Here I am, don’t panic!

I’ve managed to find a spare half hour to update you on what’s been happening here over the last few weeks. As it’s been so long this will probably be a bit rambling, so bear with me!

The wedding photo

When our old neighbour Louis came round recently I showed him the old wedding photo that I found. He didn’t immediately recognise the couple, but said he would take it away and ask Anne-Marie, his wife, who had lived in our hamlet all her life.

A few days later he returned with good news – they had figured out that the man in the photo was a cousin of Louis’s family (cousin being a pretty loose term for any distant relative over here…) and the girl was actually born in our house! He proceeded to regale me with all the details, most of which I failed to understand sadly (Louis speaks very fast and has a thick Vendeen accent). Sadly, it appears that the couple divorced, hence why the photo had been discarded, but it was lovely to finally learn a little about my mysterious find.

A dip at Fontenay pool

While Lisa was away in England for a week, I stayed in France and looked after the kids. On the Saturday we went for our first ever swim in the pool at Fontenay-le-Comte [website here] and we were very impressed. There is a large 25m pool, for the serious swimmers, a children’s pool, with a jacuzzi area and a “lazy river” area that pulls you around in the current, a baby pool and a big water slide. It was a great session – the children thoroughly enjoyed it, and I like the fact that I could relax in the jacuzzi while they went down the slide as much as they liked. There were several life-guards around and we felt very safe.

One thing we noticed was the more relaxed atmosphere compared to pools in England. This was half-term so there were a lot of school children there but there was no trouble, no teenagers charging about and causing grief. The life-guards were not blowing on their whistles every minute, telling people off for swimming in the wrong direction or looking at someone in the wrong way. Very refreshing.

Working away

The main reason for my lack of updates of late has been down to my job. There has been a change of management and they have decided that the role I am in should be based full-time in the Maidenhead office. As you can imagine, this has not gone down too well with me and the family and is putting a straing on all of us. Curently I am having to fly back to England on a Monday evening and I return on Friday evening, something I really hate. Sadly, in the current climate, there is very little I can do about this. I need to work and new jobs are scarce, so for now I am going with it and seeing how things go, but it is certainly a big strain.

So apologies if updates here are few and far between for a while. Rest assured I will keep coming back and posting news, but it may not be quite as regular as I would like. Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon and I can get back to normal again.

Head-wind all the way to Maillezais

When Lisa’s mum and sister came to visit they gave Lisa and I a rare opportunity to go out on our own for the afternoon. Although we both were a little reticent, as family time together is rather scare at the moment, we took the chance and decided to go on a bike ride. We have a book showing the cycle routes in the Vendee and Lisa picked out an “easy” one wch ran from Maillezais to Maille, a round-trip of about 13km.

It was a lovely route, starting from the ancient Abbey de Maillezais and winding through the trees, along the canals and into the pretty village of Maille. What wasn’t so lovely was the weather, unfortunately. On the way there we had a head-wind and it was really hard-going. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad had the landowners not recently chopped down most of the trees that would have offered us some protection from the gale. As it was, each time we rode out into the open we were nearly blown off the path and into the canal! Still, we were out in the fresh air (and it certainly was fresh!) and enjoying ourselves, despite the difficulties staying upright.

Once we reached Maillé we stopped outside the church in the village square and ate our lunch of bread rolls and custard creams – we are hard-core survivalists and know how to keep ourselves going!

Fully anticipating the wind to have changed direction for our journey back, we set off with some trepidation. But we were pleasantly surprised to find that we did indeed have the wind at our backs all the way back to the car, which made the return leg of the journey go twice as fast as the outward one. Much more civilised!

Once we arrived at the car we explored the Abbey a little. It is a stunning place and is currently being restored. There are restaurants and a small gift shop there, and also a small jetty where, in the summer, you can hire boats to go exploring the canals of the Marais Poitevin. Definitely somewhere we will have to come back to in the summer with all our visitors!

So there you go, that’s what we’ve been up to over the last few weeks. Do keep coming back as I will try my hardest to update. And thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate all your comments.