Marans - a nearby town that is 10km from the coast and yet carries a name that means "sea place" hmmmm...

 And yet when you stroll along the river you can see every sign of how this could have been a prosperous port that lost its right to trade in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. At least that is what we figured out reading an orientation board in the town.

There is also an attractice looking market hall that hold markets on  a couple of mornings a week. Along with a fair selection of cafes and bars it looks a real propspect for a more thorough visit in the spring and summer.

M&A were not at the house when we got back but they have left a mysterious note about a visit from the fire brigade that we will have to learn more about on their return!

It is New Year's Eve and we are preparing for a long weekend

 There is a Friday morning market in the car park by the Marie in Marsilly so we thought we'd try to ssource all our needs from the local producers. The market was a bit short of stalls, no greengrocer for example and the fish stall had nothing od interets to us.
However we got two very nice local free range chickens, some good looking duck breats and a decent beef fillet joint so we should be OK once we have some vegetables.

We also popped to the boulangerie for the essential breakfast pastries!

We need to have the log fire burning in the late afternoon and evenings....

 .....so we have moved the desk upstairs to the small bedroom and so we can move the sofa further away from the fire.

 We seem to be getting through the logs at a pace

But now we won't have to fight about who sits and roasts directly in front of the fire.

Nous arrivons

Hello from Nantilly.
We were the third car on to the ferry and the third car off the ferry, pretty much to schedule at 8.00am this morning. We split the 4 hours and 55 minutes of driving from the ferry port at Le harve to Marsilly between us and with a couple of pit stops made the journey in five and a half hours. We pulled up outside the front door at 13.30.
Trouble free journey; the temperature never got lower than -1c and peaked at +4c. Roads all clear and there was no sign that there had ever been any snow once we got about half way to La Rochelle.We had packed a "picnic" to make a lunch during the journey but everything went so smoothly we ended up having the "picnic" on the kitchen table in number huit.
It was around 2.5c when we got here but the newly installed electric heaters had done their job and the ambient temperature in the downstairs was 14c. One slightly negative side effect of the radiator installation is that the place is covered in a fine dust from the work - so a nice bit of dusting to do.
On another topic altogether I learned a new acronym today CRAFT - it is a bit like a "senior moment" - Can't Remember A Fecking Thing.

The next two posts are photo's we took in October when we went to see the start of the Velux single handed round the world race start