...and think about just how much of the house still needs painting...
Monday, 24 August 2015
Relax, read a little, reflect as to why the sky is blue...
...and think about just how much of the house still needs painting...
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Friday, 21 August 2015
Thursday, 20 August 2015
Beckenham to Marsilly - a long way round
For this holiday we decided to tack on a short road trip to
take us from Beckenham to Marsilly. A saunter through the South Downs, before
travelling from Newhaven to Dieppe, a few nights in the Loire and then turning
up at le petit chateau dans Marsilly well rested. And that plan worked well,
not saying we didn’t have the odd hiccup, but rested, we arrived.
We were in fact so well prepared for our trip that we
decided to leave Beckenham a few hours early and stop at Tunbridge Wells for a
bit of shopping. Which was a lovely idea except for the one hour long queue to
actually get into the town, Hey ho it was worth it and Tunbridge Wells had survived the
last 5 years of a Tory government very well ideed, thank you very much. Just about every aspirational shop brand now has a presence in the town.
Onwards to The Flying Fish in Newhaven for a decent lunch
with top class service before taking the awesome scenic drive (not) to the port
that is Newhaven. One story I think sums up Newhaven, for the past 10 years
Veolia (a French company) have fought to build an “energy recovery” plant in the
middle of the town. That’s a huge waste incinerator to you and me. When I say in the middle, I mean it would be
like building a recycling plant at Marks & Spencer’s in Beckenham. The town felt, and quite rightly, too that it
had suffered badly in the recession (unlike their neighbours up the road in
Tunbrdige Wells) and that plonking an enormous building in the middle of it to take waste, was not going to help. I’d say they are right. Also I’d speculate that it
would not have happened in Tunbridge Wells.
We were third in line for the ferry and chilled out listening
to an amazing amount of dogs owners bond over their various pets. I can only
speculate that pets are free on DFDS ferries.
Apart from that there were a number of noticeable differences to a
Brittany Ferries crossing. Smooth tarmac
on the port, no, people in high-vis jackets directing you, no, information about
boarding, no, in fact any information at all would have been nice. On the upside it
was about £200 cheaper – no need for information that’s going to cost £200, I
can work out when I should be joining a queue to board a boat myself.
It’s a four hour crossing and we settled down for a disco
nap only to wake and find that somehow we were stuck in a time zone that was
neither French or UK and our smartphone clocks had gone back an hour! I know there is a
chunk of the UK population that thinks France is behind the UK but regardless
of your views, time wise they are ahead. As we sailed closer to the French
coast our watches
righted themselves, we disembarked at 10.30 local time and promptly found the
Brit hotel for the night.
Woken by bright sunshine the following morning and feasting
on the grapefruit and melon lovingly prepared the previous day we hit the road
for Chartres. French countryside is super, decent roads and not a lot of traffic, so that we were ready to find a picnic spot for our lunch. After an hour of
searching we’ve come to the conclusion that the French don’t have picnics north
of Tours so we parked up on the roadside to snack on our sandwiches.
And so onto Chartres, we had been convinced that we’d been
before however upon arrival neither of us recalled a single sight, that’s even
for allowing for the aging process. The cathedral is splendid and the town
itself sweet and after a good potter around we headed for our first Chateau b&b.
Chateau Esclimont welcomed us warmly and our room was super.
We did a tour of the grounds, fantastic with a lake fronting the house,
a moat and a river. A quick turnaround with a power nap resulted in us getting
down for dinner about 8pm and the food was excellent.
Overall we gave it an 8/10, losing 2 points for a bit of
faded glory, that was not stylish. We had not paid for breakfast and at €26E decided not to take up their kind offer that morning, finishing off the
grapefruit and melon in our room.
The next stage of our trip was to visit Illiers-Combray, the childhood holiday home and location of the opening of Swann's Way, of Proust. In preparation for this visit Peter has been rereading
A Remembrance of Things Past, or rereading the bit he read before. So as we
pulled into the village and everywhere was closed. We decided that this was
either a ghost town or that it was a Monday and sure enough it was a
Monday.
Ferme appeared on literally
every shop and on the Proust Museum although in true French style the
boulagaire was open and we source a croissant each to eat in the car park.
We also did manage to get some cold meat and cheese for our
sandwiches at lunch.
A few hours later
we decided lunch was needed and set out to identify a possible picnic spot.
We’d traveled far enough south that some places were now marked on the map as
possibilities and we dialed one into the satnav. We’d only gone about 1 mile
when the road we were due to turn down was closed for roadworks and we had to make a
deviation with no helpful signs! So we drove around in what we thought
might be the right direction and after about 20 minutes Peter, who was driving,
asked were we on the right road to which I said if I knew where we were and
where we were going to I might be able to answer.
Just at the right moment we found a lake where we could pull
up beside and have our lunch before heading off down the A11 towards Chinon. We decided to head straight to our next place of rest for
the evening Chateau Marcay.
There was a lot of highlights of this stay but
none more so than the petit tomatoes encased in a coating exactly the same as a
toffee apple. It will be no surprise to
friends that yer man has had a go at repeating them and I’m putting Michael
McKay on alert that it maybe raised in a discussion next time we are chatting.
Departing the Chateau bright and early on Tuesday morning we
headed through the idyllic French countryside to Loudon, then down to Poitiers.
We thought we’d been to Poitiers before – an occurring theme of this holiday.
Poitiers is definitely worth a visit, great town square with cafés and
restaurants and a lot of pedestrianized streets.
By now we’d been travelling for three days so decided to
scoot down the A10 and straight to Marsilly for an early afternoon
arrival. The house had been entertaining
the Lee Family for about 10 days however they were off with friends in Cognac
so we turned up to an empty house. Although an amazingly clean house, to say
the gauntlet has been thrown down in cleanliness is to make an understatement –
other borrowers take note J
A wonderful relaxed chat when Jack and Stella arrived
back over a splendid meal of Moules and Muscadet – now that’s how we loved to
be greeted. Good laughs, funny stories, it was good to be back at le petit
maison avec les amis.
It is all rubbish as far as I can see
Noticed on a walk this morning is this warning sign taped to a neighbour's recycle bin - which was still full.
We have been warned.
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