The hamlet

Tasha and I walked around the edges of the vineyards on Saturday morning, in the spaces between the vines and the woods. We encountered a deer along the way and Tasha took off after it. She doesn't go far and I caught up with her after a couple of minutes. In the meantime, I took this photo of our little hamlet at sunrise.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of little hamlets like ours dot the landscape of rural France.

I call our little collection of nine houses a hamlet. Since there is neither a church nor any business, it doesn't qualify as a village. I think it might be referred to as un lieu-dit (a place with a traditional name). Wikipedia says that a lieu-dit is not necessarily inhabited, but that un hameau (a hamlet) is. So, our little group of houses, called La Renaudière, fits both definitions.