Home from home................

Well finally, I'm back home in France.

The old Maire in Le Petit-Pressigny

Plans have been changed and then changed again, but it was great to finally arrive, even if it was at 2.30 am!

Our friends Chris and Sally cycled over from near Angles to visit, and were waiting for us on the terrace.

Lunch for 8 on the terrace.

Rue 2011

I’ve just returned home after a holiday in northern France with 46 Y8 pupils. On the whole we had an excellent week, with just a few minor irritations. 

The Chateau, inside and out.

We stayed at the Château du Broutel at Rue. The Château is run as an education centre during term time, although open to families and the public during the summer holidays. We use it to give our pupils an appreciation of French life and culture, but other schools use it for adventure activities.

The chocolate factory

Madame making cheese at the goat farm

Me, making a tressage de ble

Some large corn dollies, the one on the right is over 100 years old.

On this visit we went to the market at Etaples, visited a WW1 cemetery, goat farm, chocolate factory, hand made sweet shop and wheat farm. We saw croissants being made at a local bakery, visited the Nausicaa (sealife centre) at Boulougne, and best of all paddled in the sea off a beautiful sandy beach at Le Touquet.

The cemetery at Etaples.

What a week! I think the kids got good value for money, which is important these days.

The Château was built in 1714 by Jean-Baptiste Loisel, one of the heads of cavalry for Louis X1V. During the French Revolution it suffered and fell into disrepair, but was substantially renovated in 1824. It fell into disuse at the start of the 20th century. It is not known what happened to the Château during WW1 , but it was occupied by the German army during WW2.

After the war the main part of the Château was left uninhabited until the early 1980's when it purchased and renovated by Lionel Leroy (a former director of Leroy Merlin). In 2001 it became a residential centre and the barn and stable blocks were renovated and turned into accommodation blocks.

The staff provide excellent care and are superbly well organised. They also manage to be relaxed, and appreciate that 'kids will be kids'!!!

We have being using the centre since 2006, and will do again.

I am tired, but happy.

Soon, I shall be in France again......... and hope to meet up with a few of the people I have met through our blogs. Isn't it strange to know so much about the daily lives of others, through their blogs .

I know that

•  Jean loves baking and France.
• Susan enjoys cleaning beams with a toothbrush and wildlife.
• Tim and Pauline take wonderful photographs of birds.
•   Antoinette and Niall are enjoying the joys of life in Charnizay.
• Mandy is more comfortable with her life, and enjoying the challenges of her work
• and Elizabeth keeps fit by chasing butterflies!!!

Keep it up..............

I've said it before but it is just like 'Wikipedia but with SOUL'.

Turn! Turn! Turn! (to everything there is a season)

March was one heck of a month! It brought with it a rollercoaster of emotions, and I am pleased that April has arrived.

March started with the deaths, very close together, of Pete, a good colleague of Tim’s (from when he worked as an LEA inspector for Staffordshire) and his cousin Tony. Pete lost a battle against cancer and Tony with heart disease. Both men were just 60.

Their funerals were followed a couple of days later, by the tragic death of my cousin’s daughter. Faye took her own life aged just 19. Her funeral last week was a beautiful Humanist service, packed with her friends, all dressed in brightly coloured clothes to celebrate her short life.

This Bob Marley song was a favourite of Faye's, and was played at her funeral.

Finally, on March 30th  I called on my uncle to let him know that my brother had returned safely from a tour of duty in Iraq. He rang me very early the following morning to tell me that he had been given the ‘all clear’ following some treatment for cancer. Sadly, his wife died suddenly, a couple of hours later.

A lot of sadness, but life goes on and we make of it what we can...............

A rose by any other name................Chédigny!

Last year we went out for the day with our friends John and Maureen. They have lived in the area for at least six months of the year since John retired, about 4 years ago. They have almost finished renovations to their house, and  a gite which they now rent out. More about this in a future post........

Anyway, at the end of May they suggested we all go to

Chédigny. We arrived at their house near Chatillion at midday, had an early lunch, and set off.

Chédigny is about 7km from Loches, and if you haven't visited is well worth a visit - especially if you like to see a good display of roses. The village is covered with them!

We visited during the annual Rose Festival, but I suspect the village would still be beautiful at other times in the summer, possibly when it wasn't so busy. However the festival also meant that there were various stalls selling roses, exhibitions of roses and rose products.

There were street entertainers and musicians tucked away in corners of the village, and wherever you looked there was something to see!

Jim McNeill ( A Social History of the Touraine) must have visited around the same time that we did; you can read his blog post and view his fantastic (much better than ours) photographs here.

I think we'll probably visit again this year, and buy one of the more unusual and rare varieties of roses to bring back to the UK, to remind us of France.

Towards the end of August Chédigny also stages a Blues Festival, which is yet another item on our ever growing list of 'things to do'!

A visit to Angles sur L'Anglin - to buy or not to buy, that was the question............

We first saw our house in August 2009. We had travelled across from Thollon to stay with our friends John and Maureen, near Chatillion. An immobilier had sent some details of houses, in different regions of France, that could be bought with our budget. We had a buyer lined up for our apartment, decided we had nothing to lose, so packed the car and set off!

  

When we met the estate agent, Tim was convinced he recognised her husband. His memory for names is awful, but he is much better with faces. After some discussion it transpired that we had taken a ski holiday with him about 25 years previously, (as the friend of a friend), and before they emigrated to France they had lived about five miles away from us!

What a small world........

We had big decisions to make, so decided to visit Angles sur L'Anglin. We didn't even look at any other property (we had looked at at least 25 in the Alps), except to glance at property advertised in windows and get a feel for prices.

We liked the house very much, but I love the mountains so there was a dilemma.

I have read some really interesting posts about Angles on Simon and Susan's blog Days on the Claise and also on another called Village de Vaux. They both have some beautiful photographs and know much more about the history.

The other big coincidence is that on our way to Angles we stopped La Roche Posay to buy a map. When we came out of the SuperU someone shouted to us. It was Chris and Sally, the parents of our daughter's partner Ben, who have a home near Angles. Chris had noticed a very similar number plate to our daughter's (there is a story there for a future post!).

An even smaller world..........

From Google images.

Angles-sur-l'Anglin is acknowledged as one of the most beautiful villages of France (plus beaux villages de France)

At the Office de Tourisme we decided the best way to see Angles was to follow the marked circuit of the upper town (ville haute), then take the steps down to the lower town (ville basse). As you walk down the steps there are some lovely views of the houses on the opposite side of the river.

The streets of the village are narrow and lined with attractive medieval houses. There is a chateau, and the Church of St Martin, a roman style church. Although the chateau is in ruins, it is still an impressive place to visit and the remains of the donjon, the prison tower, the chapel tower, and two chapels can be seen.

I read somewhere that Angles was the last stronghold of the English in the hundred years war. 

In 1948 important prehistoric carvings (said to be the most important of their kind in Europe), were discovered. They date from around 14 000 years ago and, in order to preserve them, they were not open to the public. In 2008 a replica of the Roc Aux Sorciers (witches rock) was opened.

From Google images

 In the centre of the village there is a lovely shaded area which is served by a couple of restaurants. We sat there for a drink, and wondered why some tables were being served and others ignored. We finally realised that the colour of the sun parasol determined which restaurant came to serve you. We moved to different seats and were served instantly! This is a great place to ‘people watch’.

Just across the square is an antique bookshop. On a visit last summer with my son, we looked for an old edition of L’Etranger by Albert Camus, as a present for a friend of his. They had many books by Camus, but not the one we were looking for!

Anyway, it was whilst sitting up at the chateau that we decided that we would put in an offer (not for the chateau!), and hopefully buy our house. We decided what we would pay, and started to negotiate. The rest, as I've said before, is history........

Expect the unexpected.........

A few days ago I posted some photographs over the rooftops of Le Petit-Pressigny at dusk.

I've been sorting through folders of photographs on my computer, and came across nearly the same view taken at mid afternoon last summer.

On our way back home we noticed this unusual animal in a garage at the end of our road.

As far as I know he's still there............

Who lives in a house like this...............?

Although we’ve owned our house in Le Petit-Pressigny for just over a year, we've only spent about 6 weeks there, which means that we are only just beginning to find our way around and meet our neighbours.

One of our neighbours, who helps to run the Boulangerie,  told us about the  small walking group which meets every Wednesday evening (times change according to season).

We’ve only managed to fit in a couple of walks, and both times the route was the same, lasting just under an hour. The group are a mix of very friendly French, Dutch and English residents.

The walk passes near a lovely house, perhaps it is a chateau,  in a hamlet which I think is called Les Bordes, just off the D103 to Charnizay.

Does anyone else remember a television programme from a few years ago, where David Frost (of TW3 and Frost Nixon fame), used to say "who lives in a house like this"?

We couldn't quite get close enough to get clearer photographs, which is perhaps just as well, as it is someones home.

We are in the process of buying (downloaded the Which reports) a digital SLR camera - any advice or recommendations?