And then there were four......

It is now Friday morning, the sun has returned, and we have a week to go. This past week we have bid farewell to 3 more house guests. Thespina went on her way south to Toulouse and then Barcelona, while Donna and Cindy flew back to Canada leaving just Evie and Kevin here with us. It is quiet and a big change from the hordes we had just two weeks ago. As the end of the holiday draws nearer, we began to think if we missed anything or want to discover another part of France, but all it takes is a glass of wine and to sit on our terrace and look out over the village, and we find ourselves quite content to stay here till the end. Evie and Kevin have planned to leave us on Wednesday to re-visit Paris before their return to Vancouver next Saturday. It is tempting, but the peaceful village/rural life has a powerful hold on us.

We did break away yesterday and drove to the beach. The closest beach town to us is Royan on the Atlantic coast. The drive took us down into the wine and cognac regions. The countryside evolved from sheep and cows to vineyards and sunflowers. We passed right through the town of Cognac and saw the Courvoisier distillery. I had no idea that it was produced from white wine and as with champagne, there are many requirements for it to be officially called cognac. On now to the beach through the bouchons. Bouchons are traffic jams,  (bumper to bumper traffic) I was assuming it comes from the word bouche which means mouth, (mouth to mouth traffic), but on further research the computer says no, it means  cork, float, jack, log jam, plug, stop, stopper, traffic jam, wad, not quite as colourful of an expression as I had hopped.  While most people think of the Mediterranean beaches, the Atlantic coast has kilometres of beaches from Spain up to the English Channel. We picked the Grand Conche plage because it was right in the town and had access to the facilities we would need to enjoy a day on the beach over one of the plage sauvage or wild beaches. We got very lucky to find parking less than a block from the beach, and things were looking up. The water was warm and the beach was very sandy and lots of space.

View towards Royan

Our crowed beach

Make sure he gets some sun screen on his back.

Sand surfing

The only issue was as the day progressed the tide receded and the walk out to the water was much like Spanish Banks in Vancouver at low tide. Steve also learned to stay between the lifeguard signs or they will whistle at you and get you to move into the safe zone.  It was a lovely day, and after we had had our fill of sand, sea and sun, we thought we would enjoy a late lunch at one of the beach side restaurants. Well we discovered that only desserts or drinks were on offer at 3:30 in the afternoon. We set off from our section of the 2 kilometre beach and drove along the promenade which would have been nice for stroll or bike ride if we had more time, towards the centre ville, to search out a restaurant that had continuous service. Here we discovered a plethora of people, souvenir shops, bars and cafés but a dearth of parking. Before we knew it we were on the road back home. Entering a roundabout, we noticed a McDonald's and we were loving it as they say. It turned out to be a nice lunch on their terrace and not only did they bring out our meal to our table when it was ready, I enjoyed a beer with my burger. How civilized.

Salut!

On the drive home, we were on the lookout for a chateau that we had noticed from the highway on the drive down. The Chateau Rochenfoucaud was perched above the village of the same name. It was begun in 980 AD as a fortified camp on a rock

Chateau Rochenfoucauld

overlooking the stream by Fucaldus, the younger brother of the Viscount of Limoges.  In 1453, Jean de La Rochefaucauld built 3 angle towers and heightened the keep following the victorious battle of Castillon which put an and to the 100 Year War. I will have to do some reading and research on that for Social Studies 8 next term. Later in 1520, François II de La Rochenfocauld's wife, Anne de Polignac, built the galleries and the grand staircase in renaissance style. All it was missing were the formal gardens like the chateaux of the Loire
Valley that we have visited. What it did have was the opportunity to dress up in costumes which we all too full advantage of.

So enough of the history lesson, as we try to write our own history here in Bellac. Thinking that only a lottery win would allow us to move forward any possibility of an early retirement, we bought some lottery tickets. We started small with 4 €1 scratch tickets. Even though one of the tickets was a "gagnant", a total of €2. So now we are €2 farther from our dream than when we started. Also a dose of reality arrived as the home owner sent out a contractor to look a the leak in the roof that has been causing some rain in our bathroom during windy/wet weather. 

Evie as a damsel in distress.

These are old homes that need lots of work and I'm sure each time you try to fix one thing, several others pop up as well. We are still waiting on an electrician and a plumber to fix small problems, one of which may be the language or the difficulty of finding reliable English speaking contractors. We were told the electrician would be here this morning and it is now 3:30 pm and no sign of the "électricien", not that we are hanging around waiting for him. It is a beautiful afternoon here on the terrace and we are enjoying a quiet afternoon. Evie and Kevin have driven off to Limoges for the day, and now there were two.....

View from the bridge below the chateau.

Apres le orage

Well the storm is almost over (figuratively and literally, in a good way) and things here are settling in for the final few weeks of the summer. The storm being that of Maureen, Irene, Sharon, Dennis, Paul, Sybil, Sari, Celine, Donna, Cindy, Evie , Olivia, Thespina, Evie and Kevin.

The morning after.....

We were crammed to the rafters with the 13 at the height of the storm in a house designed for 6. The kids left Tuesday for Paris, and now we are back down to the 7 of us. And now we are left with just a few showers with Kevin willing to drive, the group 5 are off discovering the same villages and towns that we did back in July. The weather varies from very hot and sunny some days, to cloudy, cool and stormy on others, which is a nice variety. Even without the kids, I made the trek over to the pool for a swim and a chance to cool down the other day. There are still no pictures of me in my suit, and if any exist, they won't be published here..... We are spending our time playing House Hunters International as we arranged to see a property just down the street. We have been looking at A Vendre signs all over the village, and even in the window of the Agences Immobilières. When we discovered the house 3 doors down, with the same view as ours was for sale, we thought at least it was a place to start to see if French living was the life for us.

Our New House....?

The house had two bedrooms, a kitchen/living area, an unfinished attic which would make a great room, and 2 bathrooms. The layout did not take the best advantage of the view, so we began to make plans to gut the main floor and move the kitchen/living area to the back so we could enjoy the view all the time. We were getting a little ahead of ourselves, but now we have an idea of how the system works, and we have a contact here in Bellac who knows our price range and some of our boxes that need ticking. As we return to reality, it will be a few more years before we can even think about buying a second home or trading in our life for a full time life in France. We would be interested in selling shares in the house if you are interested.....

We are continuing to discover more trails and walks around the village. This morning, we walked down along the river to the west. It was a nice peaceful, shady path until we got to a gate, which at first we thought was keeping us out of someone's property, but we discovered that it was keeping us in.

Sheep across the river

Through the gate and up the road we went. On the way back home through the village, we stopped into our boulangerie, but they were out of croissants, so we tried a small one that we had never been in before. The pain ordinaire and the croissants were delicious, and the best part was there was no line up to wait in.

As we approach the weekend, we will be back to just the two of us, as our five guests are taking a road trip up north to the beaches of Normandy. They drive up on Friday, take the tour on Saturday, then return on Sunday. It will be a very quiet time here with just the two of us and no car. Maybe get some reading and more village walks in. I feel a visit to the pub is in order this weekend. Also there is an artisans craft fair in the village on Friday evening. So we will not be bored..... and even if we were, its a great place to be bored in.

As always, check out our pictures at:

France Pictures

Quand en France....

One of the goals of this summer in France was to learn and experience French culture first hand. Well this lesson was one step removed from being first hand, but a lesson it was. One of the attractions of Bellac was the public swimming pool. We had been planning to visit it shortly after we arrived to escape the heat, but the weather quickly cooled and beating the heat was not a high priority. But this week the heat arrived back in Bellac as well as Steve's nephew Paul, his wife Sybil and the two girls. They were off to the pool for the afternoon,  

Bellac Piscine

and we were to join them later that afternoon, mainly due to the fact that we can only get five in the car. Steve drove them over to the pool, and waited until they were safely in the water. The lesson we were all about to learn, and it does involve the age old question, Why do so many European men like wearing "speedo" like swim suits?" The fashion faux pas that Paul committed, and paved the knowledge highway for us was that men can not wear anything into the pool that might be considered worn outside the pool, such as the North American hybrid bathing suit/short. Paul was pointed out by the life guard and it was explained that he couldn't wear his shorts into the pool. The pool fortunately or unfortunately had a spare pair of approved maillot de bain for him to change into. This meant a shopping trip for us to buy a pair of the approved maillot de bain for ourselves. The family clothing store did not carry any, and our next stop was the Eco Gem. It is a mini department store. The other part of French culture, or commerce is that Monday is still considered a day off for many, especially here in smaller towns, and the Eco Gem was shuttered, as were our dreams of a cool dip in the pool. On returning home, I did some research into this dress code rule, and found that we are not the first tourists to find that our perfectly good bathing suits were not perfectly good in France. The rules only apply to public swimming pools and not private pools or hotels and resorts.

In actual fact, this is a law harking back to 1903 when longer swimming shorts were banned by the Government and despite this rather tricky subject being raised numerous times in the French Parliament for an update, so far its a firm “non”.

So we thought that maybe that the pool wasn't for us, and unlike wine and brie, it would be a part of French culture that we just weren't ready for, or they weren't ready for us. When we found out that Paul had purchased a book of 10 admissions to the pool, we thought that maybe we would have to live up to the traveler's moto, When In Rome...., so the next day we were off to Eco Gem to hunt down the perfect slip de bain or un boxer, and Eco Gem had both. We thought that we would ease into this fashion, so the boxer was the choice. It reminded me of bathing suits that I had as a kid, but that was a long time ago and a few changes have taken place. The next hurdle to cross was the size. Holding up my first choice, large, to my waist, I thought that there was no way....., and after Steve tried on the xxxl (7)  he found that it was too large. We decided that a xxl (6) would the the size of choice. Thank heavens that they were only €12.50 so it wasn't a big investment to be a real France nageur.  Also the cashier assured us that if it doesn't fit, we could exchange or refund as long as we had the receipt. He was a nice guy, and asked if we wanted him to speak English to us. The whole process of buying a tight fitting, all revealing swim suit was way out of my comfort zone and I was happy to complete the transaction in English. He seem surprised that we would even want to swim in Bellac's pool.

Bellac Piscine

So as our heat wave continues again, it will be off to the pool this afternoon and a chance to go European..... 

For those of you following the comings and goings of the house, we are now over-flowing. Tuesday brought the arrival of Donna and Cindy, forcing the youngest 2 on to air mattresses, and later today, Evelyn and her daughter Olivia arrive, and her air mattress is already inflated and Olivia can have the love seat, (two hours late thanks to a last minute change at the airlines). Saturday brings Thespian (Spin), the cot and then Sunday, the final arrival of Evie and Kevin. They get to toss Paul and Sybil out of the Master Bed room on to either the last remaining air mattress, couches or where ever they can find. I am feeling a bit like Basil Faulty trying to keep this place running smoothly.... If I only had Manuel to help.

Sorry for the formatting inconsistencies but Blogger is not a very intuitive program, and the minute you try to drop in pictures it does strange things to the text. Ce n'est pas de ma faute.

All Is Right With The World (for now)

It feels like a bit of a confession, as it has been over a week since my last blog entry, but life here continues at a nice slow pace. We have gotten into the rhythm of a late breakfast, a tour to a village or two/a walk around our village, a trip to get some groceries for dinner, prepare dinner, after dinner drinks, a walk around the river park just down the street, and then a good book and bed. The preparing dinner is an adventure in itself. We are using a Laden electric stove. We can't read the labels on the function dial of the oven, so not sure if we are baking, broiling or self-cleaning. Even the burners can be a challenge as there is little difference between 1 and 6. A simmer takes on a new dynamic on this stove. On the days we give the stove a break and bring out the bar-b-que leads us back into time. We do not have a propane grill, charcoal, and not even the old briquets that I remember. Here they use burnt pieces of wood as charcoal. They heat up quickly by using the solid lighter cubes, but burn out the same way if your aren't using the special bbq fan to keep the coals burning. The learning curve was steep, but I seemed to have mastered it now, as we have moved from burgers to kebab to sausages. The grocery stores make up great bbq packages full of a variety of meats in one package. We just need to stay away from the tongue and the feet....


It is hard to believe that it is the end of July. Where has the first month of the summer gone. Since returning back to Bellac almost two weeks ago, we have enjoyed visits to various villages throughout the area. It is surprising just how much history and French quaintness there is in the area. We still sit on our deck looking out over the village and can't believe what we see. We have also had the arrival of Sybil and the two girls, Selene and Sari joining Sharon and Dennis,

Dennis, Vern, Celine, Steve and Sybil 

filling up the house. The weather has cooled off and we even have had some needed rain. It hasn't dampened any spirits, and we look forward to the warmer weather forecast this weekend.  Just like a busy hotel, Sharon and Dennis left yesterday for Paris as they head to Paris, to prepare for Evie and Kevin's Parisian arrival on Sunday. Here in Bellac, Paul arrives to reunite the family on Sunday, Donna and Cindy on Tuesday, Evie and Olivia on Thursday, Thespina on Saturday, and finally on next Sunday, Evie and Kevin. I am gaining some insight into the running of a bed and breakfast, along with a tour guide service and laundrette.

With Sharon and Dennis's departure, it occurred to me that you really don't need to sweat the little things, and that life will work out some how. Their travel tale began as they realized that they had not heard from the landlady of their Paris rental apartment with the address and check-in details. She was not responding to their e-mails and there was less than a week before check in. This was a big issue because not only had they paid in full before leaving Canada, they were hosting Evie and Kevin. With an few emails to the web site help desk, and then low and behold an email from the landlady, the all important details were in their hands. All was right with the world. Not only did she come through with the details, she gave them two extra nights at a great rate so they could cancel their hotel that they had booked for the weekend.

Sharon and Steve, view from the church.

Even though the first act concluded happily, the drama continued at the train station. Their local train to Limoges was running late and this made the quick change to the Paris train even shorter. On further questions to the station agent, he explained that the way the tickets were booked as two separate tickets and not a through journey, if they missed their connection in Limoges, the second ticket would not be valid for travel on a later train. So there were some anxious moments waiting for the train and making arrangements to dash to find their connection. We were so relived to hear from them a short while later that the connection was just across the platform in Limoges and they were on their way to Paris. Even later that evening, we got the follow up text to say they were in their apartment and all was still right with the world. Who knows what the third act will bring, but I am sure there will be a happy ending.


Don't forget to check out our pictures at:

France picture file.