Our place in France Chapter 42

Another Christmas come and gone but this was no ordinary Christmas for us. Our first in the Northern Hemisphere, first in our new home and first in our new country. It was almost strange to be wrapping up warmly at Christmas time but it was exciting too. Opening  presents from under the tree in front of a roaring fire was quite a change from our usual South African Christmases. Our midday meal on Christmas Day was also a little different.  We had a typically French starter in the form of a hot goat’s cheese salad, followed by roast capon with sage and onion stuffing, and vegetables and finished off with vanilla icecream topped with a raspberry coulis, made with fresh raspberries. After which none of us could move! To prove the point, everyone sat around the table chatting for quite a while until we all moved into the lounge for coffee  and to watch a movie, which we had recorded the night before. In fact it was a very satisfactory day all round.

The week previous to the 25^th was fairly chaotic until Thursday when Andre and Leigh hired a car so that they could be independent. For example, on Tuesday I had a doctor’s appointment at 10.30 while Neels, Andre and Leigh had an11 o’clock rendez-vous at the bank to set up accounts etc. The girls were let loose in the town. My appointment was finished and done with by 11, so I set off for the bank on foot to the diagonally opposite corner of town. Anyone who knows me will know that walking is not one of my favourite occupations, especially uphill; on cobbled streets; and wrapped up like a Michelin Man. However, by zig-zagging my way along, I managed to intersperse the uphills with a short distances of flat (-tish) ground and arrived at my destination even before they were finished there. My halo was so tight after all that walking that I should have had a headache, I’m sure!

On Thursday we had a similar clash of times but as Neels and I were alone, we managed to work it out more easily. Thank goodness though for supermarkets and shops that close at 6pm. Not that they were any less busy being only a couple of days away from Christmas. Who told me that the French don’t really celebrate Christmas?? I could easily have been mistaken but people appeared to be shopping as there was to be no tomorrow, but if there was, then perhaps it would be a Christmas public holiday! I had to wait a few minutes in the foyer of the supermarket and idly watched the trolleys coming away from the tills. I was amazed, shocked, even appalled at the fullness of the trolleys. Were these people setting up for a siege that we hadn’t heard about? The shops would only be closed for one day, after all. But, don’t tell me, I know. This happens everywhere and the traders just clap their hands in glee. Ker-ching!

Most of the villages around have put up decorations for the season, the scope of these being commensurate with the wealth of the community. The bigger towns, obviously, have  quite an impressive show while some of the smallest villages rely on the inhabitants to brighten things up. Our own village has a number of little pine trees around the centre part of town and these have all been decorated with tinsel and flashing lights. Very pretty and delicate. Imagine our surprise when, on returning from a walk with the girls, Neels and I found our own house decorated with a string of flashing lights wound around the veranda rail. And indoors, our teeny-tiny tree had it’s own string of teeny-tiny lights – a gift from all the children in the house, big and small. We were absolutely delighted.

I have been religiously taking my camera out with us every day in the hopes of finding some new, amazing and startling to photograph and show you, but grey skies are not conducive to pretty pictures so instead I have include a few indoor ones.

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Our place in France Chapter 41

What a week! After a slow start with two days of calm, the fun and games began. It had been arranged that we would drive down to collect Leigh and the two girls from Toulouse, with Andre’s main suitcase coming back with us while he flew on to London for a business meeting. Apart from the fact that their plane was due in Toulouse at 9.40 am, which meant an early start for us, it sounded very simple. So we set the alarm for 6.30 am and quickly woke up and had a cup of coffee. For some reason I looked at my cell phone which is set to ‘Silent’ during the night time hours, and saw that there was a message from Andre. Their plane had been delayed in Cape Town and had missed their take-off slot which delayed them even further, and this meant that they missed their landing slot in Istanbul, and that meant that they missed their connection to Toulouse so there was no reason to go rushing off in the frosty morning to fetch them. Of course, this also meant that Andre had missed his connection to London and was now only flying on at 9.45pm that night. My goodness! The endless complications! They finally arrived from Istanbul at 6.30 pm and we were there to meet them, and then we stayed until about 8 with Andre. This meant that the lovely scenic drive home that we had planned was now all in the dark. Andre got to London Heathrow at about midnight only to find that all the trains into the city were standing because the crews were on strike, so he had to take a wildly expensive taxi to his hotel. After a short sleep, he found that his troubles were not yet over as the meeting that he was attending had been scheduled for 9.30 but was, in actual fact at 8.30! His return flight to Toulouse the following morning was also delayed but only by ten minutes – just enough for him to miss the 1pm train to Villefranche. So he had another long wait until the next train at 5 pm. There was great celebration when he finally arrived but once again the drive home was all in the dark.

In the meantime, while we waited for him to arrive, we walked around the village with Cassy snapping away madly at everything. I have to admit that the sunset was rather spectacular and even I was prompted to take a few pictures. That evening the girls decorated our mini Christmas tree and we found a place for it to stand which is not too much in the way.

The next day, the first real day of their holiday together, we all squashed into the car and went into Villefranche where we made our way to the square in the centre admiring all the old buildings along the way. We found a lunch spot with tables set out on a sunny veranda and enjoyed the wintry sun until the shops all opened again at 2 pm and then they hit the shops as if they had been starved of clothing stores at home. Not true of course, but stores in a new country are always exciting. Even supermarkets!

The idea for Sunday was to go to the village market in Villeneuve but as usual things ran a bit late in the morning so it was quite late when it was time to go. We gave Andre the keys to the car and let him venture onto the country roads alone, on the wrong side of the road. Needless to say he managed perfectly well, and they came back for lunch loaded with goods.

Due to a mix-up, mainly caused by language difficulties, we found that we had ordered a special French Christmas time cake,  un buche de Noel, or Yule log, but that it was for a week too early. So when we came back from our trundling around town, there were two baguettes waiting for us as well as a large box containing two cakes, one with chocolate and one without. Oops! That was supposed to be our Christmas dinner dessert! However, they looked so delicious that we just had to taste, and in a few moments nearly half of each cake had disappeared. And they certainly were delicious! I can see that we will have to order more for next Saturday.

Our place in France Chapter 40

To anyone reading this for the first time, this is going to be the most boring chapter ever written, so I’m sorry but it has been one of those weeks. I have been in a total tizz ever since I woke up on Monday and realised that it was ‘THIS WEEK’! Something we have been looking forward to less than a visit to the dentist but just as inevitable. For most of you who entertain on a regular basis and think nothing of it, it would  be a doddle but we don’t, and having people we hardly know, for lunch has put me in a complete spin. I have already warned them that we don’t do the French thing of having a main meal in the middle of the day and they should expect a soup and cheese type of meal, but even that is hard for me. I am not a confident cook and even making soup proved to be a challenge. It took me ages of preparation of the vegetables and hours of cooking, continually adding this or that and then adding something else to counteract what I had added before and then adding more liquid when it boiled down too low. Then of course, all the seasoning was wrong and I had to start adding this and that again. Perhaps I should have just bought a couple of the boxes of lovely ready to eat soup from the supermarket!

Having finally settled on the soup and managed to get the flavour right, we then decided that if the food was going to be unspectacular, the table at least, would be worth looking at. So out came the special crockery that we haven’t used since they came out of the packing cases when we got here. It all had to be washed and polished well, as did the glasses we intend to use. There is strange phenomenon in this household, and that is, that every time we acquire a set of six matching glasses, one mysteriously gets broken leaving us with numerous sets of five, none of which match anything else. We hope no-one notices.

One more positive event during the week was a bit of ‘up-cycling’ that went on in the workshop. One of the items that came with us from South Africa was a very old tin trunk that came loaded with workshop tools. The tools have now all found new homes in the workshop shelves and racks but the trunk kept getting underfoot. If you know anything about us you will know that we seldom throw anything away, especially something as possibly useful as a ratty old trunk. After some months of being moved back and forth across the workshop floor it has at last found a purpose. Attached to the wall with very strong bolts, it has been turned into a cupboard with a wooden shelf (also upcycled from an old bookcase), dividing it into an upper and lower section. Perfect for the many cans of paint which were starting to accumulate on the windowsill.

The very cold weather that we have been experiencing has brought home to us just how inefficient the insulation is between the ‘cave’ and the first floor – which is where we do most of our living. We called in at the local building suppliers earlier in the week for some advice and have decided to install sheets of polystyrene to the ceiling of the ‘cave’. It is not expensive, easy to handle and install and, according to the supplier, efficient which what we mainly want. It would have been nice to have been able to get started on it this weekend, as it has to be delivered only on certain days, but hey ho! we have a lunch party to organise! Next week perhaps. Hopefully. It gets cold in the living room. Next week  Andre and family will be here and he has already agreed to help with the installation. Isn’t it wonderful to have sons who are handy around the house?!

The day of the luncheon finally arrived and my stomach was full of butterflies, but all for nothing. The two couples who came were simply charming. One couple we had met before, but the others were total strangers. What lovely people though. They are all ex-British and it was interesting to hear their varied comments on Britain and Brexit when the conversation came round to politics, as it always seems to. In general though, there was plenty of chat about a number of things and I just love it when the conversation rambles on through a dozen different topics. All in all it was great success and I will not get in a panic again……………until next time!

No pictures this week. I am sorry but perhaps next week, with the installation of the underfloor insulation there may well be a few ‘Kodak moments’.

Our place in France Chapter 39

As the days draw in ever shorter, and the nights become colder, we are frantically trying to make sure that our long awaited guests will be warm and comfortable during their stay here. The two granddaughters are getting very excited and were even a bit disappointed when we said that we would pick them up in Toulouse, which cuts out a two hour train ride. However, with Andre having to fly on to a business meeting in London, conveniently arranged for the day after their expected arrival here, the train would have been too difficult for them to manage, especially with an extra suitcase to carry. Also, we get to see them all two hours sooner than we might have!

The beds have all been made, and extra blankets piled at the foot of each one. Each bed has an electric blanket and we know from experience that there is nothing nicer than getting into a warm bed. The room heaters will be switched on about two days before they arrive to give the rooms time to warm up. The bathroom towel heaters have been on for some time now and although they are set fairly low, the bathrooms are delicious to be in. Put a TV in there and I would probably be quite happy to stay there! When I mentioned the towel heaters in a previous blog, someone commented on them and said how lucky we are to have them. In fact, towel heaters (and thus bathroom heaters) are compulsory on all new build houses nowadays. Thank you France!

We have also ordered and had delivered a large quantity of fire wood. It comes in cubic metres, known here as ‘steres’ and we ordered two steres. We expected it to arrive in a truck of some sort, but the supplier arrived in a little van similar to our car. We know that we can get half a stere into our car, loading it as far as the front seats and as high as the seats, but we also know it makes a huge mess. But the farmers are not happy to deliver small loads, hence the order for two steres . Even so, he had to make two trips, in spite of the wood being packed in up to the roof. Of course, the van version of our car has no side windows to be damaged and has a netting guard between back and front. It still made a huge mess of the interior but that’s how he makes a living – he doesn’t have to use it for passengers later. What a nice fellow he is – he even helped to stack it neatly and now we have a reasonable amount of usable fire wood. The pictures I have included make the pile look quite small, but please note that it is almost door height and that is not a short door. There is also a smaller pile that still needs to be split so that the boys can play with their new toy.

We had to have some official documents translated from English to French, and for this we contacted a lovely lady who has done this for us before. Our arrangement was the same – we emailed the documents to her; she translated them and then we fetched them at a halfway point between her house and ours, in this case, as before, at Caylus. This is a medieval town about 30 kilometres from us and way down in a deep valley in the next department, that of the Tarn-et-Garonne. It sounds a long way to go for a translation but it has to be done by a certificated translator and these are few and far between. A job opportunity here…………….if you can manage the four year training to qualify.

On the way home again, we saw a sign to the Abbey of Loc Dieu. Being in no rush, we turned off and almost immediately found ourselves outside a wonderful building surrounded by  acres of parkland. It was built as a Cistercian Abbey but has since been turned into a residence. It was originally founded in 1123, but was burnt down by the English in 1409. Rebuilt in 1470 it became  a fortified abbey until the French Revolution in 1793 when it was stripped of its assets. In 1812 the Cibiel family bought it and made it their home and have owned it ever since. During the war, some of the most valuable paintings from the Louvre, in Paris, were hidden here to save them from the Germans. In summer both the house and grounds are open to the public for a very small fee, but as mere photographers, and out of season, we were let in free of charge. We would like to go back there again in summer and have a proper guided tour of the buildings.

As a final offering this week, I have included a picture of a little stone hut that we pass every time we go into town. For some reason I just love it and think it looks very cute sitting there in the middle of the fields.

Our place in France Chapter 38

I’m sorry! I’m sorry! To all those who looked for something to read on Sunday evening or Monday morning, only to find that there was no blog! The week ran away with me and when I looked again it was gone! But here we are, better late than never.

As you must have gathered, it was quite a busy week. Tilly had arrived the week before and was a huge help in moving the furniture into its new positions enlarging the living space in the lounge and creating a very elegant dining room. However, her real reason for being here was to straighten out some old paperwork, so there was plenty of driving back and forth to both Villeneuve and Viillefranche to find government offices, banks and so on.

We were all invited to enjoy and evening meal with our neighbours, Ann and Laurent, which was a daunting prospect but once again, Tiilly was a star, acting as translator when we got stuck which was quite often. Laurent was the chef and had prepared a delicious lamb and spinach dish which was served with a locally traditional dish called Aligot (pronounced Ally-go) It is made with mashed potatoes mixed with a special cheese and is very tasty. Serving it was a small problem as the cheese becomes stretchy and one has to lift and roll the serving spoon o get any on to the plate without making a huge mess.

Driving into town and back was spectacular as the autumn colours were at their best and we were completely blown away by them. An exceptionally strong wind one night then blew the leaves away and we were delighted to see, the next morning, that they had blown into neat little piles. I  recall the scene in Camelot where Arthur is extolling the virtues of Camelot and Guinevere says to Arthur: “And I suppose the autumn leaves fall into neat little piles.” And Arthur replies: “Oh, no, my lady, they blow away completely at night” Well we may not be Camelot but obviously close.

The cold weather has brought on a completely different way of dressing. There is only one word for it – layers. Sometimes as many as four layers, but usually two with more added if we go outside. The wood burner glows brightly for most of the day keeping the house nice and cosy but both of us don our fluffy slippers as soon as we come indoors and we were pleased to note that Tilly had brought hers along too.

Now that I have written down all that happened during the week, I really don’t know why I should not have had time to write it all yesterday but I was busy for some hours making use of our free-phone-calls-to-anywhere-in-the-world on both Saturday and Sunday and then, of course, we just had to watch the final Formula One Grand Prix race of the season on Sunday afternoon, and that is how time goes.

Our place in France Chapter 37

Our week exploded with a bang on Thursday when Tilly arrived to spend a week with us. Up until then everything had gone along very sedately and fairly slowly. Then on Thursday we had to go and register with our new GP who is divine! He had been recommended by a couple of people, mainly because he spoke English, but apart from that he turned out to be charming and sympathetic too – just what I want a doctor to be. Unfortunately, he is very popular and probably overbooked most of the time, so we had to read the magazines in the waiting room for quite a while which made us quite late leaving and in the end, Tilly got to the house in her hire car from Toulouse, before we did. But it wasn’t as if she was a first-time guest, and was prepared to sit and wait until we got home.  It was lovely to see her again and the evening passed quickly, chatting about all sorts of things.

On Friday we went into Villefranche as there were a number of matters that Tilly had to attend to that  couldn’t be done in Mallorca (Spain) and there was shopping that we needed to do, all of which we managed to get done before lunch.  Aah! We thought. A nice lazy afternoon. Oh wow! Did we ever get that wrong!

I had vaguely mentioned at some stage that the two downstairs rooms were in the wrong places and needed to be changed around.. I knew it was a huge job as it involved moving all the heaviest pieces of furniture from one room into another, and the doors are not extra wide. Anyway, Tilly somehow heard about this idea and thought it was a good one, and next moment it was all go! We heaved and hauled, huffed and puffed until the job had been done – almost. Tilly, being who she is, was not content with just moving the chairs and tables around. Oh no! The carpets were apparently also wrong and had to be moved, or rather turned, around, which involved a lot of planning ahead. Eventually it all started to take shape and by then end of the day we had a lounge where the living room had been and a really stunning dining room where the lounge had been. You will see from the  pictures that it all looks very nice now. And seems to have created masses more space.

A few things had escaped being moved on Friday afternoon, so on Saturday it was back to the grindstone to finish off. Then it was all done and the end result is delightful.

Saturday evening was the rugby game between France and Australia and we had been persuaded that we just had to see it on the big screen in the pub in Villeneuve, which sounded quite exciting, so off we trotted in good time to have supper first and watch afterwards. There was no rush, as the game only started at 9 pm. The pub was crowded but not really noisy which surprised us. No loud cheering when France scored or boos when the Wallabies did. In the end , France lost by two points which was a bit of a let-down, but it had been a good evening out. Strangely enough, there had been only one English voice shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’. I wonder who that can have been!

On Sunday, we had arranged to go to a village ‘do’, a dinner, in fact. Thank goodnesss Tilly was with us and we didn’t have to face a hall full of French-speaking strangers on our own. The poor villagers though, couldn’t make our relationship. First they thought Tilly was Neels’ wife;  then they thought she was our daughter; then grand-daughter and finally because of a grammatical error she ended up being our daughter-in-law! We didn’t even try to explain until a bit later when she met the mayor outside, and he had realised that she wasn’t our daughter-in-law, but assumed there would be a wedding soon and offered her the use of the Salle de Fetes for the reception!! How we chortled.

Apart from this small misunderstanding at the start, the event went off splendidly with plenty of speechifying and explaining where all the money has gone that they have collected over the year, with much jubilation at the fact that we have money left in the kitty. Our tickets for the meal cost us all of two euros each, so we didn’t know what to expect but in the end we had a wonderful meal.

It started with us being offered pieces if quiche and/or pizza and an aperitif. And again. And again. Until we wondered if there was other food coming. There was, but before that the mayor came and stood next to us, to make a speech, we thought. What he was about to do though, was to introduce us and another family threesome to the other inhabitants of the commune. At that point, Tilly had slipped outside for a moment, so missed the moment that she got introduced as our daughter-in-law! Oops!

Then we all took our seats and helped ourselves to a crisp salad with a delicious dressing. Wine and water was on the table and it flowed easily into the glasses and down the throats of the assembled crowd. The huge salad bowls were removed and replaced with giant bowls of the most delicious cassoulet we have ever had.  Baskets of home-baked bread were dotted around on the tables and it is definitely the done thing to wipe your plate clean with a chunk of bread!

Cheese came next, and more red wine. Our new found friends said it just wouldn’t be right to eat cheese without red wine, so what could we do but comply.

Dessert was custard filled profiteroles accompanied by champagne. The choux pastries were melt-in-the-mouth good and although they were initially rationed out at two each, the trays came around again and anyone who still had space could have more. By which time we were all so full we could barely move. Our neighbours from behind us were there and sat next to us and were so friendly and chatty, that we were pleased of the opportunity to get to know them.

The final course of the meal was a fruit course and two little girls came around with baskets of clementines and everyone could help themselves.

All in all it was great chance to meet other people from around here and to be recognised by them.

Lots of fun, but thank goodness for Tilly who smoothed our way by translating where necessary which was often.

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Our place in France Chapter 36

Goodness me! Is this cold or is this freezing?! To warm-blooded South Africans I believe it is freezing. We finally lit the wood-burning stove on Wednesday when the gas heater couldn’t cope any more and the interior temperature battled to get above 9 degrees. Ooh! What a wonderful feeling as the heat started streaming out and within about an hour had raised the room temperature to nearly 15 degrees. Now THAT’S what I call warm. We have also switched on the heated towel rails in the bathrooms and if we remember to keep the doors closed, it is lovely and warm when  one goes to shower.

It has been a cold grey and dreary week all round, but good for doing indoor chores. I have now got my rusk baking down to a fine art and the only problem that I have, apart from not being able to get buttermilk, is that they disappear so fast! I wonder if there is a large mouse in the house? But at least it gives me a worthwhile task every weekend. Apart from writing the blog, that is.

The pull-up washing drier/rail that we installed in the cave is also proving to be a real boon. It is surprisingly dry down there, in spite of the wetness all around, and washing will dry almost overnight. It is so good that I haven’t even been into the garden behind the house since we returned from the UK, which is where the proper washing lines are. In any case the weather changes from dry to wet and back again in an eye-blink and we would be forever rushing in and out retrieving semi-dry clothes from the line.

We also need to take our flower boxes and put them in the cave to ‘winter’. I can’t believe this will work but it is worth trying. Apparently if the geraniums are put in a dry dark place they will survive the winter and will regenerate next season. They have been such a joy this year with their endless flowering, and even now, there are still a few buds popping open, so we must try to save them. The petunias, sadly, are finally dead but I think they have to be replanted every year anyway. They gave a wonderful show for several months though.

We had to leave for the UK just as the fig tree was coming into its best. There was a massive crop so we told all the neighbours to come and pick whenever they wanted too. Next year I want to make some jam because we both adore fig jam. We managed to find a couple of properly ripe ones before we left, so we know that they are super-delicious and super-sweet. I’m not normally a fan of figs, or guavas. I always have to open the fruit and stare at the inside for a long time to make sure none of the little fibres are moving, before I can eat it, but ours don’t seem to have any worms, thank goodness.

Because we are both over 60, we got a letter in the post some time ago telling us that it was time to have a flu injection and that we could get it at the chemist. But it was bit of a surprise to discover that they just provided the filled syringe (for free) but the actual injection would have to be done by a district nurse or someone like that. I did my own, but for some reason Neels wasn’t around to get his and a day or two later he developed a growly throat which stayed with him for a few days. He didn’t develop any further signs of a cold so a few days later, I gave him his injection. Now he is lying in bed coughing now and again but otherwise looking and sounding fine. I hope it is just an excuse to spend a day in a nice cosy bed and not that I have actually given him the dreaded influenza.

Sorry it is such a short chapter this week, but when there is nothing to write about there is nothing that I can write.

Our place in France Chapter 35

My goodness! A whole week gone already! Where did the time go? Well, it went in very long drive;  an overnight ferry crossing and a couple of days of hard work, with a bit shopping for necessities, washing and ironing filling up the empty spaces. Just in case you thought we had given up those aspects of daily life!

We left Garstang at about 11 am on Sunday in weather that pretty much matched our mood – grey and a bit miserable. But we had to get back. There were things that needed to be seen to; that should have been done before we left for the UK, so we had to go. Ahead of us lay a day long drive of about 400 kms. Not far perhaps in South African terms, but given the density of traffic on the English roads, it was a full six and half hour drive for us in our heavily laden, underpowered little van. And of course we had to make allowances for hold-ups along the way. In the end, there were no delays and we ended up in Portsmouth nearly five hours early for the ferry! Plenty of time to find a good place to catch a bite. We asked a guard on the dock where to go and he pointed vaguely and said that there was a ‘good place’ just ‘over there’. Getting to it by car was another story. A confusion of one-way streets had us going round and round in circles until we ended up at another place, which was, of all things, a ‘biker bar’ with ferociously loud music and strange looking customers. A waitress took pity on us and directed us to the one we were looking for by telling us to take the subway under a huge intersection and it was just on the other side. It wasn’t but we could then see it – right next to the parking area for the ferry port and exactly where the dock worker had said it was!

The next morning, after what seemed like far too few hours sleep, we were awakened by a discreet chirping on the public address system and it was still dark when we made our way down to the car deck to leave the ferry.  As we drove off into the very early morning sunrise, leaving Caen behind us, we could see that it was going to be a beautiful day. Once away from the city, the motorway became lined on both sides by vegetation and we were struck by the glorious autumn shades of the foliage.. Needless to say, my chauffeur was not inclined to slow down for me to take photographs  so quite a few excellent examples flashed past before I could snap them, but I did manage to get a few reasonable photographs.

At about morning tea time we found ourselves near the Poiteau-Charentes where we house-sat a couple of years ago. Having called our friends first, we found our way to their house and enjoyed a short stop with them during which plenty of chat was exchanged. Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated we set off again finally reaching home at about 6.30 pm. We were quite exhausted and took only our overnight bag out of the car before falling in to bed for a twelve hour sleep.

The next day, being Tuesday the 1st November, it was hard to get out of our cosy bed (so what’s new) but we had to find some stocks for the grocery cupboard. It was almost midday before we got ourselves together so we lazily decided to leave all that boring stuff until the afternoon but no—one had warned us that November 1^st was a holiday and everything was closed in the afternoon although they had all been open in the morning! Never mind. There is always another day. So we went home and unpacked the car instead.

Among the things that came back with us from the UK was a pile of carpet tiles which we intended to use to finish the tiling in the small bedroom. Not a match to the existing ones, at all but a darker shade which Neels cleverly managed to lay giving the impression of a wall-to-wall carpet with a darker border and paler centre. Very satisfactory! It also made us realise what an amazing job Pieter had done when we first moved in and he laid all the tiles in the rest of the upstairs rooms. Thank you  Pieter.

Something that we noticed while we were away from home was the traffic, or more specifically, the amount of it. French motorways are two or three lanes in each direction but, except for the immediate environs of the various cities, there is relatively little traffic. Get to the UK and one is in for a shock! At times the motorway is four lanes wide in each direction and it is absolutely packed with cars. It is quite unbelievable! Where is everyone going? Or where are they all coming from? Endless miles of road covered edge to edge with cars. It is mind-boggling and made us pleased to be back in France.

It has turned very cold since we returned and tonight,  Sunday, is forecast to be  -1 degree. That’s cold!

Our place in France Chapter 34

For anyone reading this before Monday 31^st, you will get a bonus chapter. For those who only look for it on Monday, you will get a short weeks-worth. As we will be travelling on both Sunday and Monday, I decided that a short week was better than an off-kilter week, so here we go.

Once again, it was a week of fits and starts as people who suddenly realised that we would be leaving at the end of this week, began dropping in from time to time to wish us farewell and bon voyage. It was so kind of them to do so but it did sort of interrupt everything else. However, we have made great inroads on the furniture and boxes that have filled the conservatory and part of the garage for the last five years, and I think that sorting through everything and throwing things away has been quite therapeutic for Carol and, quite literally given her a bit of breathing space.

On Tuesday we went to visit friends and cousins who live in Warrington and Wilmslow, respectively, having a light lunch and a chat with one and tea and cake with a longer chat with the other. As the two towns are on opposite ends of Manchester, it was a day full of driving but Carol seems to enjoy it and even took a huge detour on the way home for us to have a look at some carpet tiles in an enormous hardware and homeware store, in order to finish off the carpeting at home. We found some good ones in a contrasting colour so went back the next morning with our sample to make sure and to take advantage of the Wednesday discount! I think they will look fine.

The Garstang Ukulele Group had a booking to play at a pub not too far away on Thursday night so off we traipsed again. The pub was crowded and with the twenty-odd players in the group, it was very full and very hot! I think the heating was on high because within minutes the perspiration was glistening on everyones foreheads. In spite of that though, a very good time was had by all. They sing well known songs and ditties, so the audience tend to sing along which is always more fun. Oh dear! Another late night!

On Friday it was my birthday and I was overwhelmed with calls and texts. A lot of people hadn’t taken the time difference into consideration, England being an hour behind everyone else, so there were a couple of really early wake-up calls but I enjoyed receiving them all. A bit later when I eventually did get up and get to my computer, there were a whole batch more, of e-cards and messages. Thank you to all of you. It was so lovely to know that we may be gone, but are not yet forgotten!

On Saturday, today, we did our furniture removal act again. An elderly gent phoned up in quite a tizz yesterday to ask if there were any beds still for sale as his had collapsed the night before and he was sleeping on a two-seater couch! There was still one, so he came around right away and paid for it. Then this morning there was much pushing and shoving, and huffing and puffing as we loaded a huge double bed and mattress with headboard into Carols trailer then the same in reverse to get it out again and into his tiny house. I think he was really chuffed with his ‘new’ bed and it was certainly and improvement on the couch! Apparently his little terrier-type dog usually sleeps on the bed with him but kept on falling off the couch, so eventually went to sleep in an armchair where he “snored all night”!  We wished them a good nights sleep tonight.

We haven’t had a whole lot of photographic opportunities, but the weather has been grey-ish most of the time anyway, but I did manage to get a shot of the three Acer plants in my cousin’s garden which are simply glorious at the moment.

Our place in France Chapter 33

This week has seen more of the same as last week. Clearing up, clearing out and getting rid of! Again, various trips to second hand shops etc but at a slower pace. Carol had also advertised a few goods on the internet and by putting up notices in the supermarkets and so on, which brought a steady response, if a bit strange in some cases. One person phoned to say that he was interested in a double bed and mattress and could he come and have a look at it at five o’clock, after work. When he arrived, he was riding a bicycle, which caused a bit of a laugh as he doesn’t own a car. However he thought he had a friend who could help with transport, so off he pedalled to find this friend. While he was away, we decided that if the friend was not available, we could load the bed and mattress, as well as a chest of drawers and a stool which he had also bought, into Carol’s trailer and deliver it to him, for a small fee. Ker-ching! In the end, friend was not available so this morning we loaded up his purchases and took them to his house. It was only about two miles (we’re in England now!) away, but what a pretty drive and a pretty day to match. It was sunny and blue-sky-ed with little puffs of white clouds here and there, but an icy breeze blowing. A good day to be inside the car and not on a bicycle.

Another bed went to a lady who really didn’t know what she really wanted. First she phoned to find out the exact size, although it was a standard double bed and had been advertised as such. Then she phoned again to find out if it had storage drawers underneath, which it hadn’t. Then she phoned again to ask us to measure the height from the floor to the bed, in order to be able to put storage boxes in underneath it and then finally she phoned again to ask if she could come and see it the same evening. She came, and strangely enough, it was exactly what she had been looking for! So another piece left the garage. As did a washing machine and a dish-washer and numerous ‘smalls’. We managed to find someone to take three large boxes of ancient books, who then found someone else who was really interested in seeing them, and the ‘someone’ else knew yet another person who would ‘just love to get his hands on’ a selected few of them. Great! Some more satisfied customers and more room in the garage.

So having made all this marvelous space in the garage, and while we still had the trailer attached to the car, we swung by the storage unit that had been rented to accommodate all the extra furniture, and huffed and puffed until we had the three pieces of a bedroom wardrobe and dressing table set all neatly packed into the trailer and took it home where we huffed and puffed it all out again and into the space we had cleared. So now the garage is nearly full again!

However, it wasn’t all work this week. On Tuesday, Carol and I took the afternoon off and went to a demonstration and workshop of floral art. Not really my scene, I thought, but it turned out to be quite fascinating. The demonstrator did two arrangements, especially for Autumn, using only leaves which are available now. I was amazed to see just how vibrant an arrangement one can make using only foliage. Very clever indeed. Then, all the ladies who had brought materials with them started to do their own versions of what they had just seen. Time passed very pleasantly and then it was tea and biscuits and then home. The ladies were all very friendly and eager to show off what they had learned and some lovely arrangements left the building that evening.

On Thursday we did a round of local carpet shops to look for some carpet tiles to finish the carpets in our house, but finally gave up. There are so few shops that stock them and nothing that we saw was anything like the ones we put down initially. The Carol surprised us by taking us to a birthday lunch for Neels whose birthday was the following day, at the wonderful Midland Hotel in Fleetwood. It is housed in a grand old Art Nouveau building, with the hotel name picked out in quite small letters above the front doors. All very understated. We were not eating in the dining room as that would have broken the bank, but instead we had  a lovely meal in what is known as the Rotunda Bar – a circular bar counter with tables arranged all around with huge windows looking out on to the sea. It looks out on to Morecombe Bay which is where, some years a ago a number of mussel pickers were drowned when the tide came in.. I had always sort of wondered at this story – wondered why they didn’t just run for the shore when the sea started to come up, but now I understand. There are little hills and valleys all over the bed of the bay, to say nothing of the sinking sands, and the tide spreads over the huge flat area unbelievably fast, swirling around both sides of little islands of sand until each is cut off and then sweeping over the top at a great rate. It is frightening just to watch and must be terrifying to be caught out there as the tide rises.

We must have become quite cold-hearted over the years as the thought of the poor mussel-pickres didn’t spoil our appetites at all and when we eventually rolled out of the hotel some time later we couldn’t have eaten another thing! Sadly we had to say ‘No’ to 'Afternoon Tea on the Verandah' at only £17.50 a head! That is nearly R300 per person for a cup of tea and few cakes or sandwiches1 We were very glad to walk away from that.

On Saturday evening we went to a fund-raising event at the Arts Centre, here in Garstange, in the form of a Lancashire and Yorkshire variety concert. The main performers were the Garstang Ukulele Group of which Carol is a member, and they opened and closed the show with some rousing renderings of ‘local’ songs. I say ‘local’ because some of the  connections to either Yorkshire or Lancashire were a bit vague to say the least. In between that we had different people reciting humorous verse, some in Lancashire idiom; a man who was a primary school pupil when the building was a school, who sang the school song for us, now probably defunct as is the school; an ex-headmistress who read us an hilarious account of a trip to Paris in a ‘charabanc’ and all the high junks everyone got up to; there was a most amusing magician who had a mass of corny jokes to go with his magic  and the man who kept the whole show moving was dressed as the Hall Caretaker and managed to keep everyone in stitches as he deftly cleared away props and brought in others. The actual opening of the show was an announcement by the Garstang Town Crier, preceded by ringing a large brass bell three times and shouting ‘Oh – Yeah! Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!’. She looked very grand in her official garb of black skirt and boots, white blouse with a ruffle at the neck, red waistcoat and a black tricorn hat. She presides at all sorts of functions and certainly added a touch of glamour to the evening.

Included in the cost of the ticket was a meal of Lancashire Hot-pot, which can be served with either red cabbage or beetroot, traditionally. We got ours with beetroot and it was delicious. With about 70 to 80 people in a relatively small hall, all breathing, talking, laughing, moving about and eating hot food, the place warmed up nicely so it was a real shock to go outside again into the chilly breeze. I do think Autumn has arrived.

Our place in France Chapter 32

It’s been a funny old week, in all sorts of ways. We knew when we came that this was not going to be a sight-seeing holiday, although we have managed a bit of that too, but the main activity was to help Carol sort through an accumulation of furniture and odds and ends that having been gathering dust since they first moved from a large five bed-roomed house to a much small three bed-roomed one. I think most of us have been in this position, and like most of us, everything that wasn’t outright junk was brought from the big house to the small one. On top of that, the death of two elderly relatives saw them acquiring two more households of furniture. It just became too much for Carol to handle and she was just about at her wits end. So we came to help.

Sunday and most of Monday were a write-off as we struggled to deal with the after-effects of our marathon drive. It is very annoying that things keep reminding us that we are no longer as young as we wished we were. However on Tuesday we were back on track and the first thing we both did was have a much-needed haircut. After that we could start thinking properly and could see where we were going!

Since then it has been a succession of trips to second-hand dealers, the tip and hospice shops, as well as dealing with people who have responded to adverts pinned up in the supermarkets and on the wall outside.  Slowly a dent is appearing.

By Friday we were able to take quite a large load to the tip which is about a mile outside town. What a lovely drive it is to get there! Lush green meadows and trees, with cow, sheep and even pigs grazing on them. It all looks very beautiful at the moment.

Saturday took us off to Blackpool where there is a world renowned horse sanctuary. They seem to rely on donations to keep going, but are doing a wonderful job. The horse boxes for the new intake are spic and span and there are permanently employed girls who do the grooming and mucking out and so on. They also run a small tea-room which serves light lunches as well, so we treated ourselves to some of the most delicious baked potatoes I’ve ever tasted with a delicious salad. Perfect!

After lunch Carol took us down to the beachfront at Blackpool. The famous Christmas lights have already been switched on for this year, but of course they are not on during the day, although we could see and admire the displays.  It really is a place to see because it is like nothing else I’ve ever seen, although people say that Coney Island in the USA comes close. Let me try to describe it to you. The road runs along the shore line with a tram line between it and the beach. On the other side of the road is an endless line of buildings – shops, amusement parks, hotels and apartments. Hordes of people crowd the pavements and there is no parking anywhere, so we didn’t join them, but continued to battle our way through the two way traffic interspersed with horse drawn carriages.  Music and announcements blared out of many of the buildings, some overlaying others when you got between two of them. It was sheer pandemonium and I really cannot imagine anyone going there for a quiet break at the seaside. This all continued for the entire ten kilometres that the Christmas lights stretch. It was one big sticky candy-floss encrusted, ice-cream-littered, noisy, over-abundance if kitsch. But for all of that it was fun.

The weather has been better than we expected with lovely sun and clouds each day, with a very cold wind however. Today, though we are back to true British weather and it is pouring with rain. Never mind – the farmers will be pleased and it gives a good day for doing things inside.

Our place in France Chapter 31

Our place in France Chapter 31

Whoops! Must have lost a day somewhere! I suddenly realised that today was Monday and that I hadn’t written a chapter for yesterday. So sorry.

Mind you, there wasn’t much to say although that may well change. The first part of the week was taken up with finishing off the TV installation which took until Wednesday because of various disruptions which were minor but took quite a long time to deal with. And then on Thursday morning there was no time to lie in bed watching the news, as was our habit in South Africa, because we had to start packing for a trip to the UK. We had originally planned to have two weeks there starting from the 19^th but when we were asked to come earlier, we dropped everything to come. How nice to have no responsibilities! It was quite a trip! We had decided to drive rather than fly as we knew there were large bulky items waiting to be brought back to France, but we hadn’t really thought about the distance. We left home at about ten in the morning and seven hours later we had covered over 700 kilometres and had arrived in Caen where we were to catch a ferry. The French motorways were brilliant and by ordinary standards, not too busy. We then had to wait until ten o’clock to board, so we sat in the little port-side café; had a nice meal and wasted several hours just people watching. By the time we went back out to the car, there was a huge TV screen above the entrance showing a documentary about cycling through Normandy and Brittany. Fortunately it was on a ‘loop’ so we ended up watching it about three times before the gates opened and they started loading the cars. The ferry can take just a bit less than 700 cars and over 2000 passengers so there was mild chaos when we finally got aboard and went to find our cabin. Thank goodness we had been given a four-berth cabin! I hate to think what a two berth one looks like. We had to stand sideways to pass each other. But we won’t knock it – we even had our own bathroom!

By this time it was close to midnight so we made all haste to crawl into bed and had a fairly good sleep until the public address woke us up again at quarter to six – an hour before arrival in Portsmouth. Not much of a rest before driving a much more taxing four hundred kilometre route. Really!! The English drivers are something else – all going like mad; four lane’s wide; and the same in the other direction. There are just so many cars and trucks everywhere. Phew! Too many people!.

We arrived safe and sound at Carol’s house at about two in the afternoon – totally exhausted. That state lasted until well into Sunday which is why, I’m afraid, I didn’t get around to writing anything yesterday. Hopefully this week will be more productive and next week will have some pictures as well.

Our place in France Chapter 30

Another week of nothing to report. We are staying in bed later and later because the early mornings are getting really cool now and it takes real effort to leave the cosy snugness. The tree next door is changing from green to golden and dumping masses of leaves on the ground and as I look across the valley to the far distance, I can see autumn colours beginning to show.

An interesting item arrived in the post this week – a letter from the Health Service notifying us that we should go and get a ‘flu jab as soon as possible, and that they will cover the cost. Apparently sent to all over 65’s, people on chronic medicines and pregnant women, this is one of those pleasant surprises of living in a first world country. Whether it is true or not, they certainly appear to take care of the people. The letter went on to say that ‘flu is an extremely dangerous ailment and that numerous deaths result from it each year – mainly in the over 65’s. So, being the law-abiding folk that we are, we quickly made an appointment and are off there next week. Anyway, it is free, too!

Now that it is more or less in the past, I can also reveal that, a few weeks ago, I committed the unforgivable ‘old lady’ sin. While we were away I slipped in the hotel shower and fell. It was a ridiculous shower anyway. With only one solid wall and curtain on three sides, when I slipped I instinctively put my hands out for something solid to grab onto but of course, there wasn’t anything and I continued my quick journey to the floor. I whacked my head, back and leg but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was a very cramped bathroom with a basin, a loo and shower all in a row on one side and not much space between them and the opposite wall. So when I fell, I landed in the small space between the wall and shower and loo. On my back. All wet and soapy. Neels came rushing in to help me and found me slithering around like a beached whale on the nicely tiled floor. Eventually he managed to help to turn over so that I could get on to all fours and then stand up, but not before we had laid all the available towels on the floor to stop me sliding around. What a performance! At one stage I thought they would have to call in the fire brigade to get me up again, but fortunately it didn’t come to that and I have nothing to show for it except a nicely healing bruise on my leg. However, it is not an exercise that I would recommend.

Something more positive that has happened this week, is that for two days we huffed and puffed, pulled and pushed and tried our best to get the necessary wires up and down various lengths of electrical conduit in order to get the TV signal up to the bedroom. All in all, we must have threaded about fifty metres of wire, only to discover after all this hard work that we were still short of two essential parts and had to suspend operations. However, thank goodness for the internet and Amazon, because we quickly ordered what we needed and it should be here tomorrow. This whole operation also involved plenty of shouting back and forth, and, as the house is three stories high in all, plenty of running up and down to find out what the other had said. Really! These games that we invent to keep ourselves occupied! It wouldn’t be nearly so much fun to get a professional in to do all these little things.

I apologise for sending out such a boring chapter this week, but when nothing is happening, well, c’est la vie!

Our Place in France Chapter 29

Our place in France Chapter 28

In the end, Jen and Ryan didn’t continue with their planned cycle route. The weather had turned a bit nasty and they found the undulating countryside quite demanding so spent a day looking around Rocamadour and its immediate surroundings and then cycled back to Ols on their third day.

In the meantime, we were both very excited to find that our Cartes Vitales – our National Health Service cards – had arrived in the post. Contrary to most of our friends’ thoughts, it turned out that we were eligible to apply for inclusion and that we definitely could, and would, get cards. Once everything was set in motion, it all happened quite quickly and now we have our cards, we can apply for the so-called ‘Top-up’ insurance which will cover anything not covered by the National Health scheme. And the best part of all is that the insurance will be less than what we have been paying monthly for our South African Medical Aid, which of course, doesn’t ever amount to the entire amount received in our name by that medical aid fund.

When the two cyclists returned, they took a day off to recover a little and to do some long overdue laundry. Luckily the weather had cheered up again and everything was soon dry. We did a bit of driving around to show them the local sights and again the sun stayed shining. What a great time we had. All too soon it was Friday and time to take them to the station for their train to Toulouse and subsequently, the plane to South Africa. It was a sad moment.

But there were still things to do and get on with at home……..none of them got done! I think we were showing our age.

On Sunday we had been invited to lunch with one of our neighbours, a French husband and his Moroccan-born wife. We were quite nervous as they don’t speak any English, and were even more so when we arrived, to find three other French-speaking guests. Our meal was to be a typical Moroccan one and was to be five courses – a pizza-like starter; a salad, a massive stew with cous-cous, cheese and then dessert. All I can say is that the Moroccans must eat only once a week if that was a typical meal.

The days are starting to draw in already and the nights are getting cooler. Leaves are falling everywhere and our figs are ripening well. I’m still not sure about making jam but the other option is to let them all fall on the ground and go bad. A bit like being between a bottle and a squishy place!

I have included a picture that was taken in Chamonix of a Trompe l'Oeil scene. I am simply fascinated by these paintings and am always impressed by the shadows that seem to fall in the correct places regardless of where the sun actually is. I had to walk right up to, and past the building to make quite sure that this was a completely flat wall. What talent!

Our place in France Chapter 28a (Text)

Leaving Ols at the respectable hour of  10 am, we drove  to Le Besset a Dutch-owned B&B just beyond Thiers, about 350 kms away. It was a very hot drive and the B&B was some way out of town so we were a bit disappointed to find that although they had advertised an evening meal, that only applied in high season. So, after having showered and changed out of our rather damp and sweaty clothes, we climbed back into the car to go and look for something to eat. The centre of Thiers is an old medieval town with narrow and winding cobbled streets an d quite obviously a population that retires early to bed, but after some wandering around we eventually found a pizza place to satisfy our hunger and then went back to bed ourselves.

The next day we completed the drive to Les Houches where Jenny and Ryan were to complete their run around the mountains of the Mont Blanc area. Would you believe it, we arrived about five minutes after they got in and had a happy reunion. They didn’t look at all tired and certainly didn’t look as if they had been running for the last six days..

On Sunday we started our own exciting part of the Swiss tour by joining them for a trip up to the top of the Aigueille de Midi. We started from Chamonix by taking a large cable car, carrying 60 standing passengers at a time, to the next level, at about 3200 meters. Then it was very speedy lift up to the top at 3840 meters. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the lift I began to feel very weird – light-headed and staggering all over the place. I also couldn’t seem to breather which was quite a scary feeling. Leaving the others, I went straight down to the previous level again, where I was sympathetically looked after by the people in charge until the family found me again. I somehow think this may well have been a sign that I shouldn’t attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro!

The next day, Monday, we drove a couple of hours only to Leukerbad which is in Switzerland. The attraction there was a fantastic uphill mountain run which both Ryan and Jenny wanted to do. When one sees aerial photographs of it, the whole idea seems crazy. The route is 4 and a half kms but in that distance the runners gain about 1000 meters. An hour is the time allowed to complete the run and anyone who manages to do it gets a free cable car ride to the bottom again. We thought it hardly likely that either of them would manage seeing that they had just completed the six day gruelling run around the other mountains, but Ryan managed it in 53 minutes and Jenny in just over the hour. We are SO impressed!

On Tuesday we drove a little further north to Grindelwald  and along the way experienced a novel new mode of travel. After getting los several times, we asked advice from a roadside cafe and were told that there was no road to where we needed to go, but we needed, instead, to catch a train! We were somewhat aghast at this, but then our adviser told us not to worry, that the car could drive on to the train, and so we did and went through an endless (seemingly) tunnel right through the mountain. Now that was something really new! We had booked into a hotel for two nights and although our main activity was planned for Wednesday, that wasn’t good enough for our two athletes who went off in the afternoon for a run around the countryside which got them back home again in time for a lateish supper. Meanwhile Neels and I drove into town and had a look at the shops which were, unsurprisingly, very expensive.

The countryside around Grindelwald is picture postcard beautiful. As I sit and type this on the balcony of our hotel room, I can hear the tinkle of cow bells and the quiet rumble of cable cars which start from numerous places and go to the ski slopes in winter, but run all year round taking walkers and other tourists up to the higher areas. The weather has been magnificent with clear blue skies every day and cooler nights than we have been accustomed to lately. The snow-capped mountains all around us are clear and crisply outlined against this amazing blue sky.

Back to the main activity for Wednesday. It was a trip to the top of the Jungfrau by various means. We started by car, driving to Lauterbrunnen which is about 15 ks away. There we caught the rack railway which took us almost to the top, through some amazing tunnels . These tunnels were hand-hewn in the late 1800’s and are a real tribute to perseverance and endurance. Many people died during the 16 years that it took  to build and we can only marvel at this wonderful achievement.  Once off the train we found ourselves in a sort of gallery which runs around the mountain at this level with arrows showing the correct direction to walk – very German! But a good idea, none the less, as there were literally hundreds of people there. We tried to work out how many people came up with us on our one train and reckoned that there were about 500 on our train and they run every half hour in both directions. A very smoothly run organisation.

At various places along the tour were caverns with exhibits of one sort or another. One had a life-size statue of the designer of the tunnel, bursting out of the rock-wall with his diagrams and sketches on the floor in front of him. Another was a giant sized snow globe but instead of shaking it, the little figures inside moved themselves. It was beautifully crafted and was one of those things that the more you looked at it the more you saw. Further along we came to the Ice Palace which had a number of smaller off shoots but we stayed mainly on the main path. It was carved through solid ice and was unbelievably slippery. One had to grip the handrail very firmly to stop sliding off down the passage. Along the way we came to a hollowed-out section with a family of bears carved out of the ice and a bit further along a similar niche filled with penguins. There was also a place, not part of the Ice Palace, where we could actually walk outside on the glacier, but the wind was blowing so hard that we didn’t do more than poke our heads out. There was a lift which we could have taken to a still higher level but after Sunday’s episode we decided not to chance it. We managed to fill almost the entire day though as we caught the train down again to the place where we had to change trains and stopped off there for a bit of lunch. This was at Kleine Sheidegg, but we still had to catch the second train back to Lauterbrunnen. Not so for our sporty types! They decided to run back home again and completed the 17 kms in just about three hours.

Thursday saw us back on the road again – together! Our destination was to be  a small place called Les Deux Alpes which is roughly midway between Grindelwald and Ols. Along the way we passed Bourg d’Oisans which is situated at the bottom of  the Alpe d’Huez pass, a very well-known climb of the Tour de France. A 12 km stretch or road with 21 hairpin bends, it rises about 1000etres in that distance and is very demanding on the riders. Both of the athletes in the car were suitably impressed, having only ever seen parts of the hill on television. Then it was on to Les Deux Alpes for the night before completing the circle and arriving back home again quite late in the afternoon. Then it was a mad scramble to a load of very sweaty clothes into the washing machine and hung up, so that it would be at least partially dry by the next morning. And that was when I got a chance to put our own washing into the machine. Thinking that it would stay breezy but not rain, I hung everything on the outside line only to have the rain come down the moment I was finished. Oh well, c’est la vie! In the end we left it hanging there even when we went off the following day for a night in Rocamadour. Jenny and Ryan left here on Sunday morning on the borrowed bicycles for their 3 day cycle tour around a small part of the Dordogne, and we had arranged to join them for their first night. The weather was a bit grey and drizzly but it didn’t seem to deter them one bit. Sadly though, with such incredibly undulating countryside, the ride took much longer than they had anticipated and it was rather late when they got in, and the rain had got heavier so no time for sight-seeing. But the view from our hotel was panoramic and wonderful and we can always go there again. It’s not too far away.

Now we are home again and on our own for a day as they continue with their cycle tour and will hopefully return safe and sound tomorrow night.

There were so many photographs to choose from that I have put them on to a separate page.