Le Camelia Update

No time to enjoy the view from the kitchen window, the farmer still has all that dead brush to clear....

Or the view from the upstairs grenier window ...

Ian's been hard at it and here's the proof:

Outside ......

Started the repointing

And inside ......

So won't be long before it's all finished. We are now taking bookings for Le Camelia from next April and all bookings taken before 2009 will be at 2008 prices. Watch this space for more regular updates on the project.

And in September ....

We attended the wonderful annual Rendezvous sur Erdre in Nantes which is always held on the last/1st weekend of August/September and once again it didn't disappoint. Great atmosphere, lovely crowds, fantastic music of all genres although it's supposed to be jazz & blues in the main. Once again I was spellbound by the South American dancers (Kapowera) doing their thing and this time there was a lad of no more than 7 or 8 with them so they must start pretty young to get that agile. We had a great time and will definitely go again next year.

The following weekend there was a garden festival in a park in Nantes, wonderful place and wall to wall stalls of plants for sale. Not a good place for a plantaholic with no money.... Of course I did indulge my vice and bought some more 'necessary' plants and even Ian succumbed to some lovely heuchera for his shady spot by the patio in Coeur de Chene. I loved their bug sculptures made of wood, I wish I had the imagination to make my own.

I had a new pet for a very brief time, it was a lovely huge moth who answered to the name of Monty. Unfortunately only 24 hours after we met he was dead. I later had him identified as a Convolvulous tiger moth, apparently quite common on the med and north Africa - he was so cute..

Well we had a miserable July & August as did most of Europe, but from September onwards it's been pretty good and almost made up for it. My bookings have increased yet again but with the miserable £ v € rate we haven't gained much at all. Of course it hasn't helped that every available euro has gone into building materials for Le Camelia but I have been very fortunate in inheriting a lot of lovely furniture from a very good friend in the UK who is revamping her home. Ian and I made the speedy trip over to collect it with the horse box (a very very useful vehicle indeed) and came back loaded to the gunnels. Well summer is truly over now and the days are ever shorter, I've joined a French conversation group in Redon this year which runs 2 morning sessions on Tuesdays (then straight on to Patchwork) and Fridays. I'm hopeful that it will get me talking with more confidence although I & a few others feel it would be better if we could have a morning for those like us who still take time to utter our sentences as at the moment we are drowned out by the more confident speakers.

July update

At the end of June, my son and his wife arrived to visit. They were here just in time to see the Tour de France come through Guemene. On the 7th July we waited by the bridge and were really surprised to see the extent of the entourage that precedes the actual race. Incredible looking cars and floats entertained us for a couple of hours until the cyclists zipped past in seconds and it was all over.

At the end of July we decided to have a mini break and drove to Amboise, I'd booked a B&B in the town thinking that it would be lovely to be able to stroll around in the evening, have a meal and not worry about an extra glass of wine and driving back to some place in the sticks. The weather was fantastic, and we were charmed by the tiny little chambre d'hote wedged between two other building opposite the castle walls. Perfect we thought. After looking around Amboise castle (I had no idea that Leonardo da Avinci was buried there), I was even more delighted to find that there was an evening market being set up. Our room was on the 1st floor seen here with the windows open. The market was in the road between us and the castle walls, we thoroughly enjoyed it and had our evening meal al fresco at one of the stalls.

After a stroll along the Loire we decided that in order to get an early start to see Chaumont-sur-loire the next day, it was time to go to bed and sleep. Famous last words - what hadn't occured to either of us is that being so central had a price to pay - the stall holders started packing up at midnight, enjoyed a van door slamming competition until at least 1.30am and no sooner had I started dozing off, some lovely lads decided to have a street party. This was at top volume with singing, shouting and trumpet playing until 3am. By this time Ian had stomped off with the duvet and curled up on the bathroom floor where he slept all night. I suffered on, and finally managed to get to sleep but (you couldn't make it up) was very cruelly and rudely awakened at 6.30am by a pressurised steam cleaning van going up and down outside. It stopped at 9am by which time I'd given up and got up. The B&B owner assured us that the next night would be 'tres tranquil' and people at Chaumont must have thought us very odd as we napped at regular intervals under every available tree. It's a wonderful place and the reason we picked it to visit was the annual international garden festival: www.domaine-chaumont.fr I have to say though that it's probably better to go as soon as the gardens open as by the end of July they were looking very past their best. I don't think they get much TLC once they're put in which is a great pity. While in the gift shop, Ian met a neighbour of his from Soulvache which just shows what a small world it really is. Not only that but they were also staying near Amboise and had booked to see the evening sound and light show that day just as we had. In fact we were only a row away from each other. Somehow we managed to stay awake long enough to have a lovely meal and see the show. It was lovely, a historical re-enactment of the chateaux's past with period costume and music. Of course it wasn't quite 'tres tranquil' as we heard people's goodbyes until nearly 1am after we returned to our B&B and guess what....... they hadn'd quite finished cleaning the street after the market so were back at 6.30 the next morning. As the weather was still lovely, we decided to go to nearby Chenonceau on the way home, www.chenonceau.com and really enjoyed it there. A beautiful place with so much history, however we didn't really do it justice as we were so tired by then and the weather had turned saultry and close. In fact we had the mother of all rain storms hit us on the motorway just outside Angers and luckily we were near a turnoff so we parked up and waited for it to pass. Even though the visibility was dreadful, we could still hear people driving past like lunatics. As mother always said "drive like lightening, crash like thunder" wise woman.

We returned in one piece in time to bid farewell to some lovely Irish guests who had booked la glycine for the whole of July no less, I could do with bookings like that next year - hint hint.

May update

Sorry, sorry, sorry – a Samual Pepys I’ll never be, so much for writing my memoirs one day. Time just flies by and it’s October already so I’ll just write about the highlights – the ones I remember that is.

We finally managed to go to the Puy du Fou in May, they were doing a 30th birthday promotion and I got the tickets at half price. What a wonderful place, so much to see you need to get there early. Unfortunately we got there around 11am so missed the performace of the 3 muskateers and in seeing the others, also missed the Donjon spectacle but what we did manage to see was fantastic. The colloseum was great fun with an ‘evil emperor’ wanting to put Christians to death and duly booed by the delighted crowds. The stone age village attacked by Vikings was saved by the re-appearance of a dead bishop, there was a definate theme here, a christian country and proud of it with no thought for political correctness to be seen. The villages had amazing attention to detail, we were told that they were all made with reclaimed stone from ruins of authentic villages and we couldn’t see the joins. The gardens were magnificent, not a piece of litter anywhere, totally delightful to stroll through and come upon unexpected treats like controlling fountains to music in the middle of a lake. Our own personal favourite however was the bird show, I’d never seen anything like it with vultures swooping inches over the spectators heads as well as other birds of prey. Fantastic. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the night show as it was too early in the year but apparently it’s well worth the effort and all the men, women & children taking part are recruited from the local area and Puy du Fou pay them back by providing facilities for learning dance, riding, arts for the children. All in all a place well worth visiting, visit their website to see for yourselves: http://www.puydufou.com/ . That night I’d booked a Chambre d’hote in Tiffauges, a town about 15 km away. We managed to get lost so it took a while to find it and even when we arrived in Tiffauges I had to phone the owner to find the house. Turned out their website photo was taken from the garden (www.linternaute.com/hotel/chambre-d-hote/tiffauges/6782/le-petit-chateau.html) and it looked nothing like that from the street. However, there was nothing disappointing about the place, the hosts were truly charming and showed us around their home. They’d bought the Maison d’maitre a year ago and only just opened for business after a lot of work, apparently it was the local Gendarmarie until then. After a lovely meal in a restaurant overlooking Blue beard’s castle that evening, we slept well and the following morning after a substantial breakfast were given a tour of the extenisive gardens which contains an old tunnel to the Castle but which unfortunately has now collapsed. They also showed us the cells used by the gendarmes and I wouldn’t have liked a night in those. Useful for guests that don’t pay their bill though. Definitely a place I’d recommend for a lovely stop-over or holiday. Blue beards castle was a delight with workshops for children, a shadow puppet show, a cavern occupied by a mad scientist whose assistant looked (and acted) remarkably like Mr Bean while trying to turn base metal to gold and a great demonstration of various weapons of war as well as foot soldiers and knights in armour on horseback. All in all a great place to visit. http://www.chateau-barbe-bleue.vendee.fr/