I just don't know where the last ten days have gone....

Saturday 11th
The highlight of the day was a cycle ride to Port de Plomb - about 10km and the cycle ride back -10km. Not Olympic medal class effort or anything, but the furthest yet for us. Ah yes - the journey did included a stop for lunch at Le Cafe de Mer at Plomb and for refreshments at Le Bateleur in Nueil.
Sunday 12th
Once more we found that Golf de La Pree is very quiet by the late afternoon on a Sunday and at 5pm we set off on a round with very few other players on the course. That was just as well as Peter managed to spray most of his shots anywhere and everywhere but on the fairway or green. In doing so he created a golf-ball crisis that threatened the need for new balls before he ventured on another round.
Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday are melded into one long day of super weather and not much done.
Wednesday we headed back to the south of La Rochelle to the area that may well be called Bellevue  but we tend to think of it as the University/ Port de Minimes Quarter. Again we parked in in one of the small Cliff top car parks near the Charente Maritime reginal Offices and this time walked  south towards Aytre instead of towards the Port. After half an hour it was clear that it is possible to walk all the way to Aytre and having satisfied ourselves with that we returned to the car and went off to investigate Aytre Plage.

I am afraid that Aytre Plage got a bit of a mixed review. A lovely beach with amenities like a couple of cafes and an information booth right on the beach. It was a glorious day and so it way very bust as was the huge car park jammed in between the railway line and the beach as part of a traffic control system to optimise the utilisation of a relatively small area. There is even an Aytre Plage train stop, right by the beach.

Dulwich Books calls and Sheila took the evening flight back to London.
Thursday 15th & Friday 16th were wonderful days for the weather, although it cooled considerably and the breeze got up with each minute of Sheila's return flight go t nearer to La Rochell on Friday evening.

Very little to report other than we contacted Orange.fr, our Internet provider, and arranged to update the service we have had with them for the past six years. The outcome was that we have quadrupled the bandwidth for exactly the same monthly charge. In addition we were advised that we could upgrade the modem for a more modern one but decided not to act on that just then. The highlight of the day being Sheila's return on the 20.20 Easyjet from LGW.

Saturday 17th
A visit to the Venise Vert was the programme for today. 20 minutes out from Nantilly and we hit a big traffic jam on the D137 into Marans., we reckoned we were a good three miles from the traffic lights in Marans. This immediately brought back the memory of exactly the same traffic jam on the same excursion last summer. we back tracked and soon found ourselves bowling along the C roads through La Taille, Vix, Maille and Damvik where we managed to arrive after all the cafes had stopped serving lunch. Onward to Coulon solved that problem -even if the Gallette I had might be fairly described as an All-Day-Breakfast Gallette. Coulon really is a lovely spot and (of course) in full tourist flow.
From Coulon we went Cross country to Mauze sur-Le-Mignon, the location of the first holiday in this region eight or nine years ago. The place itself seems to have smartened itself up with much more to offer a local or a visitor. Sad to say that the mill looked rather run down.

Sunday 18th
Sunday seems to have fallen into a pattern, lazy day in rue de Nantilly and then off for a late afternoon round of golf, made possible by Sheila stuffing 21 new golf balls in her return bag on Friday, from the stash of golf balls kept in Beckenham

Monday 19th
Our programme for our last full  week is that we would do excursions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and stay local on the other days. Having decided over the weekend to go for the modem upgrade we were back on the phone to Orange.fr and made arrangements for us to collect the new modem from the Orange shop in La Rochelle. By mid morning it was raining a bit so we decided to head into La Rochelle for the new box and then on to Ile de Madame where we intended to do the 6km walk along the causeway and around the island.
The day did not turn out quite like that. The good thing about going into LaR was that it had stopped raining but we did not have the new modem. It turns out you have to take in the old one and do an exchange for the new one. So onward to cross the River Charente and along to Ile de Madame, in ever more improving weather. And that is where the day cam unstuck again - we were less than an hour away from the causeway being submerged by the tide and to stay like that for the next five hours. No 6km walk today.
Well we knew we were only about 9 miles miles away from Citadelle de Brouage and so we headed over there in good time to settle down in the shade for a very nice lunch.

And the day did not end there, we headed back for Nantilly but diverted onto a back road that brought us into Chatelaillon plage where we parked up and took a stroll. Before too long we came upon a small beach and pier absolutely alive with activity and enjoyed a peaceful sit and stare half hour - accompanied by very good ice creams.
Driving north again we stopped at the very south end of the main beach, again a very lively spot with sailing, fly-boarding, kite flying and the like. None the less we found a quiet spot and settled in the Zandra Rhodes picnic chairs for 45 minutes of reading and sunning ourselves.

Tuesday 20th
It has taken me so long to put this together I can finish by completing a log for today. A few domestic chores were undertaken including collecting / exchanging (and installing) the new Livebox (modem) from the Ornge shop in Beaulieu - much easier to get to than the centre of LaR.
For lunch we cycled to Aubrecay to have lunch at the Relais de Aubrecay, only to find it closed for thier holiday break until September 9th. So we high tailed it back to the Relais de la Poste in Marsilly and once again enjoyed their reliable lunch menu.
An afternoon of reading and snoozing and catching up on bits of work. It is gone 7pm and it is still 30c outside and even 26c in the shade of our backyard. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Ile de Re for the day. A bientot