May – 2022. | capetocarpe

3rd Back to the Aire at St-Front-la-Riviére. A walk around the back of the village revealed a lavoir by the bridge and pretty village views.

6th. Following a disastrous AGM of the homeowners a very relaxing party at Gisél’s with her family and the usual suspects, Monique, Martine, Anna and Chantal. A good way to recover from the nasty aggressive meeting.

8th. Monique and I went to the Brocant at the Port via the market and the church. We had happy hours of wandering around the stalls and enjoying the sunshine.

We tried to find a table at one of the many port side restaurants but they were all full so we happily settled for the Portugese Tappas garden and enjoyed a glass and a shared Portugese Ploughmans!

10th Went for a lovely long walk in the fields today with my friend Muriel and our dogs. Orcgids and Poppies were in abundance.

and being a sunny day a water stop for dogs was obligatory

14th. Pippa arrived late afternoon in time for a walk in the fields before a dinner of roast Duck and an early night.

15th Got off in good time to arrive at the Aire in Brantom for lunch. There was a very good Brocante tasking place . We browsed around then did an explore in the old town ending with tea in the garden behind a book shop.

16th. After breakfast and a morning walk a short drive took us to St Jean de Cole, our next overnight Aire. This would position us well for the drive to Nanthian to sort out Patti’s house in the morning.

17th. Drove through to Nanthian and met up with the Estate Agent and the Tutrice and spent a good few hours sorting out some wall pictures, photographs, ornaments etc for customising Patti’s room.

Nanthian is a pretty village but there is nothing there, not even a boulangerie? The Chateau and Patti’s house excluded!

We cleared the house as best we could of the items that we thought Patti might like to keep then moved on to the Aire at St Front/R.18th. Pippa left this morning to continue her journey to Andora where she will meet up with other friends. We some agonising attempts at taking a selfie for the record.

I moved on to Notron to visit Patti then drove to Villbois for the night. Off home in the morning.

Seen on Cassidy and my evening walk around Villebois:-

20th. This evening was the Fête des vosines held in the street at the end of the development. A long table was formed with all our individual tables and laden with all sorts of really good home made food not forgetting the serious business of pulling corks and slicing quiche!

with 25 residents present it was regarded as a huge success and it was clear that everyone had a good time.

23rd Jon and Nicki arrived from UK for a lovely long week with me this evening.

24th. Jon made himself incredibly helpful round the house helping me with sundry DIY stuff that I had either not the courage or not the strength to perform myself. What a star. In the evening we walked down to the local cinema to watch “Downton Abby” the film. Tear jerker!

25th. A lovely day out for a visit to Ile Madam today. The “Island” is accessed at low tide via a causeway.

The fort which had operated at one time during the period of the Revolution as a prison for Priests. The fort was all fenced off though so not accessible

However the walk round the Island was pleasant and we enjoyed a good lunch in the van before taking the scenic route home.

27th. Lovely bike ride this morning to St Palaise sur Mer and back along the sea front with a coffee break en route.

We picked Sandi up from Royan station in the evening.

28th being a Saturday involved me getting my work up to date, Sandi recovering from various travels and Jon & Nikki going off for the day in Rochefort.

29th We all traveled together in the camper to St Prochaire to see the castle and its gardens and very impressive they were too.

On the wildlife front there was a very noisy froggy pond, a swan family and peregrine falcons in the sky.

A walk through lovely woodland took us to the caves that were once inhabited by prehistoric man. The on site museum featured many artifacts and a history of man in the region.

30th Jon and Nikki left around mid morning and Sandi and I loaded up the van and drove as far as St Cier Champagne to put us within easy reach of the Templar Chapel for tomorrow morning’s meeting with the guide from the Historic Society. The village theme for its decoration this year was countries of the world.

On my last visit to the village, last year, I had erroniously attributed the display of work to a very engaged school teacher and her pupils. However a quick stop at the Marie revealed that it was in fact the work of a small Association of village adults who had been choosing a different theme to illustrate for the last several years!

We tucked ourselves in behind the church for the night.

31st We arrived at the Temple in time for our visit even though we were confounded by road works and poor directions en route! We were treated to an hour of detailed examination of the wall paintings which were extraordinary and really well restored. There were also reproductions of water colour paintings done before some of the more aggressive restoration was executed, which showed what had been in the now vacant patches. We were not permitted to take photos inside the temple.