Another beautiful day

Now that I have a link from the homepage of my site, I hope more people will visit this blog and ‘read all about it’ - I think being at the very end of our renovations page people lost the will to live before they reached it.

Our Christmas and New Year jaunt seems to be very far beind us now, it was very nice but even nicer to come home. I was very disappointed that Paris didn’t have a proper firework display on New Year’s eve this year but even with 4,500 fully armed riot police on the streets (why?) looking like robocops, the atmosphere was wonderful. We never felt threatened, only incredulous when charged €20 for 2 glasses of white wine at a street café near the Eiffel tower. However, the waiter did empty the rest of the bottle in them when we protested.

On the development front, Ian has steamed on as usual. He’s insulated the roof, boarded and plastered it all. As if that was not enough for 1 month’s work, he’s also cleaned off and re-pointed all the exposed stonework. As there was only dirt between the slates and stones, he had to dig quite a lot out for the new pointing to adhere properly. He’s now working on the garden facing wall, putting in a lovely old oak shelf to run along the stairs and then will be finishing off the gernier window – also with an oak sill. The idea is to do as much messy work as possible before putting in the new floor, so I will be welding the paint brush before too long.

We’ve had some absulutely wonderful weather in the past month and spent days out whenever possible, we love going to the coast as it’s less than an hour away and there were times only the emptiness of the beaches reminded us it was January. We walked along the beach from La Turballe, splashing in our wellies – unfortuantely we were hit by a high rogue wave and ended up soaked. Luckily it was towards the end of the day so I sat in the car with my sodden jeans around my ankles praying we wouldn’t be stopped on the way home. Last Sunday we went to Pornichet and walked along the beach to La Baule, keeping well away from the waves this time, then drove a bit further along and walked along the Cote Sauvage. It is a wonderful area with a cycle/skating way wider than the one way road that runs alongside it. The view from the path is magnificent and there are steps leading down to areas of sandy beach nestling amongst the rocks around each bay. You really don’t need to come in summer to enjoy wonderful days out here, we even spotted a swimmer (there’s always one) in just his trunks having just had his constitional bracing swim.

As the French class has now moved to Tuesday afternoons, I have taken my courage in my hands and joined the Guemene Penfao choral group which meets on Thursdays. I’ve been told it’s an excellent way of improving your language ability as well as meeting new people. I have to say I was welcomed with open arms (they hadn’t heard me sing then) and I now find myself rehearsing for a ‘Spectacle Musical’ which is taking place in August. On top of that, the group reguarly sings at local old people’s homes, without any song sheets as the songs are all old and well known – hmm, not by me …..

Well today the sun’s shining and I’ve managed to do the weekly wash (riveting stuff) and if it’s nice tomorrow we may well go on another jaunt – this time along the Loire for a change – watch this space……

Cote sauvage - beautiful at any time of year

Spot the swimmer.....

Pornichet & La Baule miles of sandy beaches

The man never stops .....................