France 2007

We went to Marmande but the market consisted of six stalls at the most, (mystery).

We then drove down to the ‘Prune Museum’ and tasted some prunes! They had a maze made out of maize which we sort of figured out and then headed for home. The weather today has been a bit dull but it hasn’t rained and we are still out at 21:15 after a decent, (so Andre says) BBQ.

We will probably play Uno now and Andre will probably lose again although watch tomorrows blog for results.

We went to St. Emilion. Andre had been there 33 years earlier! A bit touristy but a beautiful place none the less.

We had a tour of l’Eglise Monolithique and our Tour Guide, Francois Buchet told us he had taught several Guernsey advocates French some years ago. We had lunch under restaurant umbrellas and stayed mainly dry. The rain stopped and started but didn’t spoil things too much. We had music whilst we ate, a sax and an accordion – brilliant!

Andre drove up to Duras, (5 mins) and picked up some fresh croissants. We had a leisurely breakfast and then all drove to Duras and had a wander round. We booked the castle tour for Wednesday night and picked up a few leaflets. One of them was for a ‘Marche Gourmand’ which was a small market held by one of the local ‘Domaines’ (vineyards). We had a good meal of Moules et Frites followed by strawberries.

Nikki had some St. Emilion red with her meal and was so impressed that we actually paid 9 euros for a bottle of the stuff to take away!

We came back to the house at about fourish and relaxed by the pool etc. We had a bottle of white wine (??!!) which must have been a good one as neither of us had headaches after.

Andre got up at 6:30 and took Sean to Toulouse Airport. Sean’s mum arrived at the house at 11:30ish and we stayed and chatted for a while. We had a relaxing journey to ‘Fargot Nord’ stopping early on for a picnic by the river.

The new house is great, full of character and with all the creature comforts we need. The owners invited us to an evening of live music at ‘La Moulin de Mon Poisson’ (yep we thought it a strange name too). This was a country pub next to a river. Paul Tiernan, (Paul and Anne own the house we are renting) plays in a band. He plays guitar and mandolin and is a great musician with the ability to play in all sorts of styles. We stayed for one set and would have stayed later but we were all fairly tired.

Tip of The Day!! When in Spain, do not buy this wine! Rioja needs to cost at least 5 Euros to taste good.

On the other hand, we bought some really cheap Sangria yesterday, (three litres) and now there's none left, Sean drank most of it whilst hoovering !!??

Today we went to Seissan and spent the morning wandering round the traditional market. There were antique cars and some fairly antique people, in costume, (antique) doing various things with bread ovens and knife sharpening thingys, etc.,

This afternoon we relaxed by the pool, although Andre decided to walk into the village and back again, (?????) .

This is our last evening here. moving to new pastures tomorrow. If you don't see a new blog by Sunday lunchtime - we aint got internet access!!

Off to Spain today! Just over 2 hours in the car. As we climbed up the Pyrenees on the French side, we found ourselves in thick cloud. In the middle of a 3km tunnel we crossed over to Spain and came out of the tunnel to find bright sunlight!

We drove 12km to Bielsa and had lunch at the restuarant in the picture. Diesel is only 97 cents a litre in Spain so we filled up before coming back. (French prices seem to vary between 104 and 130 depending on where you fill up).

For tea we ate BBQ'd Brie, duck, horse and burgers. We had bought a cheapish Rioja in Spain - not the best we've tasted! We also bought some Sangria and some Port - very cheap by the litre in a plastic container.

Our evening game of Uno found Andre losing again, although in his defence he did inherit about 20 cards from Matt, (we play the place a zero, swap cards rule).

Went kayaking today, (I hope that's how you spell it).

Just over two hours of mainly peaceful river with a few rapids thrown in for good measure. We all got fairly soaked although Sean and Dan achieved the best result with a full capsize! Unfortunately we couldn't take photos as all our stuff had to be in waterproof containers.

Sean used his (waterproof) video gizmo so we might be able to post a video on the web - watch this space.

We had another BBQ and then played Uno with Andre coming a creditable sixth!

Tomorrow, Spain.

Click here to see our route.

Today we continued a tradition by finding one of those 'Indian Forest' thingys where one swings through trees and slides down 'Tyrolean' slides.

Lots of fun and hard work and a sense of achievement especially for Matt and Dan who found the last stage fairly difficult.

We discovered that when we finished it was about 5pm and we hadn't yet eaten lunch! We went off to a nearby supermarket and bought yet more food, (surely we bought enough yesterday??). We then arrived home at what Sean described as 'Beer o'clock' and.........had a beer and a swim. We managed a score of 57 on the pool 'keepie uppie' game and then had pizza for tea. We are canoeing tomorrow so we have an early start, (9:30 !!). Weather is great, very hot and sunny.

We bought Moules for tea and here we are just before eating them.

Then we played 'one spot, two spot' (for those of you who know the game), and Bex lost with 13 spots.

(We weren't allowed to show the photo)!

This is the view of the house from the pool. Today was very hot and sunny so we had a very busy time lazing by the pool, swimming, reading books etc.

We had a BBQ for tea and then went for a walk which Sean said would be 10 minutes. An hour later we arrived back home!

Market day tomorrow so we need to get up early.

Even in deepest France we can't escape technology. This picture was taken by Paul whilst he was at home in Latvia! So if he reads this blog, he can see the picture that he took when he wasn't even there...........!!

We are all now a bit cautious of the webcam as we obviously don't know who might be watching at any time. Andre is convinced that his mum will phone up and tell him to ease off the red wine.

Bex managed to sneak the teddy bear through customs - she can't sleep without it!

Bless!!

We have now arrived at Le Barraque - pictures to follow:

Meanwhile to view the live webcam, click here

Breakfast was.......different! We all intended to have Croissants etc, but these chicken rolls looked good!

Not much in here?? Have we got everything? Seems like Andre's idea to travel light is working.

We left Guernsey in pouring rain and found that it was raining in France too when we arrived!

Got to hotel at 2330 so just as well we ate on the boat.

Big drive tomorrow.