HAPPY EASTER !!

We are normally in France by Easter every year.  In fact, even when we had the little holiday home in the village we spent every Easter there.   It was the first chance every year for a break away from work.  Even way before that, ever since Nick and I first met in 1993, we have spent every Easter in France on holiday, one way or another.  Last Easter we were stuck, like everyone else, at home, wishing things were different and wondering how it would pan out.  We never dreamed that one year later we would be spending another Easter still in the UK and not in France.   

This means I have to go back two years to find pictures I took in France at Easter time.  These pictures are of a shopping trip we made in 2019, wine shopping to a couple of our favourite producers.  Having just arrived in France for the next few months we needed to stock up and on the way we stopped at St Aignan to give Hugo a walk along by the river.  

We stayed in the Grand Hotel many years ago, in Spring, probably in about 1995.

That year we were on our motorcycles and treated ourselves to a few days in a nice hotel.  The holiday was most memorable for the weather, which was terrible, and the hotel dining room.  It was really old fashioned, serving a very traditional French menu (which we liked) and it was the first place I watched a waitress serve the cheese using two knives.  Balancing the cheese plate on the palm of one hand she deftly cut slices of cheese with the other using two knives.  We were in awe!!  The cheese was delicious (the local goats cheeses are fabulous) and we had the cheese course every evening just so we could watch the two-knife spectacle.

The weather was pretty nippy at Easter in 2019, judging by Nick's thick coat.

Hugo enjoyed his walk by the river, which looks quite full and very grey, reflecting the cold grey sky.  Hugo himself is quite grey now.  I sometimes forget how totally densely black his fur was when he was little more than a puppy.

A double row of tilleuls - pollarded linden trees along the Cher river bank.

They're a frequent sight in France, waiting for the change in the weather that brings them into bud and then magnificently into full leaf providing so much important shade from the sun.

I hope you get a bit of sun wherever you are this Easter.

TIME TO BREATHE AND WHAT’S IN A NUMBER?

After a great deal of aggravation, we finally moved house in the UK on Monday, 4th September.

Our removal van arrived at 9.00am as promised and the lads started work, emptying each room and loading the van.

We cleaned each room within an inch of its life as it was emptied of furniture and boxes.  At 2pm we left, putting the one remaining key through the letterbox and were happy that we had left the place spotless and retired to the pub around the corner from our new house to wait.  A few phone calls and one hour later we still didn't have the go ahead - that we could take possession of our new house.  The removal men were sitting in the van outside it, waiting to get started with the unloading.

An anxious phone call from our solicitor to our vendor’s solicitor confirmed that while we were waiting patiently in the pub, the money had arrived three hours ago and that their agent had been informed - but the agent had simply not passed the message on!

Boxes and furniture were finally and hurriedly unloaded and dumped in the house in a vague kind of order, bearing in mind that the removal men had been sat doing nothing for three hours and were more than ready to go home. 

The house was very dirty.  We guess that after the old lady died the family removed her belongings (although not the piles of junk in the loft space), put the house on the market and did nothing else to it.  After one year of people traipsing round it, it was pretty filthy and all our furniture was on top of the dirt.  Fortunately, we had booked a room in a nearby hotel for the first night, to give us chance to get a bit of cleaning done before we actually slept there.  

We spent two nights in our new house then left for France, picking Daisy up from the cattery on the way back and arriving the day before my brother and his daughter arrived for their holiday on the 9th.

In case you’re wondering what the pictures have to do with all of this, the answer is nothing other than to prove that we did eventually have some time to relax at last and do some normal things.  We rode the motorcycles, enjoying some of our favourite routes, walked around the village, went to a couple of brocantes and bought a few bits and pieces, ogled the gorgeous cars on tour through Angles and caught up on our sleep.

Last but not least, we solved the mystery of the number 4.

When we arrived in France after an earlier dash across the channel (I forget which), we found that someone had stuck a number 4 on our gatepost.  We knew that some renumbering of properties was going on and therefore we were now number 4 – but of what road or street?  

The road does not have a name and we are not in a hamlet.  Not only that but where were numbers 1, 2 and 3?  Then last week the plot got thicker when we received a letter from the Mairie and a certificate telling us that we were now officially number 2!

So a visit to the Mairie seemed called for, whereupon the young lady in the office said we were definitely number 2 and she would look into it.  Two days later the very pleasant young man who looks after the commune grounds, roads and gardens stopped by to change our number 4 for a number 2 and then……walked down the drive to humbly apologise for his mistake.  How nice and how very French. 

It appears we are number 2 “######” – the name of our house!  This is to avoid confusion for deliveries and, should we need it, the emergency services.  The neighbour is number 4 "######” – also the name of our house.  Numbers 1 and 3 do not exist. 

How very confusing!

Anyway, we are off to the UK again soon, for a longer spell, to start work on the new house.  One of the unfortunate things we have discovered about it is that it seems to be in a communication black spot.  There is no mobile signal and no 4G signal either, which means we effectively have no internet or mobile use in the house.  Getting something else organised will be a priority but will no doubt take some time – especially as we do not have the means to research or order it from the house.  Hey ho!

Normal service will be resumed…………goodness only knows when!

LIVE MUSIC AND THE CHÂTEAU DE BRÉZÉ

Moving house is really hard work and when we arrived in Le Grand-Pressigny we were pretty tired and jaded.  So before the French house hunting really got under way we decided to have a few days of rest and entertainment.

First, we went to the music festival at Barrou which is held down by the river on a Saturday evening one night every summer.  It’s called “Festival des Barroudeurs”.

This was our third “Barroudeurs” and as always it was a great start to any holiday.  For just a few euros each there was live music and the chance to meet up with friends in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere – the food tent and bar always help in that respect!

A couple of days later we decided to make the most of the good weather and have a proper road trip on the motorcycles – the forecast was not looking so good for a few days after that.

We decided to go to Brézé and visit the château there, talking the “pretty route”.  This usually involves several stops to check the map – something that is always a challenge on a motorcycle.  You have to pull off the road, preferably in a patch of shade, engage first gear, switch off the engine, put the side stand down, lift up the helmet, take off the gloves, rummage in the rucksack for the map, open the map (preferably the right way up) and, having ascertained the correct route, go through the whole process in reverse and set off.

In Luzé we stopped by the public map in the village square, hoping it might help and that we might not need to rummage in the rucksack for our own map.  Sadly it was no help at all !!

After an hour we had got as far as Chinon!

It was lunchtime by now so we stopped at the café opposite the monk Rabelais for a light snack.  Nick had a burger and I had omelette and frites, followed by an espresso.  A great way to perk us up to continue on our journey.

We had thought of having lunch at the château but as it turns out the restaurant there is closed on Mondays so it was lucky we ate in Chinon.  In any case, as soon as we parked up outside we realised we had been there before, many years ago, on a previous motorcycling tour of the Loire.

 

On that occasion we were less experienced at visiting châteaux and didn’t fully understand what a guided tour could involve.  At the time the château had recently re-opened its underground system to visitors and the girl in the ticket office was keen to sell us tickets for both the underground and the château itself.  We accepted her offer and set off behind the guide, along with a handful of other hapless tourists.

We entered the underground complex in brilliant sunshine and emerged over two hours later, completely exhausted and knowing everything it was possible to know about the caves, dormitories, bakeries and kitchens beneath the château.  Not to mention the wars fought, the attacks fended off and the gruesome details of how attackers were trapped and disposed of.  Or at least, as much as we could understand as it was all in French and our French was not that good at the time.  What we didn’t grasp we could fill in with our imagination.  All the time we were trailing our motorcycle helmets and jackets around with us.

By the time we emerged into fresh air and sunshine it was too late to use the other part of our ticket and see the upstairs!

 

This time we were a bit more canny.  We made sure we opted for the “tour libre”.  The visit to the underground was optional so we had a quick peek to remind ourselves what it was like then shot back above ground to see the inside of the château.

It was worth the effort……..to be continued!………..

TWELVE MONTHS IN TWELVE DAYS

ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS – THE MONTH OF JULY.

On 1st July we braved the cold wet weather and went to Clumber Park for a walk and to see the walled kitchen garden.  You would have thought it was the middle of March, not July.

After an awful drive down through France in torrential rain, we arrived chez nous to find the sun was out.  We spent the evening meeting up with friends and enjoying the music festival at Barrou – Les Barroudeurs.

 

 

 

 

 

I did quite a bit of baking and made, amongst others, a chocolate Guinness cake for Ken and Walt, and a pink birthday cake for Elizabeth.

Ken introduced us to Patricia at Domaine de la Renaudie, where we discovered that we enjoy winetasting even more than we thought.

Lots of local Bastille Day celebrations were cancelled due to the weather and ours was almost a washout – but the rain cleared up about 8pm and we soldiered on – in our scarves and anoraks.

But the weather wasn’t all bad.  On a lovely sunny day we visited Montpoupon with our friends Gail and Chris and treated ourselves to a posh lunch at the Auberge du Château.

And we had enough fine days to do quite a bit of tootling around on our motorcycles.

When we got back to the UK after our July holiday, Olympic fever had taken hold of the nation, and amazingly the weather was kind to us for most of the games.

Oh no, four years already !!

Last but not least, it was Lulu’s birthday in the middle of the month.

HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR’S EVE !!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Early in the first week of our August holiday, we went for a ride to La Corroirie, on the road north of Loches towards Montresor.

It felt really good to be on the motorcycles again. The only hiccup was that they had been standing out in the rain for a while the previous day and water got into the seat of my bike through the stitching along the seams of the seat. The water then came out again when I sat on it, resulting in a damp posterior on what was otherwise a lovely warm and sunny day. I was not complaining though, the seat on my new "baby Harley" was exquisitely comfortable.

La Corroirie is a 12th century fortified farming complex including a chapel. If you would like to read more, Ken of Living the Life in St-Aignan wrote about it here. It now offers B&B accommodation for guests. It's a fascinating place and well worth a visit.

 

After our photo-shoot we continued our road trip through many of the lovely villages that we were already very familiar with, then home along the quiet back lanes. The weather was perfect for motorcycling - dry and sunny and not too warm. It was absolute bliss. By the time we got home we had done 125 kilometres and I had enjoyed every minute.