The first 24 hours – it’s magic

Just about 24 hours ago we cruised along the “minor” roads of south east England to Portsmouth for the St Malo, overnight ferry and now we are settled in Nantilly, its 20c and we have 18 days of R&R to look forward to.

It is seven and a half months since we were last here and there is lots to catch up with: the new paint of the outside shutters, the new Velux windows in two of the upstairs rooms, what’s been happening in the Commune, how the olive tree fared over the winter, are the vines still alive, would my 12 weeks of French lessons at the Alliance Francaise make any difference to my competence when talking to people, and what sort of welcome would we get from the caretakers?

Well it seems that the lads have been applying themselves to language studies and a bit of pottery. They have been hanging around by the vines, that clearly produced fruit as there are signs of shrivelled bunches of grapes left on them. A bit of pruning needed.

The exterior paint work is not a 100% success. The colour works well when everything is shut up but when the shutters are open and the wood finish of the windows and doors are visible it clashes quite badly with the colour of the paint….

The journey here was fine but not with its own niggles. We were the 54^th car checked in at the port, one of the last cars to board and one of the last cars to disembark. We stayed too long in the cocktail bar of the restaurant to actually get a table in the restaurant and ending having a late supper in the self-service – the food was pretty good but the ambiance of the dining room is definitely more transport café than fine dining.

This morning on hearing that the deck of the ferry on which were parked was going to be last off and discovering that we couldn’t actually get into the car as the cars around us were packed in tight, we went and waited in the (closed) bar. And this is where the “magic” came in – two young French lads, probably 12 years old, came over to us and asked if we wanted to see a magic show. We said yes and one of them produced a pack of cards and proceeded to go through half a dozen brilliant card tricks. We applauded them warmly and they wandered off with big smiles on their faces. And what is more once they had decided that our French wasn’t good enough, they did all the patter in English. Good for them but it doesn’t auger well for the benefits of 12 week at the Alliance!