L'amour Actually Read Online Free PDF

from Madame Mollet handwritten in that particular flowing, French style that I remembered from a school exchange trip to Paris. It put my own childish scrawl to shame.

    Mademoiselle,
    Â Â I am so sorry that I cannot be there to meet you. There has been a problem with the furniture for the house. It should have been delivered yesterday but the van broke down. Monsieur Marin, the landlord, has assured me that it will be delivered by the end of the day today.
    Also enclosed are full instructions for the cooker, the hot water...

    I carefully folded the letter away. There would be plenty of time to read all that later. For the moment, I wanted to slip into something a little less revealing and a little cleaner, have a good look around my cottage and maybe take a quick dip in the pool. I picked up my suitcase and wandered from room to room, finally setting it down in the room which I decided would be my bedroom. It was large and airy with exposed stone walls and a door that opened onto a little patio at the side of the house, the perfect place to relax with a nice glass of chilled rosé in the evening.
    Â Â Flicking the catches of the suitcase, I opened it and contemplated for a minute the devastation that had been caused at the airport. I then upturned it in the middle of the floor and rummaged around the clothes, shoes and well-trodden underwear before finally picking out a short denim skirt and a linen blouse. I stretched luxuriantly. It was so lovely to be here, finally, in my little home in France. Fishing my sunglasses out of my handbag, I slipped my feet into a pair of sparkly flip-flops, wiggling my toes deliciously. Fancy being in flip-flops in April, I thought.
    Â Â From the lounge of the cottage, French windows led out onto a terrace in the garden. An ancient vine grew up a pergola overhead and a couple of old wrought-iron chairs were placed around a vintage bistro table just calling out to be shabby chic'd with a spotty oilcloth and some coloured-glass hurricane lamps.
    Â Â Do they call them French windows in France, I wondered? I knew the French called a condom a capote anglais or English cap rather than a French letter – one of the few things I remembered from the school exchange. Outside, the spring sun broke through the trees in shafts of light the colour of melted butter. I could see that the garden had potential, not that I knew much about gardening. Goodness knows, my previous attempts at growing anything had been a disaster. It was hard enough trying to remember to take my make-up off every day, never mind water the plants.
    Â Â The lawn sloped gradually down to the edge of the hill, where it dropped away sharply and amid the undergrowth, I could just make out a ruined building, probably an old shepherd's hut or something. The view was magnificent and I felt my spirits lift. Rolling hills, a patchwork of a hundred different colours from burnished gold to a deep green, spread out in every direction.
    Â Â One side of the garden was edged by a dry stone wall that was just a fraction too tall for me to look over. Wondering what was on the other side, I slipped off my flip-flops and found some footholds on the rough stones; grabbing hold of the top of the wall, I pulled myself up just far enough to peep over.
    Â Â On the other side was a beautiful three-storey square house, the mini-chateau I had seen from the road, with stone steps leading up to a balustraded veranda that wrapped around the first floor. A stunning pool, complete with waterfall, was surrounded by some seriously chichi sun loungers, while exotic plants flopped over the lips of huge terracotta amphorae. Someone clearly had some serious money here. It seemed so incongruous in this little French farming hamlet.
    Â Â Even more incongruous, a convertible Mercedes and a Porsche Cayenne people carrier were parked in front of the house and I was sure that the people carrier was the one I had seen at the airport. I was