Do you want to buy a house in France? Well, look no further!
Today we started on our house sale journey by launching www.TheFoussaisHouse.com which has all the details about our lovely house, with lots of photos and helpful information.
It would be great if you would check it out and share it with your friends, especially any who might be looking to pick up a lovely new house in France 
Thanks!
Our school project this year is all about water and we are making a film with a professional team for the Conseil General de la Vendée (the department council).
Last Thursday was the first day of our filming trip, to Port Du Bec near Noirmoutier. For this I had to get up at 6:30am for school, but normally I get up at 7:30am. I got to school at 7:15am to be on the bus at 7:30.
So we set off up to the north of the Vendée. The journey took 2h30, which was long, but when we got there it was worth it. After the introduction we were split into two groups: the Yellows and the Reds (I was yellow). There were two parts to the day, the first one in the morning and the second in the afternoon. In the morning the Yellows went to do an interview and the Reds took the sound and some photos of the countryside and then we swapped round. We each took it in turns to take the different roles: director, sound engineer, cameraman etc…
So we went to interview an ostreiculteur (someone who works with oysters). His name was Jean-Louis and he showed us where he works and what he does. Here’s a video of an ostreiculteur at work.
Then it was dinnertime, so we got our picnic and we ate in a big room near the port.
After, it was our time to take photos and the sound of the country side. We saw lots of wildlife, including some horses, sheep and birds. While we where doing this, the other group were interviewing Nicolas, who is aquaculteur (he works with all different types of fish – mussels, prawns etc…) then we met up to film the last scene.
Port du Bec (photo by David Howlett)
We left Port Du Bec at 4:45pm and got back to school at 6:55pm. We were very tired but had had a fantastic day. The next trip is on 24th of March, with another on 14th of April and I can’t wait!
A while ago I bemoaned the lack of nice, cheap Vendéen wine [here]. Well, my complaints met with a swift rebuttal from my friend Jon over at The Vendee Blog [link], who suggested that actually there were lots of Vendéen wines about and I agreed that we should probably try some before making such bold claims.
So, on our night out at La Rochelle we took along a bottle of Chaignée Cadet rouge, from the vinyards at Vix [map]. And, to be honest, it wasn’t at all bad. I have had much worse wines in my time (unsurprisingly) and it was very quaffable. I’m not sure if it made any difference that we drank it out of the worlds tiniest glasses [evidence here], but at least that meant that it lasted a long time!
Buoyed by our success with this wine, Lisa slung a bottle of “Vendée One” Rose, from Rosnay [map], into the trolley the other day, and, although I am yet to sample that one, she tells me that it too is a rather pleasant selection.
So it seems that, from our brief foray into the wines of our region, there is hope. However, both the wines we have tried were in the region of €3.49 each, a good €1 over what we would normally pay. I know this is down to volumes etc and as the market for these wines increases then prices will fall, but when one is more focussed on quantity rather than quality, unfortunately the mass-produced, cheap-and-cheerful will continue to be our main-stay.
So apologies to the master growers in the region. Your wine is nice and will no doubt grace our table from time to time. But please let me know when you start doing a 10 litre box for €12
