According to the French tourist industry Summer is
officially open. We went out for a picnic yesterday – the last Saturday in
August – and many cafes, campsites and attractions seemed to have shut already.
I think that the coming Monday is the Rentré, or back to school day. Anyway we
had a very enjoyable picnic, topped off later with wonderful ice cream sundaes
at a café on the bank of the Dordogne in Argentat. We had the picnic in a small parking area which was at the start of a path leading to cave in the cliffs overlooking the Dordogne, and which had been a hideout for one of the earliest resistance groups.
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Back to chronology.
First things first – Bertie is fine. He hasn’t looked back
since his operation, and seems to be in pretty good health. He also has some
competition, of which more later.
At the end of June we decided to take a short break, and had
a couple of nights in a really nice hotel on the Atlantic coast. We had a nice easy run down, stopping in the town of Cahors, where we visited the lovely bridge.
The hotel was
the Hype Hotel in Biscarosse, built and run by a French / Rhodesian couple to
their own specifications – highly recommended. Biscarosse is only a couple of
miles from the sea, but is on a large bay, and is, of course, the home of the
French seaplane. The villages on the coast south of Biscarosse itself were all
fairly well developed, all sand and surf. There aren’t any harbours on this
stretch, so no quaint undiscovered fishing villages. Arcachon to the north is
the large town and port, and reputedly very attractive. I say reputedly because
when we went there the holidays had obviously just started, and the place was
absolutely bursting at the seams.
On the way back we came through the small town of Eymet in
the Dordogne. At first glance this is a delightful bastide town, but it has the
reputation of being the most “Anglicized” town in the Dordogne. Some estimates
say up to a third of the residents are Brits, and certainly all the shops are
carefully bi-lingual. It gave the idea for a ghastly TV programme called
“Little England”, in which a plummy voiced presenter talked of “Blighty” and
introduced ex-pats who really, really missed their fish and chips and beer. Very
false, and we are well aware that the producers induced people to do and say
things that were for dramatic effect, not veracity.
Just got back in touch with two of my long lost cousins, Di
and Trish Hetherington, after over 30 years. They now live in Dorset, so we are
looking forward to meeting and catching up one day soon.
I have been keen on getting another dog, so we could
integrate it with us while Bertie was still around. We went to look at some
German Shepherd puppies, and they were really nice. However although I have
always liked this breed, I found that I was not really enthusiastic, so we
didn’t take it any further.
Sadly Judy’s Mum passed away in July, so we travelled to
England for the funeral. Obviously a very sad occasion, but at least closure
for the family as she had not recognised anyone for many years. Nice to see
people, we promised again to try and meet up in happier circumstances. We had some
time before our flight home so had a day out, visiting the Air Museum at
Duxford, the village of Clare where my father came from and up into Norfolk. We
dropped in on Florence Gardener, the widow of an RAF friend; it was really nice
to see her. On the way to Stansted we went via Cambridge. It’s a lovely city,
but we were glad we were there early, as we left at about 1130 it filled up rapidly and we passed loads of coaches bringing more visitors in.
One of our favourite walks is along a footpath above the
river Vezere in the local village of Le Saillant. It leads to a hydro-electric
dam and generating station, and until recently they were shut off for security
reasons. You can now cross over the river and return down the road on the other
bank. During July and August you can finish the walk in a little café, which
only opens for these two months.
We had another of our picnic days out and visited the very
interesting Gallic and Romano-Gallic site at Tintignac, about 30 minutes from
us. We had known about the site for some time, but it has only just been
properly opened to the public. It is very much a work in progress, although the
archaeologists have made some superb finds. There is a small amphitheatre which has yet to
be excavated, so it’s a place to return to. Looking for somewhere to have our
picnic we ended up at another Roman site at Cars. On the way back we found a
rather lonely looking Chateau at Mazeau, privately owned but easily accessible.
Voutezac had its annual peach festival, literally dampened
by a huge thunderstorm. Luckily it was all under cover, so we thoroughly
enjoyed ourselves as usual.
So no GSD puppy, what could I look at next? Yes, back to wolfhounds!
I found e very good breeder who has 4 or 5 litters of puppies a year, so as he
is just south of Limoges we went to visit him. Really nice dogs, he has about
10 adults and he had two litters as well. Judy and I really like the cream
wolfhounds, so asked when he might have any cream pups. He is expecting two of
his bitches to whelp in September, and they have cream puppies. So that would
be my Christmas present sorted!
Janie Busch held a Jazz evening at the Chateau where our
library is, and we all piled in to help out. Judy makes a great barmaid, and
says that she really appreciates it when all the drinks and food are all priced
at 1€. The music was very well appreciated, the only problem was that it was
planned to be outside, and an hour before the start the heavens opened.
Everything was moved inside; luckily Janie has a music room just off the
library! The evening broke even, which was a pretty good result.
We had planned for some friends to visit, but sadly one
couple had to be cancelled when we flew
to the UK. The other friend, Nick Edwards, was on a short cycle tour and stayed
with us for a couple of nights. He was head boy at my school, so I suppose that
swapping school stories was a change for Judy from RAF ones.
The cancelled couple were the Ayliffes, who were RAF
friends. Alex’s uncle had died in a Mosquito crash in 1944, and it was the 70th
anniversary. It all happened in a tiny hamlet some 3 hours south of us near
Agen. We thought it would be a quite low-key affair, although we knew that a
number of Alex’s family would be there. When we arrived in the hamlet just
after 10, we had missed the mass in the local church, but caught the ceremony
in the cemetery with the obligatory speeches. There were a large number of
locals in attendance, as they were also honouring the resistance fighters who
had rescued the Mosquito pilot and buried Alex’s uncle. Back to the church for a
brief speech, then everyone went to the local town, where there were lots more
speeches and wine and nibbles. We did manage to speak to Alex and his wife
Jilly, but they had to leave for the arranged lunch (for 120), so we set off
home again. A long day.
After dropping Rachel off at Limoges airport for her trip
home, we continued on for a couple of hours to the Charente Maritime, near Cognac.
I had seen an advert in Leboncoin, a web site where almost everything, from cars,
to houses to pets can be advertised. It said that there was a Clumber Spaniel
puppy looking for a new home…..Say hello to Icare! His owner had changed jobs,
and could no longer look after him during the day. Icare (French for Icarus) is
10 months old and settled in with us and Bertie better than we could have
hoped.
Yesterday seemed to be the day for car rallies, there was a
steam of lovely cars going past over several hours. They varied from 1920s
models to modern Ferraris and Aston Martins. There were even some cars we have
owned ! Well a couple of 2CVs anyway!
So as summer is supposed to be over, the weather has improved
and the sun shines. Lots more fun to be had yet!
