French leave: Gillian Metheringham visits Maison Quaker
‘The Amis-Residents showed us the wonders of the area they had come to love.’
We knew it would be hot because the forecast had told us so, but even that didn’t prepare us for 40°C. Sheltering in the relative cool of the house, we peered out as the heat blazed on the flagstones and crisped the foliage. Fortunately the Quaker house at Congénies was built of stone in 1822, when they knew a thing or two about building for the climate, and it managed to provide an oasis of coolness that was essential for our writing. For that was the purpose of our visit: five of us had come from various places in the UK to the Maison Quaker à Congénies on a writing retreat, and spent each afternoon doing writing exercises, sharing our work, or in private writing.
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