Eating like a king

It amused me the way that this tin of mushy peas left the can for my tea tonight.



Oh how exciting my meal is!

Mind you, there could be red wine involved later on...

Lots to pack in the car can only mean one thing

There's a large pile of things next to the car, so yes, I'm off to our Gite again for a mixture of break and renovations. 

Since I last went I've been busy buying :

• New pillows for all beds
• Pillow protectors and bed protectors for all beds
• New toilet seat to replace the cheap one supplied with the toilet 
• Lampshade 
• Pull cords for the window blinds
• Repaired velex blind 
• Repaired ladder and swing for the climbing frame 
• Chlorine and flocculant for the pool
• New pool pipework 
• Fire blankets
• Cushion covers 
• Tea towels 
• More glasses for the kitchen 
• New bath mat

Plus a spare mattress, wardrobe, some light fittings and plumbing bits for the other house, and the list goes on. 

Off to the Gite for late Easter

10pm Thursday night and I'm sitting on the fairly deserted DFDS Delft Seaways ferry, just about to leave Dover for Dunkirk. 

I'm off for a week's holiday at the Gite, bringing more things over,and doubtless my week will include repairing the broken fence that someone drove through.

Misty still morning

Driving to Pontivy this morning we sped through misty lanes as the sun shone through.

It was an absolutely still morning, the windmills were static and the smoke from this industrial building was rising directly upwards.

Beautiful

A very rural French protest?

On our way back to the Gite on Saturday we passed this convoy of tractors and people marching.

The tractors all had tree branches attached to their cabs and were beeping their horns.

We saw some signs with an aeroplane with a cross through it, so maybe the protest was against an airport, but the nearest airfield is a tiny place so not quite sure what all the commotion was and why the tractors all had trees on them.

Very French!

Dismantling the ferry after our journey to France

We're over in Brittany on holiday at our Gite for 10 days at Easter.

Took the Brittany Ferry overnight sailing from Portsmouth Caen which was a good crossing although a lengthy drive to the port through the rain and UK motorway queues.

Typical Jack though on the ferry. Woke up in the morning to find that he had managed to drop his mobile phone down the side of the seat on the ferry, necessitating us getting a crew member and then an engineer (complete with his overalls on) to dismantle the seat in order to retrieve it.

Never a dull moment!

Paris Brest Paris cycle race

We're over at the Gite for our summer holidays, 3 weeks break, fantastic!

Yesterday we drove into Loudeac as Jack wanted to go to McDonald's and use their free Wi-Fi. Think that he was missing his social media contacts.

On the route we overtook a couple of cycles, then a few more and then more and more groups all strung out along the road from La Cheze and into Loudeac.
Everywhere we looked there was more cycles, some people standing by the roadside cheering them on, and in Loudeac itself there were camper vans full of cycling paraphernalia, lycra everywhere and more people supporting the race.

From the little yellow and orange arrows pointing the route I worked it out that we had strayed into the middle of the Paris Brest Paris cycle race which looked like a larger and more 'ordinary' version of the famous Tour de France.

There was all sorts of participants in the race from racing bikes, recumbent bikes, tandems, hand powered bikes for disabled racers and one really tall bike that I have never seen the like of before.

Dodging the French wildlife

Toby and I are over at our Brittany Gite for the half term holiday week.

We took the 9.10pm Friday evening MyFerryLink crossing from Dover to Calais for a very reasonable £70 return. Of course the M25 was as lovely as usual, an hour's queue for the Dartford crossing, but I'd allowed enough time and we were able to call at a Dover chip shop before we checked in, and drove straight onto the boat with no queuing on the quayside. Hurrah !

Got my head down to sleep on a bench for the crossing, and other than a few bits of rain on the journey (sophisticated French rain not boring old English rain) it was almost a trouble free drive through the night to the Gite.

I say almost, because whilst driving along one road I saw something grey standing on the edge of the road. As I got nearer I realised there were about 6 somethings beside and in the edge of the road. I swerved round them as I realised it was a pack of what I think were wild boars - grayish brown, about the size of a large dog, only more stocky and round.
Phew, good job I missed them as I am sure the car wouldn't have been happy if I'd hit them.

15 miles from the Gite I managed to take a right turning too early and ended up down a network of country lanes. Thankfully Sat nav put me right and we were soon at the Gite.

Walnuts - wasted

A sad tale of the wasted walnuts...

At a French car boot sale (brocante) earlier in the week and I spotted a vendor selling bags of walnuts, obviously harvested from their tree.

Fantastic, I love walnuts, they're my favourite nut, and I bought a large bag for what I thought was a very reasonable €2.
Of course afterwards the boys then pointed out the subsequent vendors selling walnuts for €0.50, but I replied that the other sellers had much smaller bags so surely I had the best bargain.

Back home I cracked open a couple of nuts but found that as they were so fresh the nuts inside were quite moist and thus didn't taste as expected.

So I left the two open nuts and the rest of the bag to dry out.

Fatal mistake. I clearly have a lot to learn about how to harvest and eat walnuts straight from the tree because today when I came back to the opened nuts I found a nice growth of blue mould on them both, and the others that were unopened that I smelt also had a mouldy smell to them too.
Cracked a few open and some had small bits of visible mould, and whilst some didn't I decided not to risk it and consigned the whole bag to the composting bin.

€2 lost :-(

Maybe I should have dried them all in the oven straight away? Dunno, this was all new to me.

Forgot the headlights

We're off to our Gite in Brittany again for half term holiday.

All was a bit chaotic with packing the car and getting ready, made considerably harder because I have been away with work all week including today when I was in Winchester. Long drive back home to Bedfordshire, collect the family and then drive down to Dover - all in the rush hour traffic of course!

En-route to the port I remembered that we hadn't got anything to adapt the headlights from left to right hand drive for driving in France.

Oh well resigned myself to buying adaptors at no doubt an inflated price on the ferry.

Fortunately we got to Dover with half an hour to spare so were able to go and find some shops. Thanks to Asda we were able to buy a roll of thick black gaffer tape for £2 which did the job perfectly.

Happy days!

Pizza time - Le Petit Tonneau

Quick post...

Tonight we popped out for a meal at Le Petit Tonneau (the little barrel) in Rohan which is about 15 minutes drive away from our Gite, on the road to Pontivy, and is immediately beside the Nantes / Brest canal that runs through our part of Brittany.

Le Petit Tonneau is a mainly pizza restaurant with both a takeaway and an eat in restaurant service. We've eaten there a few times and once again it was a great meal, very tasty and filling pizzas and tagliatelle cabonara with wine and soft drinks came to a very reasonable €41 all in.

After the main course we were so stuffed, none of us could even manage a desert - even Banana Split was too much to face! Clearly a good meal!

Fête du Pain et des Battages

Weather was a bit variable first thing this morning although it cleared up and was hot and sunny by the later afternoon so we went out from our Gite for the afternoon.

Before I went to Brittany I checked the Points Dechine website that lists many local vide greniers (car boot sales), fêtes and brocantes (antique fairs).

We went to one just the other side of Loudeac, about 20 minutes away, that had a car boot sale and country fair combined. It cost just €3 to enter and we had a great day out, looking at the Breton shire horses, local craft stalls, horse dressage show, hay making, side shows plus the obligatory galette saucisse (buckwheat pancake with sausage filling) for lunch.

Here's a few photos from the day.

(The last picture isn't a medieval torture device, it's a frame to hold a horse whilst it is being shoed. Liz wasn't in favour of it though)

Forgotten things come in threes

You know the.old saying that "bad things come in threes", well so far this trip to our Gite I'm proving it quite well.....

Forgotten item number 1, realised as we sat in the queue to board the ferry that we'd not brought any headlamp beam adaptors. I usually use a strip of gaffer tape, but had forgotten to pack the roll of tape (unlike the people in the next car in the queue)

Item number 2, remembered as we queued to get off the ferry and was looking at the car in front that we didn't have the magnetic GB sticker with us.
There's plenty of advice for driving in France on our Gite website. Pity I didn't read it before setting off!!

Number 3 took longer to discover. We stopped off for a cup of tea on the way down through France.
Retrieved the cups, milk, thermos of hot water from the car all ok, but the tea bags? Must be in the car somewhere, kept pulling things out, emptying the boot, looking inside bags and boxes, but no sign whatsoever of the errant tea bags.

Rats must have forgotten those as well.

Hopefully no item number 4 ....

Always on the lookout for Brittany books

Walking in Brittany: Fully Mapped Guide to 30 Scenic Walks
(Bartholomew Walk Guides)

Ever on the lookout for useful books and items for our Brittany Gite, I spotted this Brittany walk guide book on ebay last week for the princely sum of 99 pence plus postage.

I stalked the auction to the end, then nabbed in at the very last minute and was lucky enough to bag a little bargain. The book arrived today and I've enjoyed flicking through and looking at the walks described within it.

The walks are largely all around the Brittany coastline, with quite a few in Finistere. There are fortunately some in "my part" of Brittany, with walks in St Brieuc, Carnac, Plouha, Berneuf, and more, that are all easily within reach of our central Brittany Gite right on the Morbihan/Cotes d'Armor border.

When I next go over to the Gite I will pop it on the bookshelf for the benefit of our guests. Everyone of course is more than welcome to come and stay in the Gite to "try out" some of the walks themselves !

Saturday is Josselin Market Day !

Every Saturday morning the streets of Josselin are closed to traffic and a busy market runs in the heart of this lovely mediaeval "little city of character" down the hill towards the Chateau.

The market runs down the hill and the normally quiet streets are packed with sellers of just about anything - fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, clothing, household wares, pots & pans, hot roast chickens, table clothes, computer games, plants, plastic BB-guns, hand-made jewellery, Breton cider, and much more. There's even a stall selling beds and folding dining room tables right next to another selling fresh chickens!

It can be quite hard walking down through the throngs of people because the residents of Josselin and the surrounds seem to take the event as an opportunity to stop and catch up on all the local gossip as well.

Every time we are over in Brittany we try to go to the market, mainly to browse, to buy a kilo of fresh green French beans and a demi of peaches or plums, the kids buy some XBox games from the English video game seller, and we treat ourselves to a scrummy sausage pancake for just a couple of euros from one of the stalls.

One of the other things we have as a little family tradition when we visit Josselin is we take a family picture. We don't often stop as a family to have a group photo but we now almost always stop in the same little park by the top of the market and I balance my camera on a wall to take the shot.

On my blog photo we have an older one of these family photos, which must have been taken at least 4 years ago, maybe more, because our children look an awful lot younger than they did in the photo taken this year, and I am sure I had much more hair then! I think it's just that I'd had a haircut just before my holiday, well that's the story I'm sticking to anyway ...

As well as the hair and age of the children this photo also has Whitey with us, our second dog who is a little love but does like sleeping in Dexter's bed.

Much more details on the lovely city of Josselin, which is about 15 minutes from our Gite is on our Gite website. We also have details of the times and days of Brittany markets in other towns near to our Gite. Please do come and enjoy Josselin market for yourself, we love it!

Flap, flap, we've got a flat; necessitating a French garage trip

Friday morning I got up and decided that I really needed to clear the big pile of rubbish from our second (renovation project) house. The heap of broken bits of plasterboard, broken kids toys, bits of swimming pool, etc was in the way and it was time to take it to the local waste recycling centre (déchetterie) so I loaded up the car and drove off.

Unfortunately I'd once again forgotten the opening times of the centre and when I got there I saw the sign that said they were open only on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. So drove back home with all the rubbish in the back. Liz asked me where I'd been so I told here I'd "taken the rubbish out for a drive in the country!" She was not overly impressed especially as the car was now full of stuff.

Made the point of going and writing the opening times on a spare bit of plasterboard wall in the old house so that I didn't make the same mistake next time we visit.

Next morning (Saturday) I also got up first thing and this time I knew that I would be able to empty the car. Drove off out out of the Gite and down the lane leading to the Gite to be greeted by a flap flap noise coming from outside of the car.

Stopped and got out to look, and rats, the front passenger side tyre was completely flat.

Fortunately I knew that there was a garage in St Etienne which was not that far from our Gite, I'd never actually been to the garage and wasn't even sure if they were open on Saturdays and did tyre replacements, but it seemed the best option to carefully limp the car to the garage.

Along the way I tried to guess what the French words for 'I have a flat tyre', but couldn't remember the words for tyre or wheel so gave up and just went for a limp J'ai une problem avec ma voiture, and pointing to the offending part which did the trick and I was sent to wait in the office.

After a very brief wait a service technician arrived, whipped the wheel off the car, inflated it and found the nail-sized hole in the tread that was gushing air out.

I have to admit I was fearing that we could be in for a multi-day problem trying to find a replacement tyre in France that would fit our UK car, but no, he got what I can only describe as a large hooked needle, threaded through the eye of the needle something that looked like hemp covered in a pliable material, inserted it into the hole in the tyre, twisted to remove the needle, and then cut the excess hemp off.

Job done. He inflated the tyre and to my surprise started putting it back on the car. Over the years every time I have had a flat tyre it has resulted in having to buy a new tyre so I was quite impressed that he'd been able to repair it so quickly.

C'est bon pour l'autoroute? (it's OK to drive on the motorway?) I asked, Oui was the reply.

I then managed to miss-hear the price I was asked to pay, muddling up quarante (forty) with quatorze (fourteen) so they were very confused when I handed over way too much money, but we sorted that out and I was pleased to end up only paying €14 for the repair.

Car all fixed I drove off to the waste tip and emptied the car before I got into any more trouble for being late.

So thanks to the garage for a super job, the tyre's been fine ever since, and I've added the opening hours for the garage to our "Gite Guide" so the benefit of our guests.

Went to the beach, Pleneuf Val Andre, North Brittany

Nice weather today so we up-sticks from the Gite and went (via a French car boot sale) to the beach at Pleneuf-Val-Andre which is a lovely sea-side resort about 45 minutes drive from the Gite on the North Brittany coast.

We found a massive underground car park that adjoined the Casino right on the sea-front, plenty of spaces and best of all it was completely free! So completely different from the UK where the holiday resorts take the opportunity to take what they can in extortionate parking charges from the tourists ...

Unfortunately dogs are not allowed on the beach in July and August so I stayed on the promenade at the top and watched the beach volleyball competition whilst Liz went down on the sand and the kids ran wild, dug holes in the sand and played in the sea.

Some hot crispy galettes smothered with jam or Nutella chocolate afterwards and then having found a free Wifi hot spot courtesy of the town council we all checked our emails !

Beautiful crossing to France

On Saturday we set off for a 2+ week holiday in our Brittany holiday home, and it looks like we've found the summer sun at last.  We crossed over with DFDS (a very reasonable £74 for a peak summer return trip), and as we stood on the deck of the ferry it was Toby who noticed it first that we could see the hills of the French coast opposite on the other side of the channel.

I can't think of when we last crossed over in such perfect conditions, there was hardly any swell at all and as we sailed over both the UK and French coasts were visible all the way.
It's a bit small on this picture taken as we were disembarking in Calais, but if you zoom in to the harbour entrance you can see the famous white cliffs of Dover some 22 miles away.

So far in our holiday the weather has held and it's been really hot and sunny. I'm even getting a sun-tan!

And FYI, this is how the photo got uploaded with the Blogger Android app direct from my phone - yuck !

Goodbye August, hello again Easter and July

A quick update on 2012 bookings for our holiday Gite in France ...

August 2012 is now completely fully booked and we've only got availability from September 1st onwards. Unfortunately for two completely different sets of cancellation reasons we've now got availability at Easter 2012 (from 31st March through to 28th April) and in the July summer period (up to 21st July).

For full details of all booked and currently vacant holiday dates see the calendar on our Gite website as we've still got a small number of weeks of availability in May and June as well.

Moncontour medieval videos

Following on from my earlier posting from the Moncontour medieval festival, here are two short video's to give some further flavour to the day's entertainment.

I tried more than once to upload these video's from McDonald's when I was in France but just couldn't get enough bandwidth over their free Wifi - so had to send these separately when I got back home to the UK.
(and sorry again to my family for having to sit around in McDonalds, twice, for over an hour whilst I tried !)

The first is of a procession coming up the hill for a "mock religious interrogation:

And the second is of some musicians walking past us: