Tuesday and therefore it must be Ile De Re

A full day – well half day – and possibly the biggest excitement happened before we even reached the island. As we approached the toll booth we were surprised to see the emblem “T+” over one of the booths indicating that we could use our electronic tag to pay the €16 toll and slip through. Never have you seen bigger smiles when four people have just paid €16 just get on an island.

Anyway on we got and after a little bit of queuing on the bridge – yup I know it is amazing how many people are willing to pay to visit Ile de Re – we were driving down the narrow little streets of Le Flotte. 

With Rosemary Smith driving and Ranulph Fiennes navigating, and Darby & Joan in the back, how could we go wrong, well it’s not that we went wrong as such, we just managed to drive into the smallest car park in France, with what is a fairly big car and therefore once we saw that there were 28 cars in the car park meant for 22, we were in trouble. It was not possible to turn around and so we would need to reverse out. Pas problem one thinks, except the smallest car park in France was actually being guarded by the narrowest entrance to a car park in the world. Suffice to say that Rosemary with the help of Ranulph squeeze our way out.

Jack and Stella looking shaky after paying for lunch

Safely parked near the harbour we strolled to our lunch which was at a lovely classic French restaurant with excellent service – I know the two don’t often go hand in hand but we found the restaurant with both, happening at the same time. Lunch was on Darby & Joan  and so Peter thought being the classic French resto he’d asked for les frites only to be told Non le Frites = long faces.

Damn it - I paid for the view I am gong to enjoy it

After Le Flotte it was onto St Martin-en-Re and by now we had a high tide and it was like rush hour in the harbour as they arrived to dock in or depart the harbour. It was great viewing and Jack & Peter picked out the various boats they thought they could persuade Paul and Barry to crew as they cross the Atlantic.

A further scuttle around the island took us to the north shore and we sat on the rocks watching the incoming tide crash against the rocks and with myself and Stella enjoying the view of a particular chap on his sail board, who’d have guessed we’d be so interested in sail boarding.

Back at base and to Jack and Stella’s delight or horror (delete where applicable) we found BBC Scotland which were basically showing back to back programmes on the upcoming referendum, interesting viewing. (Eds’ note – Peter went to bed)

Oh did we tell you about playing a board game called Balderdash? Another time eh but it was interesting how a basic board game can get the better of four incredibly intelligent and sharp people, but yup it did, though somehow Jack managed to weave his way through the melee and win.