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.