Somerset , Dorset, the Red Arrows and fish and chips

The Grandma, the Mother and I are all members of the national trust we therefore delight in visiting said properties.The plan was to go to Kingston Lacey. This house,built after the Civil War belonged to the Banks' family. The family house was bestowed to the National Trust in 1981,seeing its heyday(thus a lot of the house was furnished in this style) in the Edwardian Period. It is told that Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Kingston Lacey in 1908, he apparently twisted his ankle on a rabbit hole,shame he didn't go to wonderland we could have avoided a war.

Another anecdote that we learnt was that Henrietta Banks was a very domineering mother. Whenever he daughters (Daphne and Viola) went horse-riding on their own, the mummy dearest would follow them on her bike to make sure that they didn't get up to no good, God forbid if they talked to a commoner!

The family moved to Kingston Lacey after the Civil War but prior to this they lived in Corfe Castle, Now as you've probably already guessed dear readers, we visited this too. The castle is now a ruin.The castle was partly destroyed in 1646, hence the family needed to build a new house.  Damn those Parliamentarians.

It was rather intriguing to know that Enid Blyton based one her famous five stories on the village of Corfe Castle so we had to buy lashings of Ginger beer...

Oh I do like to beside the seaside....actually I don't but majority rules so it was decided that we should have fish and chips by the sea. Swanage just so happened to be the host of the red arrows that evening, the planes flew this way,that way, forwards and backwards over the Irish sea.....kidding we weren't actually in Ireland.

If you wanted us to have had our fish and chips you will be sorely disappointed,  but whether it is fate or just a co-incidence that we ended up going to eat the 'best fish and chips' around is up for debate.

The chosen pub just so happened to be the photographed pub in England, who makes these statistics up I just don't know but I won't pass up a photo oppurtuninity.

Parties, foreign friends and no water

The whole point of our vaccences en France was to go to Nicole's 50th on the Friday. We therefore had conversing in 3 languages to look forward to (French German and English BTW trust me it gets incredibly confusing as people tend to skip between the three and I'm just stood there looking lost.)

In preparation for the main event it was decided that we were to host a BBQ the day before. The french are notorious at time keeping and it was therefore not much of a surprise when no one turned up at the allotted time of 2pm. Then 3pm came and went and there still wasn't any sign of movement. It was then that we received a text saying that they would be there a 4. A few minutes later this was changed to 5. Oh well what can you do but wait.

The day of the party was also the day of the market in St Savin, I felt like there had been a distinct lack of pain au chocolat on the menu all week so the mother and I arose early and went to find the boulangerie.  Pain au Chocolats were swiftly wiped from my mind (well ok lets admit it they are never not on my mind but they momentarily left the forefront) as we looked round the market and squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee theres a hat store.
I love me some hats but like all the shops in England well the shops on the high street anyway, sell hats that are 'one size fits all'. Well one size does not fit all as I have me one big head. Don't know whats its filled with tbh, probably its just a huge chasm with the odd spider web.
 I was now the proud owner pf a newly purchased fedora yet mummy dearest was already making bets as to how long it would take for me to lose said hat...well great.

The arrival back at the house marked the start of our problems as it turned out that we had no water. Bugger indeed. After a few panicked phone calls we learnt that the mains had been switched off due to a pipe being fixed somewhere meaning that we would have no water till the afternoon... Wahey!
We therefore had a genius mechanism where we used water from the pool to flush the loo. Well I don't think I could have held it in for 6 hours.

The party was set to start at 5 but we thought we'd be fashionably late. But the place was pretty much deserted and in true french style the rest of the party did not arrive till gone 8 o'clock and food was not served till 10. I was not amused. We left the party early with promises that we would come back and visit soon we retired with a 16 hour journey ( yes one six you read that right) to look forward to the next day. I just can't wait.

Macaroons

Rain Rain go away come back another day was our mantra for this morning as we drove Louise back to the airport but I wasn't too fussed about the weather for I was going to the macaroon musee... Wohoo!!!

Macaroons came to France when in 1533 when Catherine de Medici brought over the stolen recipe when she married Charles II. Montmorrillion is one of the 8 places in France that the recipe travelled to others being Paris and Nancy.
Each region makes them slightly differently so je pense that a trip to these places is in order. After learning about the history of the macaroon and how they are made- although not the recipe they use, that's a closely guarded family secret, dammit. We tried them and OMG I am in love. I was licking my lips an hour after we had left.

For our afternoon activity we went on the velo train. The cart was only big enough for the 4 of us so the father sat this one out and instead took pictures of us from the bridge meaning that I had to do my fair share of pedaling Zut Alor!

It was bloody hard work, I was not amused and as I found out later it was because I was the only one pedaling, the mummy dearest was only pretending to pedal- not cool.

Our time of arrival at the velo train could not have been better as we were there at the same time as a school group, basically they were very slow and we had to stop on numerous occasions to keep a minimum gap of 100m between the two vehicles the bike carty thing goes along a train track and then turns at the end and comes back. Therefore all the school kids had to wait for us at the end mwuhahahahahaha

Luckily mother and James had been listening to the guys instructions so I just stood back and admired the spinning bike. We received a round of applause for our (well really their) efforts and we were off.

We spent the remainder of the day in Chauvigny looking at not 1 not 2 but 5 chateaux in the medieval city. il et tres jolie. Unlike yesterday though today did not have a happy ending as when we were in Carrefour (massive supermarket) getting supplies the mother's purse was stolen :(
she couldn't find it anywhere looking in the freezer and the oven and literally everywhere, pickpocketing was the eventual conclusion and the rest of the evening was spent ringing banks and cancelling cards.

hungry problems

Lazy days are best. The day was spent reading and lounging by the pool . There is therefore not much to report.
Pour le diner, we  thought that it would be a good idea to go out - not so much as literally every restaurant in Angle was shut as was the case in the next village and the next . The Lyon d'Or was thankfully open but the guy informed us that they were full up - the six empty tables begged to differ. But here's our card so that you can book a table and come and here again.I think not, you reject us, we reject you BAM!!

We were debating whether or not to call the whole thing off despite the sparse supplies of food in the fridge as we pulled into St Savin. A quaint little cafe in the centre of the square looked promising but as soon as we opened the car doors....err no. The quaint little cafe from afar was not so quaint after all as it blared out house music at full volume and from the expression on the parents faces it was a no go.

The next place we tried looked gooood, a good place to eat, nice ambiance ,yup I was sold. One teensy problem, they had just shut. God give me strength, I felt like crying. Yet this story has a happy ending as there waiter man said that he would find out what the chef could do for us. One happy dance later and there was food at last and it was deliceaux who knew cabbage and gooseberry terrine would taste so good.

St Hilarious and the Martars

A bit of benedictine history was the plat du jour today as we visited the abbey church of Saint Savin.
We grumbled at first because all the displays in the Church were in French with no translations so the most I could glean from it was that something happened in 897 and St. Hilarious did something.
However the ceiling of the church, the walls and the crypt were covered in Fresco's of different scenes from the bible. It would help if we knew our bible stories but we still managed to study and admire them for 4 hours- no joke- God knows where the time went- particular faves were God throwing the Sun and the Moon in the sky and the receiving of the ten commandments.

To aid our quest for information about the fresco's we used an interactive board (thank the lord as we this meant that didn't have to stare at the ceiling for 4 hours, it would have given me a serious crick in my neck) that went through each picture. Yet the french translation proved to be rather amusing as martyrs were called 'martars' earning some giggles from the three of us

in the evening we were invited to go for aperitifs at Nicole's friends. Laurence and Allan own an absolutely huge farm. with a large farm that Allan intends on converting into a music studio. He is obsessed with music as is evident as we were shown round their house as CDs were stacked in every nook and crannies. The whole collection was estimated to be about 14 thousand.

A common theme of the day was  'where the hell did the time go' as we arrived for aperitifs at 8 and did not leave until 1 - bloody hell

The abandonned village

In the depths of the forest there is a little abandoned village. The houses are all in ruins leaving only a ghost of what they once were.
Except one, a solitary man  lives in the abandoned village all on his own , with no electricity or water he has restored his dwelling so that it is habitable. So naturally we had to go visit.

Our tour guide, Nikki ( mother's friend we didn't actually have a tour guide) made the introductions, she had somehow managed to sell him said house and cold beers were offered. We explored the village and talked of witchcraft, what a fitting subject for such an eerie place.

According to the GPS, our house was 500m to the south of the village ,yet the quickest way was not via the road but through the fields. The father decided to take the latter route,adventurer that he is.  This caused two problems to arise.

Firstly, I have no balance, like none at all so was flailing about and nearly fell over multiple times - great fun I assure you. The second problem was not immediately apparent and it wasn't until we reached the road (it was thankfully decided to abandon the trek through the fields) that we realised
WE WERE COVERED IN TICKS!!!
to those who are not familiar with these lovely, divine creatures, ticks are like leeches, they suck on your blood.
Thankfully the loathsome things were got rid of before they could do too much damage. Yet the subject of ticks led to a lot of reminiscing of where ticks had been previously found- thanks daddy I'd rather not know.

With a guitar and a sing-a-long session thus ended day 3 of the french odyssey

Bees and Pins

Au'jour'd hui nous allons au St Centerei de Gerei , c'est un tres jolie petit ville. The town is a thousand years old. It was founded when two brothers went on a pilgrimage. There were two miracles, the first miracle was that a source of water appeared to the dehydrated travellers, yet they were still on the wrong side of the river so the second miracle took place. In true red sea fashion the river parted so that the brothers could cross.

 This 'dog kennel' - it looks like a dog house if you ask me- anyway it marks the spot of where the source of water appeared.

The village was filled with such stories and traditions . For example in the chapel there was a statue filled with pins.

On closer inspection we found out that young girls would stick pins in the dress of the statue and if the pins remained in the dress for a year, they (the girls not the pins) would surely get married.
This resulted in the parentals looking for a pin, any pin, for me to stick in said statue- oh thanks guys, they have so much faith in me.

Bees were the wardens of the ville. In 898, apparently according to the plaque on the wall of the church, Charles III set soldiers on the town. They caused quite a kerfuffle and were attacked and forced to retreat by an angry swarm of bees. Well wow, I couldn't even make something like that up.

The 18th June is the anniversary of the Call of the Gaules for the parachute regiment. It just so happened that the regiment were having a reunion dinner in the ville and we were invited.There was lamb and pork on the spit and wine coming out of their ears but malahearusement they were all french and I don't think I could have stomached a full on conversation in french for hours on end so we swiftly fled the scene with a 5 hour drive to look forward to - yay!!

Trou Rock -The French Leg

Up up its six O'clock and we've got a ferry to catch . A slurp of coffee later and we're out of the door,yet we needn't have bothered as we arrived in New Haven far too early. For breakfast the father requested the epitome of fine cuisune, the roadside truckers caff. This resulted in bacon sandwiches all round and the conversation turned to the fine art of having a eating depot (as it can hardly be called anything else) in a lay by.

The journey was relatively uneventful but it felt like you had stepped in a time machine as soon as you stepped on board, the decor was dated to say the least and the furniture seemed to be recycled aeroplane seats- well at least they found a use for them..

After a long day of travelling I was ready to snuggle up in my bed but alas this was not the case as we were informed on arrival at the B and B that there was a fete de musique in the next village- so of course we went.

I  was suspicious of the 'festival' when we arrived at like 10pm and it hadn't even started yet but that's the Europeans for you. To say it was strange would be an understatement as the first band on were rapping in french, with a trumpet and a saxophone, seeing is defiantly believing this bizarre mix..
Nevertheless I felt inclined to buy the CD at the end of the band's set or as they call it in French 'un album'