Inspired by a recent blog posting by our good friends, Jim and Pauline Craig of Experience the Loire, here are some seasonal views of Gites de La Richardière with some, we hope, suitable seasonal quotations.
Please enjoy this post and, in some way it should help to develop a more positive feeling about 2021.
Spring
We welcome Spring at La Richardière. It is a time when our grounds are at their most beautiful. The trees blossom, the flowers burst for with new blooms and the wildlife around us is plentiful and varied.
“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.”
Virginia Woolf
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672), ‘Meditations Divine and Moral,’ 1655
“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.”
Charles Dickens
“If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any spring.”
Victor Hugo
Summer
When summer comes, so do the visitors. Holiday-makers and travellers; singles and couples; young and old are all to be seen here at Gites de la Richardière
Summer flowers 
Te Tournesol (Sun Flowers) in Summer. 
Summer flowers. 
Swimming Pool at Gites de La Richardière 
Swimming Pool at Gites de La Richardière 
Swimming Pool at Gites de La Richardière 
Local farmers hard at work with an early Harvest. 
Canoeing on the River Cher towards the Chateau Chenonceaux. 
Relaxing in the sunshine.
Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Henry James British (US -born) author (1843 – 1916)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), Sonnet XVIII
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Audrey Hepburn
Autumn
In the Autumn, the guest numbers begin to fade away as do the colourful plants, flowers and the foliage on the trees. All preparing to take refuge for the winter to come.
The changing leaves of Autumn 
pond filling with rain water. 
Preparing logs for the fire. 
Our entrance in Autumn. 
Our central Gardens 
The Far Meadow. 
Central Gardens from our courtyard 
More garden areas from the courtyard.
“It’s the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!”
Winnie the Pooh in “Pooh’s Grand Adventure.”
“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves…”
Virginia Woolf
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize.”
George Eliot
“Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound. The summer sun is faint on them— The summer flowers depart— Sit still— as all transformed to stone, Except your musing heart.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Winter
Winter is short here. Just 3 months, but it can be very cold. We spend a lot of time indoors hiding from the elements and making plans for the arrival of Spring and the start of a new season.
The Fermette at Gites de La Richardiere. 
The central garden at Gites de La Richardiere. 
The back gardens of our Gites. 
The far meadow looking cold. 
Our entrance in Winter. 
Cold days.
Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
One kind word can warm three winter months.
Japanese Proverb
People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.
Anton Chekhov
One kind word can warm three winter months.
Old Japanese proverb.
Thank you for reading this far. We’d love to hear your seasonal quotations in the comments box below. Thanks to the Internet for providing the quotes in this posting:
To find out more about our Gites, please visit our website https://www.larichardiere.net
