyone reading this who contributed to our busy year by visiting us, don’t leave it too long before visiting again.

We noticed last year that the number of visitors staying here whilst house-hunting, fell considerably, on the plus side we welcomed a lot more holiday makers, English, French, Dutch, Belgian, German, Italian, Spanish even two couples from New Zealand! all wanting to stay a few days to explore the area, and enjoy some  rest and relaxation. 

Maggie is not a great believer in rest and relaxation, in her eyes, guests who stay here must surely want to play ball with her, for the most part they seem quite happy to oblige.

In July a Dutch lady and her son, pitched camp in our garden as we were unable to offer them a room in the house.  A ‘loo’ and fresh water were made available, we served them breakfast in the morning and they said it was the best ‘campsite’ they had stayed at!  so, come on down all you campers!

May and June are two of the most beautiful months in this region of France, warm, sunny, clear blue skies, this year was no exception however, in July we learned a new French word ‘ la canicule’ a heat-wave, temperatures soared off the thermometer reaching in excess of 50c in the sun and even in the shade well over 40 degrees. The vegetable garden, that had been doing so well, was reduced to a wilting mess, even though we have our own well and were therefore able to water each evening, all the water in the world could not prevent the searing heat from scorching the leaves and shrivelling any vegetables as they formed.

Much of August was, by contrast, cold and wet so some of the veg perked up, the runner beans really enjoyed it, not so the poor holiday makers who all arrived asking the same questions, ‘what’s the weather forecast?’ ‘is it going to get warmer?’  it did get warmer eventually September and October were beautiful, even early November was warm and sunny. At the end of November the Grues (Cranes) left us in favour of warmer climes , according to our French neighbours the departure  of the grues means that winter has begun, the grues will return but not until the risk of snow is over.

December started off mild and wet but then changed completely to a lovely cold snap, the temperatures fell to  –6,  we had beautiful clear blue skies and such a heavy frost, a real old fashioned hoar-frost, we almost had a ‘White Christmas’  In the event the snow didn’t arrive  until near the end of January but when it did arrive it did so with a vengeance, not sure how many inches but well over the tops of my wellies, great fun.

March, came in ‘like a lamb,' we had a few weeks of beautiful warm sunny weather, the grues returned but they timed their arrival badly, and shortly after their return the snow came back to freeze all the daffodils and blossom, so much for the neighbour’s theory. Hopefully this will be our last big freeze, March will go ‘out like a lion’ and we can look forward to a warm Easter and a long hot summer.

Last word, as always, to Charlotte, even more beautiful with her golden curls, she is now walking, even running and great excitement, is to become a big sister in September!

Click here to read our update 2

© 2005-2010 La Villonniere Chambres d'hotes B&B, La Villonniere, Parnac, Argenton sur Creuse, 36170, L'Indre, Centre, France. Phone 0033 (0)254248905 e-mail chris@lavillonniere.net