Saturday January 2nd
Saturday morning was a trip to Rochefort where we strolled in the strong winter sun, wrapped with hats and gloves and scarves. We had to clear a hard frost from the car windows before we set off. we should try and remember to put the car in the garage tonight. It is about 40km from here and on an off season morning it was little more than a 35 minute drive.
Rochefort centre buzzed with locals doing their Saturday morning shopping and there was a decent street market on a road that intersected with the main shopping street. It looked as if it was a regular Saturday morning thing rather than anything seasonal.
On the square outside the Hotel de Ville an ice skating rink was in full swing and a rink side cafe was doing brisk business both inside and out. Elsewhere everything else was closing for lunch. Praise to provincial France that still believes a two and half hour lunch break on a Saturday is the best way to run a shop. I hope they don't hear of this in Dulwich.
A little bit of shopping for Sunday was needed on the way home and then back to tackle that kitchen heater. It was 14c in the kitchen when we came down this morning but after three goes we gave up trying to get the heater working and left for our trip to Rochefort. The most annoying thing is that when we got back and went through the same routine to light the thing, it fired up first time. A good thing too as the weather forecast indicates that it will only get colder throughout the rest of our stay.

Restaurant de la Paix, Chez Chocolat, Esnandes.
Lots to say on this, all quite positive. On the lunchtime we popped in and made the reservation the dining room was well populated with merry looking folk in groups of six and eight. The "winter" dining room would do about 24 covers and our corner table, laid for two, could easily have accommodated two more. I called it the winter dining room as we found out (on a trip to the loo) that there is a much larger dining room with big windows that overlooks a terrace, that overlooks the car park. In addition they have a pretty big function room. Another discovery was that in the vestaire of the main entrance (from the car park) there are two pinball machines and an arcade game.

Back in our pleasantly appointed dining room they where serving a restricted set of three menus as part of the Christmas and New year service. We knew this before we arrived as they had pointed it out to us when we made the reservation. We chose the 25euro (no choice) menu - the cheapest -this was smoked salmon, confit of duck, cheese, dessert but they happily accommodated Anika/Angela not eating duck with a fish alternative. It was certainly good enough to suggest a return visit, not least because it is only a five minute drive from Nantilly. We had made a reservation for 8.00pm but arrived about 7.45, this did not phase them and we went straight to our table. We found ourselves back in the car park just after 9pm. Ah did I mention - we were their only customers and a sign had appeared saying they would be closed for the next two weeks.

Sunday morning is 2c but feels like -2c and there is 60% chance of precipitation, thank goodness the Leeds v Manchester football match is on a TV channel we can get on the telly!

We did remember to put the car in the garage overnight. This turned out not to be too bright an idea as Peter managed to clip the front wing on the garage door post - such a small car and he was stone cold sober!