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.