A couple of years ago I married a Transylvanian. He doesn’t bite but he is romantic, loves life, the mountains, good home cooked food and French Pugs. He is also a workaholic like me.

So I get to travel to Romania a lot. A beautiful country, heaped in traditions and rural living just outside the towns and cities. You still see hay carts, old ladies selling fruit and pots of aubergines and peppers. The gypsies still make pots and pans even though they grow their wealth in other less honest ways.

It is modern, it is old fashioned. It has a romantic age about it still. Bright coloured bee hives scatter the fields. Large domed hay stacks hung on sticks dry in the baking sun of July and August. Fruit cordials and home made wine are served out doors with crusty bread, pork, cabbage, salad and eggs.

Country villages have chickens, a pig, geece and dogs. Meals are family. This is in stark contrast to my English surburbia near London. It’s is Long Summer Romance. Mountain walks, home cooking and story telling.

Yesterday I saw the old traditional house for sale. Quaint, paint peeling, balcony for late evening dining with candles, wine and my favorite cheeses. I would buy if I could and spend a happy summer with sore hands sand papering, painting and white washing rooms, then decorate with floral embroidery, wild flower painted plates and herbs from my garden.

I have made a secret wish that one day I will buy this little house. But for now I am taking back to France a little part of Romania. My mother in law has given me clothes, hand painted China, crystal, blankets and old silver spoons. And best of all, my Transylvanian workaholic. I couldn’t run my life without him. X