Ruminations from yer one

We take Dulwich Books with us wherever we go

As may be clear, the principal author of Nantilly Notes is Peter - what follows is exculsively authored by Sheila.

Five weeks, seems such a long time at the beginning and such a short time at the end. When we thought we’d try for a five week holiday many months back it was a little tester for the long term. As for the test the great news is that we are still speaking to one another if nobody else, at the end of the five weeks which is good

Highlights of the holiday are strange and varied and one began even before we left. I devour, in great detail, articles and information in a monthly magazine we get called French Living. Four days before le departure I spotted a news story announcing that Sanofi were now offering their “telepeage” automatic toll charger to UK residents. Yippee I thought we could get that, attach it to the car and zip through the toll gates on our journey down through France.

The challenge of negotiating the toll booths when you drive on the right is not so bad when there are two of you because the person on the left will keep you close to the payment machine, though not too close of course. (Shouts of “left, left” or “woo right, right” can be heard from British cars at most toll booths.) If you are unlucky enough to be driving alone, well no one will be shouting at you and you’ll just have to pull up, hop out of the car, put in your payment and get back in the car. You try to do this elegantly and with a smile however when there is a Frenchie queueing behind you that’s not so easy. After many trips to France you learn that non, non, non the French don’t queue or for that matter have a huge amount of patience on the road.

Therefore when I spotted the Sanofi story you can imagine my excitement and fired up my PC and ordered one for us. They offer a 48 hour service and before we knew it one had arrived and all by myself I registered us and installed it onto the car windscreen. The excitement of the first toll booth was palpable in the car as we approached the gate, we had the credit card ready to pay the €8 toll, just in case the remote did not connect, don’t want the French getting impatient behind us. We were like two little children when the barrier rose and we sailed through, how simple our pleasures are these days. So that was it, €8 paid just like that. It was therefore a slight surprise to me 14 days later to receive an email from Sanofi together with our first invoice which was for €53! Oops I thought I better check into this further before I mentioned it to yer man. Now I would have to bring up the subject because for reasons that are really too boring to mention, that’s if you are not bored already the charge was going to be taken from his bank account.

When I had a spare 15 minutes I logged onto my Sanofi account and read the small print. Now I don’t have a feel for whether the lack of ability to read small print is solely a female talent or just me, but it’s not the first time I’ve come unstuck by not reading the small print. In fact in the case of Sanofi it is not really small print, it is in fact in very large letters on their website outlining the set up charge, the monthly fee when the remote is used and the security fee for the remote which as you’ll have guessed all add up to €53.

As I say, reading small details or detail in general is not my forte, I have lots so I am not worried about not being good at that and I have a man who is. This means that if we are venturing into the unknown I drive and yer man navigates as I cannot read a map. Of course I can read a map however I have found that statements like “ah that was the turning back there” is not good for any marriage. One of our trips was to visit the WWII bunker that is situated right in the heart of La Rochelle harbour or at least that’s what we thought we were heading for when we saw the news stories about Le Bunker museum now open to the public.

The bunker at La Rochelle was used to house German and Italian submarines during the second world war and as you’d expect is a building you can spot from a number of locations around the port. After our coffee one morning we thought we’d pop in and take a look and though we broadly knew where it was we were unsure of the actual road. So yer man is directing and I am driving as we head up and down the roads around the post. La Rochelle might be a large port but there are not that many roads and for the life of us we could not find the right road. After an hour and apart from suffering from the usual female need of “eh I wouldn’t mind going to the toilet soon” we took a right turn at a set of traffic lights for me to momentarily forget that we were in France and smoothly moved into the left hand lane. It’s hard to say who was more shocked, yer man who immediately came face to face with a French man, or the French man who saw the whites in our eyes. “Drive on the right shouts yer man” as I swerve the car over to the right and proceed on our way. We gave up looking for the  bunker and headed for a café for coffee and a toilet.

We drove a little less for a few days, with our new found hobby of cycling and the development of the centre commercial in Marsilly, we found we don’t need to drive as much. On an early visit to the supermarket we were asked if we have a loyalty card, now I don’t want you to think that we understood her exactly, however there are only a few lines of conversation one can have at a supermarket checkout and we gleaned one key word and I said non. It always surprises us how the French can use so many words to say so little and ten minutes later and a long line behind us at the checkout we left with a form to complete and a new loyalty card. We felt we’d been accepted into the Marsilly community and on every visit we proudly take out our card and get our points - an activity we ignore in Britain! We did learn that you need to show it at the beginning of your transactions rather than the end and you might ask how did we find this out.

So that’s €15.44 said the checkout girl, or rather we saw the display on the till and handed over our money and then oops we forgot our loyalty card so handed that to her. Ah she said or words to that effect and then proceeded to inform us of what she was about to do. Before this there was 3 people in the queue, there are always people queueing at the checkout in the supermarket. She heads to the next till, gets under the counter and disappears from view for what seemed like minutes. The shortest time always feel very long when you are holding up a queue due to your request and we stood and look along the line which was now building quicker than if they’d been giving away Euros.  

After what does seem like hours she pops up from underneath the counter, engages us again in conversation and hands us back our loyalty card with our points on it. I say points, sometimes we only get 1 point and we have no idea how it works. What we do know is that after five weeks it is going to come to an abrupt halt and expect Le Clerc to be writing to us to find out why we’ve stopped shopping.

I go less and less on the trips to the supermarket because yer man has become the M&S shopper in disguise. He has taken to “coppering up” at the checkout which is of course an endeavour to run down our two bags of Euros 1/2/5 cents coins. However there is a reason why we have two full bags of Euros coppers because a bit like the rest of Europe we’ve never fully got comfortable with what the bronze ones are. A week in yer man announces that he challenge for the holiday is to work through these two bags and the best way to do that is at the checkout so I have discovered that if I thought 3 people behind us is a lot that’s nothing compared to the numbers that are left behind after we have handed over 44cents in copper.

There is a belief in the Anglo world that French children are the darlings everyone would like their children to be and in fact Pamela Druckerman has made a writing career out of it by having bestselling books in the UK called “French Children Don’t Talk Back” and “Why French Children Don’t Throw Food”. Clearly her research is based on French children in another part of France or else it looks like La Rochelle has been allocated a higher percentage of children that do talk back to their parents. You might be encouraged to hear me say this and think oh our French has improved so much that they can now understand conversations between French families; oh no, there is a universal expression on both a parent and child’s face when the conversation is not going the way that either would want.  A sentence that has a number of ‘non’ in it followed shortly afterwards by tears will lead anyone to the view that French parents face the same challenges as any parents and are as equally competent / inept as the rest.

In the end there are a huge amount of similarities and an amazing amount of differences for a country that is so close physically to the UK. However it will be good to go back to a land where I can have a conversation with someone other than yer man nice and all as that is.

I wonder when we will sees them again?

Return to the Island

Wednesday the 21st and we went to Ile de Re for our second visit of the holiday. So why, you ask is there a photograph of a queue of traffic. Well this is not just any traffic - this is "getting on to the island traffic". And it is not just any "getting on to the island traffic", this is the melee of traffic, a melee of eight lanes trying to crush into one lane after we queued for 10 minutes waiting for the tolls to reopen as the bridge was full. Once through (having paid the €16 eco-toll) it took another 10 minutes to actually get on to the bridge and the best part of 5minutes to travel the 3km over the bridge. We had the sense it was going to be busy on the island that day. We found a spot on one of the beaches of Le Bois-Plage en Re and lolled about reading and staring around. There were lots of English voices all around. The beach was adjacent to a pretty big five star camp site which also had a restaurant open tout le monde and we ended our stay on the beach with a very pleasant and civilised lunch. The picnic we brought was destined to return to Nantilly untouched.
We had a second session on the beach, further along the south coast and stayed until the incoming tide forced off the beach and therefore set up a visit to St-Martin-de-Re

So what is a picture of a busy beach doing next to a description of a visit to SMDR? Where is the port and the ice cream shop? Well, we approached the town from the west and attempted to park in one of the car parks on that side of the port - they were full. So we returned to the main road and headed for the large car park by the Citadelle on the east side, which was very busy but we found a space. As we walked past the Citadelle we turned right (east) instead of left (to the harbour) with an idea of investigating the Citadelle. This proved a non-starter as the whole of the area is strictly no entry as it is all clearly part of the prison. It is amazing how there are no signs identifying this huge area as a gaol. Yet it is home to France’s largest correctional facility, and until 1938 was the departure point for convicts bound for the French penal colonies. Walking past the Citadelle, turn the corner and viola the beach - and very nice it looked too.

Thursday the 22nd and our looked for visit to Ile de Madame happens. And we weren't the only people to have the idea. There were lots of cars in the car park and a constant stream of people and vehicles crossing the causeway. We stuck to our plan to do the 6km round trip walk and we were very glad to discover a footpath on the other side of the causeway to be able to leave the traffic behind. The island fortress has a particular piece of grisly 18th century history in that 700 priests were sent to the island in and around 1794 of which 254 died of disease and there bodies disposed of in a large funeral pyre, now marked with a large cross consisting piled up rocks in a field.

Dozens of carrelets on Ile Madame

The fort can only be visited with a guide at set times and we were not disposed to wait for the next tour, nor pay the €4 each required. The path around the island makes for a pleasant stroll and about halfway round you discover the reason for all the traffic. In a 40+ place car park and along the sides of the road were in excess of 100 vehicles the passengers of which could be seen havering around the exposed rock pools collecting oysters and mussels. This was the first couple of hours since the low tide and those in the know (a lot of people) knew that there was free, rich pickings. A return to Brouage for lunch and then home.
The plan for Friday was a trip to Fouras and a visit to Ile D'Aix, which had been thoroughly recommended by Michael and Anne-Marie when they visited us early in the holiday. However we changed the plan and decided on a big bicycle adventure. We cycled to Rivedoux on Ile de Re. Now clearly for the likes of Bradley Wiggins such a trip is a mere warm up but for us the 11km journey to Rivedoux was something of a challenge.

The journey took about 90 minutes which included a couple of stops for short rests and to confirm that we would carry on. The trip across the bridge was a bit windy - as was one of the excursion's participants.
A comfortable bench by the shore provided the perfect place to recover from the journey and a few yards away was La Chaloupe bar-restaurant - that provided a very decent meal on the terrace, before the return journey. It was with some regret that we left La Chalopue as that evening there going to be live music billed as Soul Revival.
Well we made it back - but that was not the end of the day's events.

After a short, post-22km-bike-ride-power nap we headed in to LaR and to the home of Atlantique Stade Rochelais, the local Rugby Union equipe. They were playing a friendly against Agen and we secured a couple of excellent seats in one of the grandstands. This was the second time we have been to a match here. The first time we had "standing only" tickets for an area behind one of the goalposts. I thought it much more enjoyable to be in good seats, though one has to say they did cost €27 each.

All in all a super day.

Saturday 24th
Mostly a day of catching up with things domestic and professional but by 4pm we felt well and truly caught up so we drove into LaR for a final tootle around the Old Port area. It was great to see it teeming with people and activity and we also discovered that there are ferries to Ile D'Aix from LaR - no need to drive to Fouras first. We thought that this was a real possibility for Sunday and could even fit in to our hoped for game of golf in the late afternoon.

I started writing this post bright and early on Sunday morning, I say bright and early but it is not particularly early and it is certainly not bright - in fact it is pouring down. The various weather forecasting sources indicate it will progress throughout the day from showers to rain to thunderstorms, by late afternoon and not clearing until 10pm. Looks like the last full day of our holiday will be the first to be disrupted by bad weather.

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

Michael and Ann began their return journey to Yorkshire on Tuesday but not before Ann helped with a bit of translating. On Sunday we relaised that we had no hot water. It was hard to pin down when the immersion heater actually stopped working becasue it has been so hot that we have only been having tepid showers and the like, so the store of hot water would had supplied our needs for quite a while. Oue man Michael Miller got on the job on Monday and aranged for a local plumber to call first thing on Tuesday and this is how we made the acquaintance of Ousmane Sy.
With Ann's lingisut skils we quickly established that a new hott wateer tank was needed and by 1pm the work was done and we were €600 poorer!

Today we tootled into La Rochelle with the first stop a visit ot the WW2 submarine base that "someone" had read was now open to the public. Well it isn't! What there is in the centre ville is a Musse de le Bunket that looked very dodgy (shop mannkins dressed in uniforms) that we demured at the idea of paying €7 each to visit.
After the disappointment of Le Bunker we drove into LaR itself and parked near the casino at the north end and wandered along to the Old Port. All in all we spent a very enjoyable three hours potering about and having lunch at the very pleasant Bistro Jules - the first cousin cafe of La Cuisine de Jules and just a stones throw from the Central Market and therfore very close to its relative.

Our mission for the rest of the day is to rest, relax and read.

Thursday featured a mini adventure on our bicycles. From Nantill to the golf course where we assessed that the wind was too strong to make playing golf an enjoyable expereince. So from the golf course we headed to the cliff tops and cycled south as far at Lauziers. All along the way the views of the bay and hinterland were splendid and perched up on our bikes we felt one with nature and with the dozens of other people aloso wlaking and cycling along the route.

From Lauziers we headed back via Nieul-sur-Mer where we had a pit-stop at Le Batleur and thence home. The round trip is about 15km and is probably the longest (distance) cycle we've done. It has encouraged us to do more.

Wednesday was a quiet day at home, a few chores but not much else. Michael Miller and his wife Ann Marie came in the late afternoon so we baked a local speciality a plum tart to offer them. It was a big hit, especially when served with a glass of local Rose from Ile de Re. We are going to have the exterior woodwork repainted, that is to say have the windows and doors varnished, the shutters and garage door painted. Michael's visit was to discuss the quotatio he had a local painter prepare. We are going ahead so now we need to chose the clour for the shutters. Any suggestions?

What is la Place de Nantilly really like?

Monday morning and the promised showers have commenced, accompanied by a bit of thunder and lightening. Here in the house the temprature has dropped to 23c so we will have to break out the jumpers any minute now. It is supposed to to clear up for this afternoon, hope so we plan an excursion to Ile de Re with Michael and Ann on their last full day here.
And oh yes, Place de Nantilly amounts to a small car park at a road junction with a bus stop and a post box. Not quite the grand (sub)urban space that the label "Place conjures up in my head. The snaps below are of Place de Nantilly. If you visit the blog itself you will find a new page with snaps of the shops in Marsilly's very own shopping centre.

The Place as a car park

The Place as a road junction

I can't believe that I am listening to Chris Evans on the radio from Carfest

So the main event of Wednesday was a game of golf at out local course. There has been yet another price increase so a round of golf now cost €65 - blimey perhaps that's the reason there is only one 18 hole course within a 40km radius of us. Out tee time was 10.00am and that may have proved to be too late a start as by the time we finished it was 32c and we were very hot and rather tired.  We played the front nine in the company of Robesrt and Justine, once again a pleasurable, cross cultural  expereince. I do have to mention that Sheila made four pars, we think the first time she has achieved that in a signal round.

Thursday was a sort of rest and recuperation day but none the less had a mid morning deaprturw for a trip to the Point and beach at L'Aiguillon sur Mer, on the opposite site of the bay from Marsilly. It is a gentle drive north and then west and then south. Once you are at the Point then Point Clement (Esnandes) is barely a mile away across the bay. We had taken a picnic in the cool box and so after viewing the bay we tracked back to the beach and spent th next three hours enjoying the beach, the sea, the picnic and the cooling sea breeze. (And if I can't believe I an listening to Chris Evans - I can't believe I spent three hours on a beach and enjoyed it!)

Two big events on Friday. First was our second round of golf, this time with am 8.00am tee time. This proved to be a good move as we finished the round before the day got to its hottest and was a much more pleasurable and less tiring expereince from the weather conditons point of view. But his was accompanied by the worst 18 holes that Peter has ever played and means he may have to buy some new balls!

The second event was dinner in LaRochelle at La Cuisine de Jules - an excellent dinner - hige thank you to Michael and Ann who paid.

Tuesday wanderings, part two

The sky suggested that there were more showers to come, especially as we looked northwards, so we meandered a little further towards the southern end of Fouras where we found a handy parking place with a view of the bay. In that view we spotted an island that we'd not noticed before and with the help of a map we identified it as Ile Madame and that we were in fact looking at the estuary of the Charente. The Ile was on the "other" side and was the last land as the estuary became the sea. The map also indicated that there was a road to Ile Madame which was submerged for part of each day - this seemed intriguing enough to make us decide to investigate.
The bay at this point is known as the Pertuis (Passage) D'Antioche, which is mighty interesting in itself. (The "passage" is the sea route between Ile D'Oleron and Ile de Re and an historically significant access to La Rochelle in the north and Rochefort in the south.)

The road to Ile Madame is the first junction once you are over the Charente bridge and is helpfully signposted to Port des Barques which is the principle commune at the mouth of the estuary. There is a handy car park where the road / causeway leaves the mainland and heads to the Ile. It is possible to take a car across but it also presents the possibility of a 6km round trip walk. There were showers around so we decided to mark it down for an excursion on another day.

Day over? Well we thought so as we plotted our route back, deciding not to just double back on ourselves we tracked along the little roads to St Froult and Moeze. At a junction in Moeze Sheila spotted a weather worn sign for the Citadelle de Brouage so we decided to follow it. As one km followed another we nearly gave up but then the we turned a bend and there it was - an apparently intact fortress town.

The photo's are all from Brouage including a couple of picture of the inside of a bar, that turns out to be a brocante as well - oddly it felt like an old style country bar in Ireland. The whole town clearly lives for tourists and I bet returning to it in winter may well find it completely closed up. A real little gem of a place, we are likely to return.

Tuesday wanderings, part one

The day began with a reasonably early departure for Fouras. There was a mixed weather forecast, with showers expected, so we aimed to keep our options open. We had packed for the beach with a picnic but ready to make a dash to avoid any showers.

We parked up in the car park near Fort Vaubin where we struggled to find a space as half the space was given over to a market. We strolled along the promenade, observing how windy it was on the beach. Our promenade took around the church and onto the main street, that was all a bustle with locals and tourists hustling to take adbvantage of the shops and market before the lunchtime close down. We plonked ourselves down opposite the Bar Le Maritime for a coffee and to watch the world go by.

We returned to the car having decided to head for Fouras's "second" beach, a little south of the main area, where we thought there would be les wind - and that was the case. I guess we had a good hour on the beach and had just finished the picnic lunch when the rain headed our way. Being prepared for such an eventuality we made it back to the car before the downpour. And this is when the real adventure of the day began.

All the thunderstorm do is add variety to the days and nights

There has been some cycling, a visit to the golf range (but not a round of golf as yet), some cooking at home and the obligatory moules at Viviers. All in all a good start to the holiday.

Thursday was very warm and occasioned us to enjoy the peace and quiet of 8 Rue de Nantilly. Peace and quiet only broken by the yapping of next door's dog(s). If ti persists one of us may have to learn the french for "Please keep your fecking dog quiet!" For dinner we did chicken on the bbq that had been marinated in lime  and coconut milk. Verdict was positive.

Friday gave us a chance to pop into La Rochelle for the first time and it was a bit of an eye opener as the traffic was immense. It was so bad that we set off on a back-road detour that included two cul-de-sacs and three wrong turns, but we reckon we still reached the car park in Place Verdun quicker that plodding through the traffic. The four of us came together for the trip to Viviers and

Saturday's big adventure was to cycle to the Intermarche in Nieul ( and back), complete with shopping basket on the front of Peter's bike. This was the longest ride attempted so far and we manged it quite nicely so this has given us a bit of confidence to stretch our bike-ride-horizon.
We also hit about 80 balls each at the range - sobering to think that this is not enough "hits" to get us around 18 holes of golf.

This morning we headed off to Les Minimes to see what yatching/marina action there was. Just before reaching the port du pleasance we spotted and pulled in to a small car park that was adjacent to the cliff top walk. S0 instead of drving to Minimes and walking back along the clifftop to did it in reverse. That is not to say we walked backwards but rather we walked towards Minimes and not away from it.

We had thought to play golf today but during a cycle to Point Clement, Esnandes we expereienced the "sea-breeze" and realised that it would have a material effect on playing golf as the course is on the clifftop. So right after posting this message we are off to practise a bit more on the range and practise our putting

Holiday update postcard

Les Gnomes de Nantilly welcome the new arrival

Good morning from Nantilly

So this week has been a time of arrivals and settling in. First of all, Ann and Michael arrived on Tuesday afternoon, follwing their marathon journey from Bradford on Monday morning, for the evening ferry to St Malo. Barely 24 hours later and Peter and Sheila also landed having taken the Tuesday evening St Malo ferry. And it seems that P&S had a stoway on board - a rather beefy, cheeky and lazy gnome who sits on a toadstool and refuses to budge. It is hard to tell what impact he's had on the incumbents but mutterings have been heard about having a wash and brush up and even "new wardrobes".

Yesterday's weather was glorious, a bit of a breeze and not too warm. Today promises to be the same with some rain showers this morning and a real prospect of thunder and lightening this evening.

Small domestic crisis - we seem to have lost the plug for the bath so a trip to LeRoy Merlin is on the cards.

Monday morning and the rain comes....

Having heard the rain through the night it was a pleasant surprise to wake to a bright sunny morning - however it did not last long as the rain returned and there is a threat of thunderstorms. So we are likely to tootle about the house doing a bit of preparation for our return tomorrow and look for a break in the weather this afternoon.

Yesterday was a decent enough day but a little short on sunshine. The highlight of the day was a trip out to Port des Minimes where we could see the work being done to expand the complex from 3,600 berths to 4,800. We then took a walk along the cliff top towards the south and got a bit of fresh air in our lungs and a bit of exercise for our legs.

Saturday was a trip out to visit the town of Cognac. It is about 60 miles from Nantilly, so very accessible and yet we had not been there before. Checking the weather it seemed like a good idea to head south for a better, warmer day. That part of the plan was not realised as we could tell no difference in the weather to that we had left behind.  Obviously we arrived just as all the shops closed for the three hour lunch break which they still do even though it was Saturday. On top of that, it not yet being "the season", the visits to the Cognac houses were also closed for lunch. Cognac has a handsome centre, with the main shopping streets now pedestrianised, making for pleasant strolling. On a sunny day in the summer it may well be worth a revisit but it does amount to a three hour round trip and Saints, Royan and Rochefort are closer and probably have as much to offer.

New gardeners seem to be taking over the backyard

Friends of 8 rue de Nantilly have responded to the observation that les gnomes have gone missing by sending in photos as evidence of them being seen at the address. The first snap seems to show then hard at work on the sage bush. This was very encouraging as the pruning back of this plant is on the do list for our holiday and a task we have been postponing.

However on checking, first thing this morning, the sage bush is un-pruned and les gnomes nowhere to be seen.

The second photo also locates them in the backyard and hanging around the remains of the other sage bush. This is the bush that was severely hit by the frosty weather of 2011 and was hard pruned to see if it had any life left in it. Again I checked for signs of les gnomes - nothing but there is a bit of life showing on the bush. Hmmm I wonder if there is a connection?

I can't believe it is Friday and we have been here a full week.We will have to make full use of our last four full days.

With the prospect of sunshine we headed for Ile de Re

WE had heard a rumour that the gnomes had good for an Easter Weekend break and had not returned so we thought we had better go in search.....

But wherever we visited there was no trace, we will have to call in the Gendarmerie.

Last August seems a long time ago

The Thursday night ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo was it's usual busy self with lots of family and school groups creating a great buzz. Although delayed in departing it was an on time disembarkation in France that meant we had cleared the Border Control and were free of the port by 08.50 on Friday morning.
We made good time on surprisingly busy roads and were sat down at the kitchen table of No 8 rue de Nantilly by 12.30.

We weren't 100% sure of what business would be open over the Easter Weekend so we did some basic menu planning and made sure that we had sufficient supplies should we want to stay put. This took us to our local shopping district and our first discovery of the trip. Our lovely "new" Ecofrais supermarche from last year has undergone a re-branding; it is now a "U Express". Ecofrais and U Express are all part of the same brand family (Hyper U, Super U, etc) that was adopted by Co-op Atlantique when it moved away from the "Carrefour" association last year. Ecofrais boasted about its "local, sustainable, organic" qualities. U Express - hard to say??? I'd hazard a guess at "convenience" coupled with own brands - but the problem with the idea of convenience is that they have carried over the customer service style of Ecofrais of never having anyone at the checkout until a queue of four has built and someone goes looking for an assistant.

Also in the centre is a new shop selling nice, but mostly pointless, stuff to adorn one's house. As the picture shows it has taken the unit between Toto Pizza and the Florist. What is just out of the picture is that the two units to the right of the florist are also being fitted out. Perhaps by summer we will know what they will be.

The second discovery of the trip is that house building is popping up in every conceivable corner of Marsilly. It clearly has become a place for the local Charentais to live when they need to be handy for La Rochelle but don't want to pay the higher prices in the Communes closer to la ville.

On Saturday we made a point of going in to La Rochelle and today we wandered out ot visit Fouras and Chatelaillion-Plage just to remind ourselves what lovely spots they are. Typically, we have not yet adjusted to the rhythm of life here so were bowled up just after the markets had closed and during the lunchtime closure of everything, except places serving lunch. By the time we thought about lunch (in ChP) - the out of season lunch places had all closed. Still we wont't fade away.