More O'Reilly musings

Well what’s been happening in Marsilly for the past few days, I know you are sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to hear so here goes.

My first thoughts are spinach, I know how you might ask does spinach appear so definitely in my thoughts. Suffice to say that this is quickly becoming the spinach holiday. I have had it three times with meals over the past week that equates to about the same number of times I have eaten it so far in my lifetime. Somehow yer man has got it onto his shopping list and clearly forgets to cross it out when he has purchased it so it appears again and again.

Who took out the plug?

Monday was a lovely day out as we tootled around the coast and little towns that make up the extreme south of the Vendee area. Driving cross country to Jard Sur Mer we never got above sea level and when there has been as much rain as the past 6 months many of the drainage channels and ditches are full. After a long, well ok longish, walk along the harbour wall yer man needed a wee (age) and we headed to the only place in town open, which also happen to be serving up the classic French dish of, hold your horses, guess, yup, pizza. So how could we resist.The restaurant also had further evidence that French children don’t know how to behave in restaurants. They cried, they screamed, they ran up and down the place, they wouldn’t eat their food – all good stuff for my first book “French Why Can’t We Be More Like Them”

We also spotted an amazing job being done both in Jard and later in La Tranche Sur Mer in that we saw a man, or in some cases two men sweeping sand off the roads. Now you might at first sight think, oh wow how industrious - a real social service. However, visualise the job, it is taking place on a pathways which runs alongside a beach, on a very windy day. Correct me if I am wrong but sand is not actually going to stay stuck on a beach when it’s windy, so the upside of securing this job you know you’ll be employed for life; the downside is that you just might never move from that same spot.

Tuesday has seen a highlight of our holiday, yer man has achieved fame in the local boulangerie - Yup that’s right - somehow they spotted he was English, no idea how but there you go. And he was asked “comment dites-vous 'et vous ceci' en angalis” At first he kept saying "non merci c'est tous" until his poor brain heard the comment dites-vous bit. This all means that the checkout time for him going through the till has increased to the extent that he is now managing to build up quite a tidy little queue behind him as he coppers up, speaks his French, the girls ask him to say a phrase in English and then with smiles and au revoir and bon journee all round, everyone is happy.

Let's get this sand swept up before the next blow of the wind