Into the West
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Tag Archives: beach
A mixed bag of news
A few snippets of news for you today…
Lost languages
Today the BBC are featuring a story [here] which reveals that half of all UK adults have forgotten the languages they learned at school. Luckily for me this wasn’t the case as my schoolboy French had to get me through many tricky situations when we first arrived!
What is hopeful for our kids is the following:
more than two thirds (69%) said they were jealous of people who were able to speak another language fluently.
Of those who can speak another language, 61% said it had been of benefit to their career, with a third (34%) saying their language skills have given them opportunities to travel and work abroad.
This bodes well for the future of our 3, who will leave school being fluent in at least 2 languages, possibly even 3.
Happy Birthday Craig
Craig McGinty runs the superb ThisFrenchLife web site [here], which is on my daily read list. It’s a great read, always full of interesting articles and news about all things French.
Well today is Craig’s birthday (age not revealed!) so what better time to head on over to www.thisfrenchlife.com and wish Craig a joyeaux anniversaire!
Front-page news toady includes Nicolas Sarkozy and his extra leg (!), news about banned Chinese milk products in France and a pointer to some free travel guides.
A busy weekend coming up
I will fill you in on the details next week, but this wil be another busy weekend!
On Saturday we are heading next-door to the apple-pressing barn where we will hopefully see the whole process from picking to pressing to bottling. With a bit of luck we will walk away with a nice collection of freshly-squeezed apple juice, which should keep us going for a while.
Then on Sunday we will be testing our French again as we meet up with some families who have links with Lisa’s nephew through school exchanges. So a trip to Montaigu near Nantes, then over to the beach to La Tranche-sur-Mer.
On the road again
(Photo under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic by krejcirkmira)
Due to some changes at work, I’ll be hitting the road to England quite a bit this month. This is a real pain and not something I really wanted to happen, but the situation is rather unavoidable at the moment.
Hopefully it will only be a very temporary measure and I can return to my rural hideaway very soon 
In the meantime, if you’re anywhere near La Rochelle, Stansted or Maidenhead, feel free to get in touch and we can have a coffee.
And finally…
Next Friday I will be the ripe old age of 37. I’m looking forward to a majorly-fun-time-friday, and an especially fun weekend with great friends.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with us. Keep a look out for updates. Or why not subscribe to my email newsletter [by clicking here]? Every time I add something new to La Vie en Foussais you will receive it in your inbox - what could be easier?
Just a perfect day…
Yesterday was, I think, the perfect day.
The location: Île de Ré. The company: perfect. The weather: beautiful.
The children played all day with buckets, spades, body-boards and lightsabers.
We relaxed, chatted and just soaked up up the sun as it continued to bake the west coast of France.
We introduced the Dixies to the game of Kubb [website].
And, most excitingly, our resident hunter-gatherer prised us some oysters off the rocks and both Lisa and I ate one for the first time ever!
The verdict? Not actually as bad as we had anticipated. And these were lacking in any lemon juice, or white wine to wash them down. I think we were both rather chuffed that we had managed to crack another culinary fear.
Now, as for snails and frogs legs, that is definitely a different matter…
See the full set of photos from the day [here]
A simply spectacular soirée at La Rochelle
Each year in the port at La Rochelle there is a huge boat show called Le Grand Pavois [website], which lasts all week and culminates in a spectacular show combining boats, fireworks and music. As you probably know by now, we love anything like that, so when Kevin and Sylvie suggested we go over and watch it with them, we jumped at the chance.
Crocodiles?…in France?
We started the evening with a stroll through the park near their house. La Rochelle is somewhere we have passed around and through in the car, but have never had chance to explore, so it was really good to see some of the parts of the city that attract thousands of people here every week. It was a very picturesque park, with the path leading us through the trees, alongside a river, over bridges, and finally delivering us to the beach. All very nice indeed – we can certainly see the benefits of living here.
On the beach there was an amazing sand-sculpture of a crocodile (dragon?) which even had real fire in his nose! Apparently it was made by a guy who sleeps on the beach in a tent. He is certainly very talented.
Having walked along the walls of the old port, we spotted some empty places on the other side, our intended viewing position for the night’s entertainment. So we hopped on the little boat-bus that whizzed us across the water to the other side, where we found a good place to sit, right on the edge of the wall. No-one was going to come and stand in front of us!
Its Pineau time!
So we were settled in our spot with about 3 hours before the show was due to start, so what were we to do? Eat and drink of course! Out came the Pineau (naturally) and the snacks and we kept ourselves entertained by trying to pour the drink into the tiniest of glasses in a strong wind and watching the boys demonstrating their jedi skills to the passing french…
While we waited, the boats that were going to take part in the show drifted past us into the port, and shortly after we were entertained (slightly) by some waveriders (like water-skiers but on a single ski) going up and down down the odd trick. Rather strangely there was also a barge going up and down the water containing some Irish dancers, although there didn’t seem to be much dancing going on which was a bit disappointing.
Anyway, as the sun slowly dipped down behind the La Rochelle skyline, the time for the start of the show approached.
Into the west
As darkness finally enveloped the port-side, it began. Firstly, all the boats, lit by simple torches, floated slowly from the port and out to sea accompanied by some beautifully haunting music and some lovely “gentle” fireworks. It was a really moving start and reminded me (geek that I am) of the ending of “The Return of the King” when the elves sail off into the west… anyway, don’t get me started on that!
After the parade of boats, the fireworks started in earnest, with an incredible display. The walls of the port and the buildings facing us were all lit in a variety of colours to tie in with the fireworks and there was music piped across the port. I know we say it every time we have been to a fireworks display, but we all thought that this one was simply the best one yet. I think the combination of the location, the music, the lights, the fireworks, and sharing it with great friends, made it such a breathtaking end to the day.
We were all very numb after sitting on the port-side for so long, but the wine and the pineau helped out there, and it was all worth it in the end.
Sand and slides – End of summer ‘08 part 3
Unfortunately, Richard had to work on the final full day of Annie & Drew’s visit so I (Lisa) have been put in charge of writing up the day’s activities.
After a long leisurely morning, such is life over here, we decided to spend the afternoon at the lake at Chassenon-le-Bourg. The lake is about a 10 minutes drive from the house. There is a man-made beach, a small play area, picnic tables, boule pitches and also pedalos for hire. This, combined with two big water slides and one little one, looked set to provide enough entertainment for nine. After paying three euros for each adult, this included Rosie, sadly, as she is now 13 and classed as an adult, we found our spot. A section of the lake is marked off and watched over by lifegaurds which is very reassuring. After some time, when castles had been built and moats filled in, the slides opened and provided another hours entertainment.
Pedalos were next on the list. I stayed with all the gear while Annie and Drew took the children out on the lake. Rosie asked for two pedalos with four seats each. Unfortunately there was only one available but Rosie asked if there was any chance of having Isabel on her knee. “Of course” replied the lady in charge. Health and safety, ha! Annie later told me that at Centre Parcs they had gone on a pedalo and by the time they were all genned up on the do’s and don’t s and life jacketed up they had quite gone off the idea. No such thing here. They all came back in different pedalo’s having swapped drivers and passengers in the middle of the lake!
Richard joined us after he had finished work for a memorable game of Frisbee (thank you Isabel!) and a drink as the sun started to dip.
The only down-sides to this place are that the bottom of the lake is really quite stony. Our children wore swimming shoes to protect their feet, but most people seemed quite happy to go bare-foot, so maybe we are just a bit soft! Also the sand could be better for sitting on, but it does make very good sandcastles
A nice relaxing place though, great for picnics and playing beach games and all on our door-step.
Back home and tea was eaten outside. This was sadly only the first time since Annie and Drew had been here that we had had chance to sit outside. Photographs were taken and everyone enjoyed the occasion, although there was an undercurrent of sadness due to the impending departure of our final visitors of the summer. Luckily we had Annie to make us laugh, by taking photographs from half a mile away, apparently to get the house in shot, although we all looked like ants!
With the children safely tucked up all in one bedroom (a bit of a squash, but they had insisted!) the adults had the traditional viewing of the day’s photographs. Its hilarious to see those where people didn’t realise they were in shot and were pulling strange faces *cough* Drew! *cough
Having regained our composure we went out to look at the stars. It was such a clear night and Annie and Drew couldn’t believe the amount of stars visible from our house. Annie was particularly thrilled to spot the Milky Way and Drew spotted a shooting star. The only thing missing was the moon. We hunted high and low, across every corner of the sky, but it was not there. There were no clouds to hide it either. Most disturbing! We have checked every night since and it is STILL not there. Who has taken it??
The next morning it was time to say our very sad farewells. The day didn’t get off to a very good start after Annie read the “Au Revoir” message I had written on our blackboard. Flood gates were definitely opened there, with tears flowing pretty freely all-round for the next couple of hours! It is always hard to say goodbye to our visitors. This one was particularly hard as it had been planned for a year. Annie and Drew were virtually the first people to book in, even before the house was ours!
We have realised that, although living in another country means that you are not near your family and friends all the time, when people come to visit, you actually have great quality time with them and get to know people a lot more. Nothing beats spending a long time together to help you cement a relationship and we certainly feel we have done that with Annie and Drew.
