La finale samedi sur nos vacances d'été

A small note to provide a little background.We made a "discovery" on Peter's new phone. It is an app called S-Health and one of its functions is that it will track a cycle ride. It uses GPS to map where you are, are going, have been and then reports a whole load of information about the bike ride.

With a pique-nique packed in the pannier (lashings of Perrier) we set off on our bikes for a trip to Port de Plomb. Our southern route was to be along the cliff top to PdP and then back along the cycle paths via Nieul. We made a quick stop at Aux Saveurs to secure a reservation for dinner and how glad we were. Peter had been fretting about mislaying a pair of Sheila's sunglasses that she had graciously lent him. As we entered the resto we were greeted by the co-owner and front of house and waitress, who presented us with the sunglasses that Peter had clearly (and carelessly) left behind.

Once on the cliff top and heading south we could feel the strength of the wind and at times it was hard going. None the less the destination was achieved and we enjoyed our sandwiches on a bench overlooking the bay.
By the time we arrived back at rue de Nantilly we had traveled 11.2 miles with an hour and a half of cycling and, according to S-Health, used 682 calories.

Saturday evening was all mapped out - a stroll down to the Port de Pelle for a bit of live rock music and on to Aux Saveurs for our 8pm table. And so it worked out - more or less - we left the house a little later than planned - the walk to the port took a little longer than planned and the first band were playing the last song of their set. So 10 minutes after arriving, we walked back to the resto, to find ourselves the only people there. We had a very nice dinner but our worries about their survival were heightened.

The resto formally known as Le Relais de la Poste

We called in and had an excellent lunch at Aux Saveurs De Marsilly. I had the €15, three course Menu du Jour and Sheila selected a dish from the a la carte. Both very good - no choice on the MdJ but each course had a touch of refinement. We came away a bit worried for them - we were only two of no more than eight people in the place and lunchtime used to be the peak session for the former proprietors. We hope the succeed and will return on Saturday night to give them our support, in return for another good meal.

Ile d@Aix at last

Dateline: August 22nd, 13.15hrs
Location: Le Vieux Port, La Rochelle
At the second, or was it third time, of asking, we boarded the ferry bound for Aix via a panoramic tour around Fort Boyard. Fascinating to hear that when the fort was eventually completed the technology of warfare - in particularly gunnery - meant that it was obsolete and never used for its intended role in the defense of the approaches to Rochefort.
Somewhere along the way we misunderstood how long the crossing to the isle was, and what with a late departure, to ended up with only an hour on land before catching our pre-booked return ferry.

This was long enough for a shortish stroll around the settlement by the port and adjacent ramparts to absorb some of its military history and to sit opposite this typical island maison to enjoy a big ice cream sundae (one each).
The island was first inhabited in the 11th century by an order of monks from nearby Il de Re but in the 17th century, with the establishment of the Royal Arsenal and Dockyards in Rochefort, it was taken over by the military. A substantial forst was developed to conduct the defense of the channel that leads to Rochefort. The fort remained active until 1927.

All too soon the ice creams were licked and the return ferry called.

We mouched around the Old Port and the area of the Aquarium for a good while before heading over to Port de Plomb for a dinner of moules et frites. What better way to end the day.

A Saturday moment

This is not really going to be of interest to anyone else, unless they have an unhealthy interest in the working s of local council recycle centres, but I want to record a "first". Last year the La Rochelle Conglomeration introduced a control system to access its decheteries. One had to apply for a card, with two proofs of identity and residence, that is now needed to get into a decheterie. Saturday was the first time we used it and we arrived in trepidation, with a full boot of rubbish, I mean recycle, hoping ti would work. And it did.
The scheme has not been without controversy as it was launched with the card permitting access a maximum of 15 times a year. Agitation occurred and after the first year of service the limit has now been raised to 20. Ces français aiment leurs décheteries!
(PS The auto speller wants to change decheteries into debauchereis - what does that say for Google?)

Rochefort and L'Hermione

After 20 years of working on the project to reconstruct an 18th century frigate in the former Royal Naval Docks, the ship is almost ready to sail. It has been amazing to watch the progress over the last six years or so and we hope to return next April when it sets of to sail to America, tracking the voyage the original (and the fleet) in the 1770's, taking La Fayette and his troops to support the rebels fighting for independence from Britain. Here's a phot-collage from today's visit.

Arrivederci Stella bella

Wednesday and the last day for Jack and Stella in Marsilly

Les Deux Tours de le vieux port de La Rochelle 

Sheila reports…..

Wednesday saw an early rise from everyone; well OK only Peter, though to be fair Jack and Stella were actually seen downstairs before 11.00am. There was lots of coffee and map reading before the packing started. Peter headed out to source the pastries for breakfast, as sustenance for the task in hand was clearly needed, and to relocate our car to the Place to allow for Jack to park (the biggest Jag in the world) outside the house.

So down the suitcases came, I am not saying that Jack and Stella brought a lot with them but, if they've not warned Tim and Kristy that they've brought so much on holiday, they just might think the house in Witley has been burgled.

As Jack was loading the car he was corned by not just one of our neighbours, but two! Clearly some sort of smoke signal had gone up to say that there one of les anglais has been seen outside No 8 and the rumour has it that he speaks French, let’s get over there. (note from ed - we know he's Scottish) First up is our neighbour across the road with whom he had a lovely conversation about life and the weather and this was closely followed by our neighbour to the left.

I need to set the scene for this conversation because Peter had already been cornered by this neighbour on a return journey from the shops last week. To cut a long story short, Peter had no idea what he was saying but with hand gestures we thought he was referring to the weeds outside our house. We set about removing every last vestige and dousing the path in weed killer.This thought lasted all of 48 hours until we saw that the bath & shower were leaking out of the drain and into the road and thought "aha" that’s what he was trying to tell us (Countless hours were spent on a trip to the DIY store and efforts trying to fix this.)

So a week on and notre voisin sees another person outside the house and says to Jack “Do you speak French?” in French mind you - because he speaks not one word of English. After some time, it seemed like 15 minutes, and many more hand gestures, we establish that he is just trying to say that when we are not around, he sprays the pathway at the front of the house to kill the weeds, maybe about 3 times a year. That’s all he was trying to get over, being a friendly neighbour that he is. He must have gone back into his house and thought feck me what do I have to say to these foreigners just say I am a nice neighbour. Jack on the other hand never thought he’d be having a conversation about weeds when he got on the ferry for his French holiday.

Jacks linguistic contribution was not yet over. No sooner had we sat down to a scrambled eggs brunch, toast having been burnt during the above conversation, as Peter was needed from time to time, just to wave his hands really. Well blow us down! We’d all only just sat down when the doorbell rang. In fact it rings so rarely rings we actually didn't know what it was it for a moment or two.  Our two fluent French speakers hopped up and ran to the door to be greeted by, well greeted by a door to door sales man. 

At the door was M. Jolie who was offering his services to clean our roof. Peter immediately said “non” whilst Jack was eyeing up his cherry picker and thinking that maybe the house next door (the walls that face us) could be painted by him. Jack was brilliant. He tried to persuade M. Jolie to paint the house next door and when M. Jolie was not interested in doing that Jack convinced him that we didn't want the roof cleaning. So “non” won the day and the chap headed off and we returned to our brunch. In fairness Stella was pretty much ready to hit the road, however le chauffeur still had a few tasks to attend to, a situation we felt was not happening for the first time in their thirty odd years of marriage.

It was now 1.30 and Jack and Stella got into their car, which was now calling on its great reserves of its  suspension system, and headed off up to La Motte for another lovely few days, though hopefully without the need to engage with door-to-door salesman, neighbours concerned about weeds, 67 year old widows and late nights in music bars.

It’s been a fantastic few days, brilliant laughs and extremely enjoyable all round. Hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Alert, warning, rappel - Mrs Brown in town

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.

Saturday night and Sunday morning

Cycles and Conversations on a Saturday in Marsilly

Sheila reports….

I appreciate that being Monday – in fact now Tuesday, you might be thinking that the one blog would cover all the weekend, but there is so must to tell I am splitting it into two! (Note from Ed. It is now Wednesday)

Saturday morning started off all very calmly with a late morning breakfast for everyone. Peter cooked lovely scrambled egg to get us all going. Which, for Stella and Jack meant a long walk along the cliff tops of Marsilly, and for moi and Pierre it was a 10 mile cycle on a round trip of the local countryside. On our journey we stopped off at our local bar/restaurant to which, we had persuaded Jack and Stella, that it was a good idea to go on Saturday night.

Back at HQ and disco naps all round we were ready to hit the road at 9pm. Settled into our table in what turned out to be a full house to hear the music and singing of Renaud. Peter had googled Renaud and turns out he had major French hits in the 70’s and one in particular was quite critical of Margaret Thatcher.  He was the main act billed in August, followed by an Elvis night the following Saturday, celebrating the great man.

Upon arrival we were met by Peter’s “date” from last week Anne Marie with kisses and cuddles and several mentions of aperitifs. We declined her offer at this stage and had our meal and listened to the music. The first half of the session involved local musicians doing what is best described as a karaoke accompanied by our new best friend Emmanuel. Before long there was dancing on the table and lots of audiences participation. Emmanuel welcomed everyone to the evening including Le Anglais, La Irlandaise and Les Escosses to which there was lots of cheers, well at least for the Irlandaise and Escosses anyway.

At the interval Jack and Peter checked that the music was continuing and Renaud would be on next and we were told oh oui oui. Another bottle of wine ordered and more singing. By this stage Jack was definite that he’d be back singing a Scottish tune in his kilt, a promise he has kept this morning.  So the karaoke sessions continue and no sign of Monsieur Renaud yet and at the end we decided he’d blobbed.

It was very hot inside so Stella and I decided to stand outside to cool down, albeit being 2am. The boys paid during which time Anne Marie (the 67 year old, dancing on the table Tunisian, Fench, Italian widow)  & her sidekick collared us and invited us to her place on Sunday. Seemed like a good idea at the time, not such a hot idea at 11am the next morning.

Home and bed

The Day After

As per arrangements we set off from Nantilly to La Bateleur where we are were meeting Anne Marie with a little trepidation with several ideas floating around including us thinking is she the axe murder of La Rochelle and began compiling the Daily Mail headlines of next week “four tourists disappear in La Rochelle, last seen heading to 67 year old’s house”.

Anne Marie was waiting for us at the bar with the patron’s father a lovely Lebanese chap, who thankfully spoke English. Have I mentioned Anne Marie didn’t speak English so it was up to Jack and Peter to talk, so no change there then. More kisses and hugs before we headed off to her house. And what a welcome did we get, she is an amazing woman with a lovely warm personality. She was chuffed to hear that this was our first welcome into a La Rochelle home, said made her day.

Lunchtime aperitifs in the French/Italian/Tunisian way

Lots of conversation ensued and we have some great laughs.  Thankfully I was driving so could safely decline the aperitifs however the other three indulged at noon, impressive!  Though when offered a whisky Jack declined saying not before midday when he realised it was 12.15 so then decided it was not on a Sunday, being the lord’s day and all that. One conversation caught us out and it goes like this… in French I might add but to say you I am putting it down here in English.

Peter: Last night Renaud was due to sing and we wondered why he didn’t turn up?

Anne Marie: what, how do you mean?

Peter: well it turned out to be all the locals singing Renaud’s songs and he was the billed act so we wondered?

Anne Marie: but he is dead, so he cannot turn up. (Saying this with a big surprised look on her face and her hands in the air, a la French style.)

Peter tells us and we all laugh and say oh that explains it.

Anne Marie: so now you know and also you know that Elvis is billed for the next Saturday so you know he’ll not be turning up either. With which she nearly wet herself laughing.

We felt that we had arrived when a French person was cracking a joke at our expense in a nice way – the other way has already happened. The conversation was really held together by Jack whose fluency was growing in confidence with each minute (and Pineau).  We knew he was in fiull flow (with the French) when he turned to me to explain what Anne Marie had said and addressed me in French as well!

Anne Marie took immense pride in showing us around her house, which was lovely with some great pictures, painted by her late husband, or else the local mayor, and a fantastic conversion of a garage into an ensuite bedroom. Mum take note!

We departed with more hugs and kisses and headed into La Rochelle for lunch and a wander around. Pretty busy as you’d expect.

On the return journey I thought that it would be a nice for Jack and Stella to see the boats that land the oysters and mussels and so we headed up the road to Charron and the slipway. Well little did we know it had been the fullest moon for years and did you know that when the moon is that near the earth it pulls the sea towards it and the upshot of this was that the roads all along the shore were flooded. A great spectacle for the locals and us.

Back home in time to skype Paul and Lynne who had a slightly betting location then us, overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Powell River, well maybe a little better. They rubbed this in as they spoke to us whilst watching Orca’s in the bay in front of their house, can you believe it? It was lovely to see them, lovely to see both of them looking so well and it was a bit of crack.

Then we crashed, the weekend had been too hectic for us at our age and it caught up with us. Dinner: followed by the Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile and The Village. Typical night in the UK really.

A bientot

Yes it is a coypu

Congratulations to Peter Breen for being the first correspondent to recognize the rascally rodent as a coypu. As Peter mentioned they were farmed for their fur and inevitably escaped into the wild where they have happily established themselves as major pests with there wasteful vegetarian a eating habits.
Now for this weeks photo competition: A two week holiday in Nantilly to the first person who can name everyone in this very old photograph and correctly identify the location and occasion.

Competition closes at midnight August 10th

Good luck

Qu'est-ce qui se passe ici

Yesterday was characterized by rain, heavy rain and thunderstorms. To walk from the car to the boulangerie left you soaked through to the skin. Jack and Stella ventured out to La Rochelle and found that it was full so they continued south, down the coast to Chatelillon Plage so that they could get caught in the rain and get completely drenched. Les vacances, merveilleux.
Nonetheless J&S returned with the makings of a brilliant evening meal, Moule mariniere a la Jack; merci beaucoup.

There and back again, again

Ile D’Aix is reputed to be a beautiful island 30 minutes off the coast of La Rochelle.  Reading through our new guide to the region we thought that this week was a good time to hop on the boat and head over. It’s an island without cars and all in all takes about 3 hours to walk around it.

Bright eyed and eager we drove into the centre of La Rochelle, parked up and set off for the 10.45 ferry. All is going well until, in an extremely unstylish and “flop” kind of way Sheila falls. “Fall” doesn’t quite give you the picture in your head of Sheila, flat on her face on the pavement and the mix of expressions as she looked up around me.

As Sheila reports, ‘from the little boy who thinks, “ouch if I did that I’d get a telling off”, to a classically dressed French woman who thinks “clumsy foreigners” or to my darling husband who went “Oh feck!”

‘I blame the bad French workmanship, which we have all experienced over the years, wobbly pavements and the like. Anyway up I gets and hobble to the nearest chemist, where we know yer man’s French is going to be sorely tested. He had prepared for most eventualities but not quite this however, a few words and a point at the bloodied knee covers all that’s needed before the shop assistants pulls out an amazing assortment of ointments, plasters, gauze – the lot or in other words “woohoo I can sell these guys enough stuff to make my sales budget for the day!”.

‘Suffice to say that by the time we’d got me bandaged up and walked more gingerly to the port the boat had literally sailed. Whilst we appreciate that Ile D’Aix is not the in the Outer Hebrides or anything like that but we decided that a trip that day to the island might not be the best idea.

What shall we do now? Let’s stop at the supermarket on the way home, pick up lunch and head out of a picnic (“pique nique” in freanch – Ed). We knew it was not our day when we pulled into the shop’s car park to find yet another ferme expetionalle this time with the word “sinistere” in the poster.  One doesn’t need to be a fluent French speaker to know that is not a good sign.

Tuesday seemed as good a day as any to try again, wound re-bandaged by Dr McKay and off we headed. To avoid repeating ourselves from the previous day we took a totally different route and car park, one that was very close to the embarkation point and headed to the boat. As we approached we saw that we were not the only people to have had this idea as there were lengthy queues. The 10.45 was full, the 11.45 was full and the next ferry with space was 13.15. Now this is a small island and the idea that boat loads of tourists were descending, ok we might be two of them, did not appeal.

So we looked at one another and thought nah. Back to car, back to la ranch and a cycle trip of a few miles and stopping for moules + frites at Viviers cheered us up no end.

Looks like Ile D’Aix will be on our bucket list for next summer.

There’s been complaints

Or rather, Peter tells me, one complaint, of inactivity on the blog. (I don’t know, you head away for a rest and then you are getting hassled.) Well you’ll be glad to know there’s been plenty of activity from our side in the shape of golf, well ok, one game.

I appreciate there is a section of the population who don’t regard golf as a fitness sport or even a sport for that matter – tell that to the first winner of an Olympic Gold Medal in Rio! Back however to the Marsilly Olympic Golf tournament which took place at the local La Pree course on Friday.

We had opted for a 5pm tee time and in order to build up our strength we rested in the back yard all afternoon reading. We thought the course would be quieter and this turned out to be. The gold medal was in no doubt, yup I won again… oh dear hope he doesn’t lose faith as there was a few merdes, stamping of feet and banging of clubs when the ball did not get past the ladies tee.

However what yer man was most upset about was not losing 12 balls, or that he might have lost again to moi, it was that he forgot to bring out his step counter so his average of 7,000 steps a day he had been achieving took a hit. Seemingly it’s all about statistics I am told.

Peter adds – whenever we were near water on the golf course we kept seeing one particular semi-aquatic mammal – there were dozens ranging from a cute Guinea Pig size o a whopping 40cm plus tail – and they all sported very big front teeth. Here’s a photograph – what are they? Answers by last post Monday!

We got back in time to see the only athlete on the planet that matters, Lyndsey Sharp, oh no sorry Usain Blot, appear at Glasgow. Thank god none of the first three guys carrying the baton dropped it -  what would we talk about. Clearly Gaby Logan got it wrong, the games were better with Usain, at least it stopped everyone talking about the English and Scottish gold medals – there were other people taking part you know.

Saturday it rained and with little else to do I resorted to cleaning the upstairs and how lovely it looks. Beds were pulled out, curtains pushed back, cupboard moved and hovered everywhere – phew bring back emails I’d say. The upstairs is now ready for our guests and I have three days before tackling the vast space that is downstairs.

On Friday my email crashed and I have been without emails. One might think that’s liberation from the world but it brings its own stresses. How do I keep up with those invaluable messages about diet tablets, menopausal creams and facelifts I wonder?

In fact the lack of emails and plenty of rain even prompted me into cooking! Now that’s not sometime one writes about much. I made not one, not two but three dishes! Peter is still speechless and in recovery. I made coleslaw, bean salad and granola bars. I do fear I might have got the quantities wrong because we are still eating them.

We felt that after this amazing development and something unlikely to last we should celebrate and headed out on our bicycles to La Batleur, our favourite spot in the next village, about 2 miles away across the fields. We settled into our seats at about 9ish and wait for Sao Paulo duet Gabrielle Lima and Flavio Nunes to start their set at 10pm.  The guy who runs the music side of the bar/resto is called Emmanuel – we know that now of which more later, however he greeted us fondly (he does that to everyone, we know we are not special) and said how delighted he was to see us. We said we were looking forward to the music and he says of Gabrielle “oh yes she is beautiful and she can sing!” Yup readers he is French and clearly never heard of sexism. Sure what can you do, we smiled and ordered a glass of wine?

The singing and music turned out to be great but the best bit was during the interval of Gabby and Flavio and Emmi (as he is known to friends - of which we are now) played “Oh What A Night” and within seconds the “ladies” in the audience were up ON TOP of the piano and dancing. To give you a picture in your mind if Peter had joined them he’d not have been the oldest!

Oh and speaking of yer man, he made a new friend, she is called Anne-Marie, she is Italian, living in La Rochelle, wears too much perfume, asked him to dance and oh yes she’s 67. She was really nice and a bit of fun and once we got her talking slowly in French, himself and herself had a great chat. He will tell you more no doubt.

The cycle back across the field at 1.30am was a little tricky with only one bike with a front light and it was a little disconcerting to find once we got back to Marsilly all the street lights were turned off. God knows why, maybe there’s a recession in France and it is cost cutting. At least we didn’t fall off our bikes this time.

First the walk and then...

Instructions for a pleasant way to spend a day (yesterday)

Park the car at Aytre, walk along the cliff top to Les Minimes, take the water navette  to the Old Port, walk to the market (buy Barry's Tea). return to the old port, and thence to Minimes and back along the cliff top to the car. Just short of nine miles!
Reward dinner at the "new"restaurant

and indeed it was pretty good.

Les bicyclettes de Marsilly

First ride of summer

The garage door creaked opened and out came the bikes for our inaugural summer ride. Our mission was to locate an advertised specialist beer shop in Lagord. It is always goo. to have a mission. The route was a straight forward combination of cycle tracks and roads out of Nantilly, skirting Neuilly and tracking round the edge of Lagord to the Centre Commercial known as Le Fief Rose.
The shp was a bit disappointing but a few shops away was a very handsome looking wine shop. We bought a Picpoul de Pinent and a Bourgogne Aligote for which we hold high hopes of being adopted as the house white for the holiday.
We made a slight diversion on the return to Le Batleur in Neuilly where we stopped for a just about passable lunch. The round trip  was just under 12 miles and we spent a comfortable hour and forty-one minutes riding, not including the stop for lunch, so not Tour de France pace.

Les Gnomes de Marsilly

The first thing to be noticed in the backyard was the overgrown vines, swamping the fuchsia bushes - all a bit of a mess really. The second thing to notice, or rather not notice, was that there was no sign of the gnomes. Cutting back the vines and tidying up the fuchsias revealed that they had clearly gone to ground in May under the vines, and lived a "sheltered" life. let's hope the are not in the mood for rebellion.

You turn your back for ten weeks...

 Reflecting on a small moment at Easter

We were cycling around by the church and approached the Relais de la Poste, our trusty, lunchtime only, local resto. We decided to stop for a breather and a local passed us telling us "Il est ferme" We thought that we could see that for ourselves and shrugged our shoulders. We thought we recognised the local as the patron but thought nothing of it.
We now realise he was telling us that "it is closed" as in gone, kaput, no more and not just shut for the day.

Juin 8th jour de la foire de greniers

Even when I read something in the local newsletter about Le Ancien Relais and a reference to Restaurant Aux Savours De Marsilly did it occur to me that the Relais was gone and replaced by the said ASdM in the same premises and it opened on June 8th. And here's the thing - a close inspection of the opening times shows that, while it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, for the rest of the week the bar is open from 10.00am to 9.30pm the resto is also open in the evenings 7.00pm to 9.30pm. A new dawn.

However not everything has changed as the third snap shows - this past weekend was a Fermenture Exceptionnelle and it was close on Saturday and Sunday. Quelle surprise.

Peter
And now for something from yer one.
Sunday morning and as normal we are listening to Brian Matthews,that's because we are often busy on a Saturday morning when he is on live. So it's a delight to see that the british licence fee for the beeb ensure that even in the depths of France one can hear decent musich. The very first song up is from Cliff Richard which yer man can sing along to every word and in time. Bet not a lot of people knew that he was a CR fan including me. There was him saying he was a soul man. Now I know why he was sad when they put the roof on Wimbledon.

Journeying to France - a view from Ms O'Reilly

Saturday July 26th

5.00am and the alarm beeps to wake us to get up and get ready for our 5.45amish departure. I say ish here regarding our departure time because it had been the subject of conversation throughout the proceeding days. It went like this me: “we only need to be there 45 minutes before the boat sails and sure if we miss it there is another one” yer man: “anything could happen on the way, you never know”.  There’s no denying that statement.

So you can visualise the scene as we pulled out of the drive at 5.57am! We decided it would be best if I drove as once we hit the major traffic jams, that one gets at 6.00am on a Saturday morning,  yer man could navigate us around them.  The reason for the delay being that the coffee machine (a Nespresso no less) had broken down the previous day, and so making coffee was a bit long winded.  This in a home with a premier account with Nespresso which means that if we don’t order 500 capsules every 4 weeks from them, they call us up.

We have Satnav in case you didn’t know, Nellie is its name and she was called into action as we left Beckenham, just in case. An upside or a downside, depending on which side of the car you were sitting in, is that it shows the estimated arrival time. In our case 7.40! So that would leave us 10 minute late of the ideal arrival time, but still 35 minutes before the boat actually left Portsmouth.  Not a beep was said, many a marriage has survived with this strategy.

We reach the M25 in 25 minutes, which did prompt Nellie into estimating our arrival at 7.34am, so we were heading in the right direction in more ways than one. On to the top of the A3 and within another 15 minutes we are whizzing past Guildford nicely. It was a super morning to be on road, conversation was a tad light though.

As we pulled into the Brittany Ferries port, the tailback was out the gate, literally. They had more staff then you could shake a fist at and oh yes we arrived at 7.25am… 5 minutes before the expected time. I said nought you will be pleased and surprised to learn. However yer man did comment that the journey was all a little stressful. “Was it?” I said putting on a slightly surprised tone?

We did however (interesting use of the collective pronoun here. Ed) manage to manoeuvre ourselves into the slowest checking-in queue, and when we finally got to checked in, I asked did he have a problem with his computer? He smiled and said oh no, it is all fine. “Then why? may I ask are you processing cars at such a slow pace compared to your colleagues…”

Boarded and sailing it was lovely to sit down with the weekend newspapers and upon reading an article in The Guardian announcing that 10 million children had broken up from school that week, I thought you don’t need to tell us that, as far as I could see around me, they are all on this boat.

Thankfully we have the foresight to book ourselves a cabin and mega zzzzzz where had. It had been quite  while since we took a day time crossing to France and an even longer time since we did the Portsmouth to Caen route. Our early start led us to go to the restaurant and have a leisurely breakfast. The late departure, and therefore late arrival gave us the chance for another visit o the restaurant for a light lunch – well we are on holiday!

One benefit of arriving on time (hahaha.Ed) at the port in Portsmouth, i.e. not so early that they bung you and your little car up on the top deck away from the zillions of 4WD’s and their trailers, roof racks and bike racks, is that you are more likely to be on a normal level car deck. This meant we disembarked within minutes of docking and were tootling down the motorways of France and arrived nicely at Chez Marsilly at 7.53pm – Nellie kept us informed.

Fuchia and Vine abound

We unpacked and tucked into our M&S picnic (brought in case of an emergency!) and yer man says "I am off out for a walk". I felt it was best to stay and mind the house but within 3 minutes he is back with the amazing news that the Bar - Tabac - Presse at the end of our road is not only open at this god forsaken hour (9.15pm) but has live music. So we trotted down and yes there they were. We were speechless, well until the wife came and asked us if we’d like a drink.

I say speechless because this is a business that when we arrived in Marsilly choose the hours it opened based on, well not on any obvious plan we could work out. 8am – 10am and maybe 4pm – 6pm if you were lucky. Every so often a sign would appear on the door “ferme expectionalle”.  So to be open on a Saturday night and with music was surprising but fun. We stayed about ½ hour, the local were playing music and singing. It was nice in a French sort of way. 

Home and an early night after a long day and I sleep soundly with the realization that I will probably never arrive bang on time for a ferry crossing again!

Sheila (what is the speed limit around here?) O’Reilly

Les Flots at Chatelaillon-Plage

On our way to play golf at La Jarne (just extended from six to nine holes and renamed Golf La Rochelle du Sud) we visited Chatelaillon-Plage the other day for a walk along the front and to have lunch at Les Flots.

This picture is from last summer and shows the "conservatory - extension" that seemed to indicate it was thriving. Well now its is gone and in its place is a building site on which a major expansion of the hotel side of the business is being built. The new building is way bigger than the current one and it will be interesting see it when it is finished.
Cheers P

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

O'Reilly réflexions du dimanche matin

It’s hard to appreciate it but we’ve been here over a week and I wonder what have we actually done?

Yeah ok, I have hovered downstairs and upstairs as well as dusting around and we’ve cleaned the bathroom, oh what exciting lives we live. I brought very little actual work with me as I was lucky enough to action most of it before I left as well as leaving a number of tasks to the team – they made the mistake of saying “no” when I asked if had they much on their plate to work on!

However I do “have to read” the 10 books that are on the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year as the judging lunch is the day after I get back. Lunch; yup we make the decision of the best book over lunch, that’s what really swung it for me when asked.

So the piles of books are placed on the shelf above the fire and off I read. A week in with seven down and now I have just three left. So far it has been immensely enjoyable which is just as well as I have said yes to being a judge for another award and that involves 40/50 books. I felt the need to repeat the 5 weeks in the summer we did last year as time is needed to read that many books.

It’s now Sunday morning and there’s a storm brewing, weather wise I mean. The wind and rain is very strong so I am proposing to yer man that it’s soup (which I am making) and then an afternoon by the fire. However, the most exciting thing that’s happened this morning, is that someone else has parked outside our house… yes I know outside OUR HOUSE. This is just like being at work when I leave to do school deliveries and someone else parks outside the bookshop in my parking space. At the bookshop we put up signs saying no parking, and though it makes no difference, but I am not sure we can actually do that on a public road in France… I’ll put it to yer man and see what he says. Himself was off buying food for dinner, firelighters and a pain au raisin as a treat for us this morning and had to take the car because it was raining.

I did text him to say someone had parked OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE but he had his phone on silent so he didn’t know until he swung back around to park! 

The phone was on silent because, I think, he was out of the house and thought to himself phew a break from yer one and her requests of “let’s move this” or “let’s clean that”.

WHY US?

The most exciting thing of yesterday was that we bought a new pole to open our new Velux windows and a new toilet seat – how good does it get, I ask?We needed a new toilet seat because the guy who was fitting the Velux windows either stood on the seat to reach the window, or else he thought he’d piss from a height. Whatever it is not the toilet seat we left here in August and dos not fit properly. Now that’s a mystery that we’ve been unable to get to the bottom of (excuse the pun) but there you are and currently the gnomes are taking the blame.

The new Velux windows look good, there’s no more rain dripping into the third bedroom however, say if I am wrong here; you ask for the job to be done, it’s spec-ed up and all looks good. We turn up and what do we find, he didn’t think it was worth including a pole to open the bloody things! What did he think we were, 10 foot giants, I mean did it not cross his mind that one of the thing we just might want to do is open the windows. So whilst we were shopping for the toilet seat in our favourite shop in the whole world (Leroy Merlin  cf B&Q), we spotted they also sold Velux windows and thought, would they, would they just maybe, sell the poles to reach up and open them. They did and because we knew the price of what they were in England (doesn’t everyone) we thought we’d check the price before buying, just in case there’s the slimmest chance that they are more expensive in France – as if.  We wanted to know the price in particular  since we’d only found the telescopic version, whereas we wanted the normal version, we are not the smallest people in the world. A simple task you’d have thought but took three members of staff and you’ve got to ask how come there’s 15% unemployment here?
First up it took two guys to scan the bar code and read it, or not in this case, on the computer. After a couple of attempts and blank faces one of the guys took us to another till point where a third guy got involved. In the middle of all this I helped a small woman lift a huge plank of MDF from the top of an enormous pile of wood – all without exchanging a word (that’s female solidarity for you)

Whilst my back was turned helping the little woman, himself managed to somehow ditch the telescopic pole and have in his hands a normal pole. I only had my back turned for a minute and I say wow how did that happen and he said he didn’t know, they third guy just gave him the smaller version. So it might take three of them to sort us out but they are telepathic – whose says French workers are not the real deal. So as the tale goes, all’s well that ends well though we still didn’t know the price.

And we did more, yup once you are on a roll why stop. We decided we head out for lunch, over to l’Aubrecay which is a little enclave about a mile away so we cycled. There are lots of pluses to cycling there including the fact that you can have a glass of wine. The restaurant is on a roundabout with about 30 houses backing onto it, we have already had reports from Michael and Ann that it was great and so thought we’d check it out and are delighted to confirm that it lived up to all our expectations. By not being in London this Saturday morning himself missed his French class so it was great to get a bit of chat with the Madame of l’Aubrecay which included her telling him that it is a long time since she spoke English. I was in such relaxed and chill form that I choose not to have anything vegetarian but went for the fish stew, the daredevil that I am. Once I’d passed over the langoustines and scallops to himself, I was grand.

After all that stress and exertion we thought we’d take a rest and watch Pointless Celebrity, no wonder no one wants to come on holidays with us.

Parfois, je pense qu'il est tout totalement inutile

Excusez-moi, avez-vous vu ma balle?

The Easter weekend has flown by and everyone in Marsilly is settling back to their normal work routines, except us! We have thirteen days ahead of us before we set off back to the UK and whilst we both have things we need to attend to, workwise, we aim to switch off the metronome of regular life and have a good break.

Golf clubs at rest

Sunday was a lovely day and the afternoon saw us on the golf course for our first game this year. Not just the first game of the year but also the first since we were here in August last year, so the first game in eight months. We had picked up from the various local newsletters delivered to the house in our absence that that the management of the club was undergoing change and it was clear that things were beginning to change but only superficially. We learned for a member of staff that the new management had taken over in January so it will be interesting to see how things develop.

We were both decidedly rusty and this was a bit awkward since we were joined up into a foursome on the first tee with two blokes. One was on holiday from Bordeaux, visiting his brother who lives in La Rochelle. The second was a local, a club member, who was delighted to be able to play with a fellow Frenchman who could clearly play golf. By the third hole we had all relaxed a little and something resembling a conversation (in Franglais) was struck up and the whole thing was very amiable.

The “local” only played the first nine holes and left the three of us to continue. At the tenth tee we met our fellow golfer’s wife, brother, sister in law and a third women whose relationship was beyond our French to comprehend. They formed a mini gallery and followed around the rest of the course, this did not do very much for my golf but had the added bonus that they were keen to join in the search for any ball lost in the long grass – as mine was on several occasions. This also helped them realise we are not native French speakers and that we were actually quite friendly just a bit short language skills. We developed a  series of friendly exchanges around “Le golf est tres difficle” – a bad shot and “Le golf est tres facile” – a good shot. Interspersed with a bit of “pas mal” and the odd “pas problem”

We arrived back from the course about 7.30pm and knew that the four hours we had spent chasing little white balls along 6km of uneven ground would ensure a good night’s sleep.

Monday was mostly sunny but cooler and with more of a breeze – not really warm enough to lounge in the backyard and read. Our trip out was to La Rochelle in the afternoon. WE parked in a near deserted Place de Verdun and strolled down towards the Vieux Port past the market place and the main shopping streets. Much to our surprise lots of the shops were open, but everything was very quiet. With the sun shining it was no surprise to find that all the activity was at the pavement cafes and market stalls overlooking the harbour.

After a rather indulgent sit-down ice-cream we decide to take a “cruise” – or rather take the ferry over to Minimes and enjoy the sea air and have a gander at how the marina extension work was progressing. I is clear that they are near completion and the work of commissioning the new has pontoons already begun and will be complete by the summer. When complete there will be moorings for 4,500 boats, up from 3,500.

A quiet evening in – reading and snoozing to prepare for the rest of the holiday.

Visitors and locals stroll by the pavement cafes

Thinks "perhaps ride on the ferris wheel"

Boats at rest in the Old Port

The embarkation point for the ferry to Minimes

A view from the ferry arriving at Minimes

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!