Chateau de Bourneau: Is chateau life lonely?

Is château life lonely? Erin Choa ponders this oft-asked question and realises she’s never really alone…

I’m often asked if living in a large castle as a tiny team of two can be lonely, especially in the quieter off-season in rural France. It’s true to say that running a château can sometimes be a lone job and while it is a busy lifestyle all year around, it is a very different kind of busy compared to my previous world when I was working as a hospital doctor in an extensive team of professionals in a bustling city centre.

Nowadays, my husband and I spend many hours working alone and separately on various jobs we’ve never tackled before, learning as we go along and problem-solving when a new issue arises or tackling the repetitive maintenance tasks that can often feel endless (yes, I’m talking to you never-ending dandelion weeding!). But we aren’t completely isolated either and we find joy and satisfaction in many of these tasks that take us outdoors into the glorious sunshine or teach us a new and interesting skill.

We are fortunate to be part of a charming rural community of local friends who have patiently taught me French over glasses of wine and are always happy to lend us a hand.

We have also formed a group of fellow châtelain friends who understand the reality of caring for and running a business from these historical monuments, especially when you encounter the most ridiculous châteaux problems behind the scenes: when the deer eat all your roses ahead of a wedding or when the wild boar dig up your lawns, the ancient boiler leaks through your 16th-century painted ceiling, the moat is hanging out in your medieval cellars, the gargoyles are blocked or you have a new problem with snoring bats or ghosts!

We’ve heard it all before within our châteaux circle over dinners in friends’ arctic ancient halls or vaulted cellars, and we support each other, borrowing lawnmowers and parquet polishers, excavating 15th-century secret tunnels, lending a hand moving wardrobes or pianos, and donating medieval stones to fix moat walls.

We all work long hours in often unheated fortresses, tackle jungles of weeds, chop fallen trees, fix smashed windows, negotiate broken boilers, slipped roof tiles, deal with the never-ending streams of emails, messages, accounting and admin, welcome guests, clean and scrub thousands of square metres, and spend days gardening, weeding, treating swimming pools, washing, ironing, fixing toilets and making beds.

I am definitely more Cinderella than châtelaine, scrubbing mould off walls or fixing the next problem thrown our way because there’s no one else to hand over the pager to at the end of the shift.

However, we thrive on a challenge and we aren’t lonely as we know that we have found an extended team among our château-owning friends and colleagues, who are always happy to exchange ideas or lend a hand. They also understand that while this lifestyle isn’t always glamorous, it is a true privilege to look after these old buildings that we call home.

We’ve got each other’s backs, and you know what? It’s the best and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

London-born hospital doctor Erin Choa is the 6th châtelaine of Château de Bourneau, where she lives with her French fiancé Jean-Baptiste and bossy cat HRH Oscar. She blogs about their château-life on Instagram.

@theintrepidchatelaine

@chateaudebourneau