I‘ve just returned from a weekend in the middle of nowhere, France, staying in an 11th century chateau with better modern art and design than any major museum I’d ever reluctantly queued up for. And a peculiar thing happened when I got home after 48 blissful hours away. At 10 o’clock on a Sunday evening, I suddenly began re-decorating. In the midst of carefully re-arranging the ceramics on the bathroom counter to resemble something a little more sophisticated, I realised that I had taken home something far more unusual than the complimentary bottle of luxury bubble bath. The Domaine des Etangs, a restored childhood home, transformed into a most unlikely and intimate retreat (we’ll not even call it a hotel), had well and truly schooled me in the art of living.
