Two reminders of Nantilly

This morning I went online and paid the EDF bill for electricity for the house and Sheila checked me in for my Ryanair flight on Friday next. Sheila is taking the car over on the Tuesday night sailing and I follow on three days later. I aim to work at home on the Friday morning and go from here but it is a busy week with a trip to Berlin squeezed in - out Wednesday evening and back Thursday evening - so I will have to see how it goes.

The lavender is attracting loads of action

including this thing - about the size of a little finger end - much bigger than any of the regular bee and wasp visitors. It has a long delicate thing at the front that dips into the flowers and also has two attenna. Pictures probably not a lot of help unless you are very good at insects.

It could be England....

The Murray semi final at Wimbledon is on the telly, O'Reilly is glued to the set, a beer is by my elbow and the sun is shining. But all this is happening in Nantilly. We are here for our final weekend before our summer holiday.
Flying in you can see how beige the landscape looks and at ground level you see the cereal fields are ripening and the harvest has begun. Far less than last year, there are fields of sunflowers that should be heavy with seed when we are back at the end of July.
The backyard is almost over run with the two lavendar bushes that have gone huge - harvesting them last year must have driven extra growth and we will have to figure out what to do with them.
On arrival we threw all the windows open to let the spledid evening sun and gentle breeze air the house and once O'Reilly realised that the tennis would go on for a bit, we popped up to Esnandes for supplies. Tonight will be home cooked Pave de Julienne (fish of some sort) with bechamel sauce, leeks and some other vegetable.
Tomorrow we have a mid day tee time and a reservation at Viviers for moules et frites in the evening.
It is a fourth set tie break and O'Rielly is giving me a running commentary - well by the time you read this you will know the outcome.

Peter prepares for golf

with zen like meditation on a Taylormade Burner Driver

The longest day.....

....well in some ways....as it was 8.20 before either of us got out of the bedroom!

A footnote on yesterday- Peter walked down to the local (Marsilly) boulangerie Le Festival de Gout for breakfast to find that it had started its three week holiday on June 15th, reopening on July 7th; a long wait for breakfast.

The cycle ride to Viviers went well, although it was a bit breezy, the moules et frites were up to expectation. They have expanded the menu a little with a wider range of food and drink. We had a very pleasant Il de Re chardonnay "Soif D'Estavin" if I remember it right at 9euro.

Also thinking back to the golf we learned that sable is french for sand and that merde seems to be the french for the golf term"four". Certainly every time Henri, one of our playing partners, hit a wild shot he shouted "merde".

So to this morning and it was a cycle ride to Esnande for Peter to pick up the makings of breakfast and lunch. We are playing golf (nine holes only) with a tee-time of 2.20 so we are going to have "proper" lunch (starter, main, cheese) at 1.00pm. This will see us through the rest of the day and all the way home to Beckenham tonight.

Glorious day again and we are off to have un tasse de cafe & tea in the back yard. A bientot.

Tomorrow is a big fete for the longest day all over the region

Yesterday's 15.20 Ryanair departure from Stansted brought the two us over and by 18.00 (local time) we were in the house.Everything was in order, although there was a small chemistry experiment taking place in the fridge involving tomatoes.

By 18.30 we had visited the local shops in Esnande and bought bread and cod for our evening meal and also called at Viviers to book a table for dinner tonight. Dinner was baked cod in tomato and onion sauce served with pommes frites du four, followed by cheese and accompanied by a modicum of alcoholic beverage.

Saturday has been a wonderful day weatherwise, a little chill in the early morning sun but perfect for golf as we enjoyed our first round at La Pree in 2009. We were paired with two memebrs who wanted to play a "scramble" to practise for the competion tomorrow. This is the same competiton that has kept us off the golf course until 2.30pm tomorrow. We will have just enough time for nine holes before catching the 18.00 flight back.

Viviers tonight for moules and frites and we will be going on our bicycles to balance the frites with some exercise.

Last weekend in May

A Nantilly Note from afar.

This weekend Frank and Anne based themselves at the house and on Saturday collected Pat from Chateau Marlonge. They spent the evening at the house with Frank preparing and serving dinner as Pat and Anne enjoyed the summer evening in the back yard. By all accounts some gardening was done. One hopes the stopover at the house has dispelled some of the bad memories of her first attempt to spend a night here.

Pat made her way up the stairs for a comfortable night before setting off on stage one of her grand return. Step was a car journey (preceded by a bit of coastal sight seeing, to Poitiers. Stage two was a train journey to Lille and Stage three was being collected by Peter and Sheila and being chauffeured, via the Channel Tunnel to Beckenham.

It was a long day for Pat, reveille at 8.00am and arriving at Willow Court at 8.00pm.

It will be three weeks before we are back in Nantilly and it will seem strange that on that visit we may only have ourselves to please, and of course we are very pleased to have Pat so far down the road to recovery. The rest is up to her.

Welcome to Mary Treacy, this is Our Nantilly blog. You will get emails when we do a posting and besides seeing the post there will be a link you can click on and visit the blog and catch up with past postings.

When flying here from Stansted there are always a number of
people who travel the route regularly who chat away about journey options, some of them clearly commute on a weekly basis. The chat on Friday was all about Ryanair increasing the cost of travelling substantially, soon it will be £5.00 to check in online. It is food for thought but it does seem clear that on the routes where Ryanair has no competition they are no longer seeing themselves as a low cost provider but rather a regional supplier with a captive market. I had a taste of a "regional supplier" a couple of weeks ago when I flew from Nantes to Madrid and back with an Iberia regional subsidiary, £600 return!

A wet and cool Charente Maritime

Both Friday and Saturday nights were nights to be in by a roaring log fire and that's exactly what we did. The rain put us off the idea of playing golf and the journeys to Marlonges precluded any future afield travels. Still it has been a lovely way to spend the weekend with birthday treat galore.

There was no real DIY to do although there are a couple of finishing touches to do here and there. It is ridiculous to suggest inanimate object can feel things but the house does seem to enjoy having people around. It has been almost continuously occupied since April 13th and Frank and Anne will be back here on Thursday.

We have started to talk to Pat about her returning to England as the Maison de Convalescence thinks the time is not too far away, maybe as soon as next weekend. Sunday morning is a dismal as yesterday so a bit of breakfast, a few domestic chores, a visit to Marlonges, a meal and then back to the airport for the six o'clock flight to Stansted.

Out in the back yard one of the yucca type plants seems to have sprouted flowers - see picture.

Friday evening moves or do I mean movies?

Well we will leave about 10.00am to drive to Caen for the late afternoon ferry back to Portmouth snf then the run up the A3 to Beckenham. Just listening to England trying to score the 32 runs they need to win the match against the West Indies. Currenly 14 for no wicket. What do you think to this?