The Season is over, now to plan 2026!

It has been crazy here at Maison Halcyon, shutting down at the end of the summer means a list of jobs for us to ensure that we provide the same quality, if not better year on year and I guess why we are always fully booked a long way in advance!

We now have the following dates still left available:

04 July 2026 - 25th July 2026

18th August 2026 - 5th September 2026

Based on the history of our booking these will hopefully be booked out by the end of the year, if not then I need to work harder on my advertising! lol!

We are lucky enough to already have 7 weeks already booked as our season starts in May.

Anyway, back to closing at the end of the season. The first job was to let the Ginger kitten out in to the world after finding him in a carpark in Saintes back in June, he is thriving and big enough (now 3.5kg) at approx 16 weeks old, to go out and play with the big cats. I was super nervous but he seems to be running the roost to be honest, so the worrying was needless!

Then on to the garden, of course the grass continues to need cutting, the fruit needs collecting so I can make fig and apple chutney, we have a huge walnut tree so we collect those too and hand them out to friends and neighbours. The trees & hedges need cutting back so they stay manageable for Luke (not my department). The pool has now been shut down and cover on so it doesn't get filled with autumn falling leaves, the garden furniture is stored away along with the ping pong table. The yoga / meditation cabin is closed down too.

We then give the gite a lovely deep clean and make a note of any damage / repairs / repainting that needs doing (no damage or repairs this year which is fab so just the painting to do next year), store all the linen and towels away and leave it smelling fresh until the new year. We wait until the beginning of the following year to do the painting etc so it's fresh for the following season. I also then spend time thinking about the new things to add to the gite. We like to do a little upgrade each year so people see that we are reinvesting into the gite.

We would like to thank all of our guests that stayed this year, we had lots of returning families and some new guests too which was fab. We have many highlights from this year and cannot believe that we are going in to our 10th season next year!!

Moving to France and having a gite was our dream for many years and we have no regrets at all. We get to meet so many wonderful people from all over the world every year, we share our stories and they share theirs. Thank you all and thank you to our guests that have already booked for next year, 3 returning families so far too!

We will keep updating you all and posting on instagram / facebook so keep an eye out!

Happy Autumn!