RETURN TO MONSEGUR, THE BASTIDE VILLAGE

Up at 8am, we were breakfasted at our lovely hotel breakfast, packed and off to market early. WE split up to buy more fruit, cheese, salad fixings and more important - 4 dozen oysters to take on our way. Good thing we decided not to tail o ne another as we hit a huge traffic jam en route to Bordeaux. I consulted the map and decided to head across country. Later Liz texted me to say that's what they were doing. We didn't take the freeway so got there a bit later BUT we had travelled slowly through the Graves and Sauternes area, past famous chateaux and beautiful vineyards.
  Amazingly, villages were silent, it was lunch hour and France closes from 12 to 2:30. We just could not believe it.
  AFter a nice lunch together at "our" house in the bastide village of Monsegur (thanks Greg!) we set off to the village square and butcher, where Liz found lamb chops to BBQ and I found lamb kidneys. Along with cream, cognac and butter, they made a nice supper that evening. The boys got the BBQ up and running and our amazing oyster shucker (Clive) got started on the first of 3 feasts we would make of them.
  Cheeses, eclairs from the local patisserie and my special meringues found for me in Arcachon finished us off nicely for the first of 7 great days of  touring, eating and drinking.
  May I add that you can drink well for E4 a bottle here if you stay home.
  Ted became our man for the morning run to whichever bakery he could find with fresh pain au chocolate and croissants. And bread.
  Our first day Liz got out the map and then  expertly navigated us around the whole region for the week. Clive and I just sat in the back and were taken from one marvellous site or cafe or restaurant to another. Ted was on his own side of the road anyway and calmly got us everywhere in one piece too.
  We returned to the nice basyide of Issigeac for a picnic by the river, to also watch a game of petanque (boules0 across from us which resulted in fisticuffs for a while after a fair quantity of wine had been consumed no doubt. WE discovered that there is a set of boules in the ca but we never got around to using them. 

ATLANTIC FRANCE AND SUN!!

Easy EasyJet made our trip to Bordeaux very simple. Gatwick was very weay to navigate  - droop rental car, push bags to check in, no lineups, lots of walking. A stop at duty free made the priority boarding unnecessary!!  Ted not amused...WE had 3 seats for the two of us so a comfortable ride, and after a greasefix breakfat, no need to worry about drinks or food on board.
  Into nice Bordeaux airport, again easy car rental with Hertz, cost twice as much as the UK cars, and soon ot of the airport ad rund a roundabout several times to connect to the ocean road.
  A nice drive through pine forests much like Oregon coast, with dunes at the end of the road too. We were now in comunication with Liz, who had arrived at the hotel just beofre us, left us insructions how to find it (quite intricate and difficult) but I didn't see them until after we had checked in and found the hotel quite easily! Yeah for GPS.
  I later found that I had run up $100 in roaming charges quite quickly (19meg at $5/meg) so Telus has cut me off until I buy a package...holding off on that as I should be Ok on wifi now.
  The small boutique hotel on the beach at Arcachon was really lovely, walking distance to all the good restaurants, market, oyster market, boat tript over to Cap Ferrat, perfect really.
  We spent 3 days there, quaffing oysters apace, along with lots of other lovely seafood and fish. It's a town where retired folks with plenty of money hang out but we managed not to run up too many big bills, even though we ate like kings or rois the whole time. Ice cream shops provided a little variance in the diet, esp. once we discovered the cassis variety.
  It was hot (32 one day) and sunny, with some fluffy clouds for variety some days, almost a relief. But cool enough for the leather jacket in the evening all the same.
  At the daily market we bought melons, figs, strawbs, peaches, pears, stocking up for our journey. Then a drive to the oyster bed area east of Arcachon, and lunch at a super little restuarant on the river with a plate of fruit de mer - grey shrimp (eat the whole thing apart from the head), prawns, whelks, cockles washed down with a bottle of white Entre de Mers, which we are finding perfectly compliments everything we eat.
  Later we took our tastebuds to the gym again at the swanky Victoria restaurant where the food was mostly really good but we were cold with the doors to the ocean open all evening...
  WE spent our last day in Arcachon taking the boat over toe Cap Feerrett, the little train out to the beach, back to squat on stools at the bar for more oysters and shellfish (no mussels, Liz is allergic) and a nice walk along their beach too.
  Our last night we checked out another swanky place, Chez Pierre, and he did not disappoint. WE headed to the bar for the rest of my party to quaff a cognac and finish our day properly. Our waistlines are not gonna thank us for all this later...

SUNNY FOLKESTONE - THEN DOWNHILL FROM THERE...

Playing catchup on our travels, I am finding it difficult to remember that it is almost two weeks later that I have found my blog again. Lack of wifi and time, having too good a trip I guess.
  We took a good drive down to the English coast at Folkestone to visit my nephew Simon and family, Julia, Robert and Nell in thier lovely  new house there.
  A sumptuous lunch, with fois gras to get us in the mood for Perigourdine France, then summer BBQ lamb kebabs. Then a walk along the beachfront in gorgeous sun, where a holiday weekend festival was going on, and everyone having a good time before the kids return to school there.
  Only one small detour on the way back but nearly an unwarranted trip through the dreaded Dartford Tunnel. AT least we checked on our rouote to Gatwick for the next day.
  The statuory  holiday in England proved a bit disastrous weather wise, heavy rain almost all day and a pool outside our house. Anne's plan for a summer BBQ was quickly converted to indoor visiting with all her family, which wasn't weather dependent. All had fun together, the little girls (1 and 4) behaved perfectly and we would up with the usual family card games before Sarah left for home and work in the morning.
  Tuesday is Anne & Graeme's day with granddaughters so Ted and I drove south to Oxshott for a visit with long-time friends Trish and Art Torr, sadly our last gvisit with him I am sure. We enjoyed hearing all about their growing dynasty, 8th grandchild expected soon, and about all the family spread across the world.
  I navigated our way back to london across town to Chiswick, dropped off a spare suitcase of UK clothing (hope we don't need it in France) to my sister Mary, who was not in residence. Thus Ted ad I took a walk down to the Thames pubs at Strand on the Green, and renewed our acquintance with several draft beers and pub grub. While we sat outside, it began to rain...
  That evening we thanked our hosts with dinner at Loch Fyne, not entirely a success with no beer, no mussels but lots of other good things to quaff and devour, including a great lobster bisque.
  Wednesday morning, we set off at a reasonable 8:45am for Gatwick airport. I should ad the traffic jam coming into London was horrendous and people do this on their daily commute. Perish the thought. But Simon & Julia commute by train from Folkestone too!
  Off to France looking for sun...

National Trust and pubs

We are happy to be back in the land of lovely National Trust properies and country pubs. Despite having his drinking curtailed now, Ted was anxious to collect as many new country pub visits as possible.
  It's nice to make a destination out of an NT location too. But it's hard to get enthused about walking around in the rain.
  We have had squalls and rain all the time since arriving. One day the rain was going horizontally in front of our windows. It doesn't help that everyone keeps telling us about the extremely hot day before we arrived - and all summer dry and sunny...It is about 20 but feels cooler in he damp.
  At the Hinton homel we enjoy games in the evening - cards, mind games and always somethign new. This time we are learning Qwirkle (a matching-colour-shape game) - keeps us awake to combat jetlag and not going ot be too early. They are keen athletic fans so we watch the evening roundup of the finals from Beijing right now.
  A visit to the local shopping mall and two cell providers got my phone set up for pay-as-you-go in UK and France, easier and cheaper than trying to get service for my iphone here.
  We also tried unsuccessfully to order more of our wine glasses. Online it's easy, put in order, pay, pick up after 2pm next day at John Lewis dept. store or Waitrose grocery store. But when yoou have a billing addres in Canada, not so easy. They first accepted then cancelled our order so I can see it wil have to wait til we are in Cambridge at the end of our trip. At least we know they have the glasses we want.
  A day out with Anne & Grame took us to Windsor Great Park, polo park home of the Dukes I guess they own it all) and rain stayed off until we were almost back to the car. WE then found a lovely pub, the Fox & Hounds (of course) in the park for a light lunch and more interesting local brewskies. Liked it so uch, we will return for dinner there on Tuesday. Nephew Neil dropped by to say hi after his workday finished at 3:30pm yesterday, a good job for a family man as long as he is not out on emergency call.
  Thursday evening we drove to Sarah's lovely wee house in Weybridge, a tiny semi detached cottage, unbelievably now valued at 500,000 pounds. She has done a lovely job of bringing it up to modern standards - but you can't park outside if you don't live in that road! Glad we did not accept a rental car upgrade to a bigger car, parking is a nightmare in London.
  After dickering on whether to bring  a leather jacket on this trip, I was glad to have it for the cool evening out.

Off to Jolly Soggy England...

We had a comfortable flight on Air Transat, 12 Club seats in the front made the 8.5 hour journey more comfortable but the timing, 4pm to 4am-ish, meant yu could not really gt much sleep. Therefore jet lag haas been hard to combat.
  We have rented cars in England and France the whole time so after a 7:30am landing, we had to tackle driving on the right without a map. Rental car comapnies don't provide any maps here, srange..But I had run off a Google Map set of directions from Gatwick airport to Ted's brother's home in Great Bookham, Surrey. We only had a couple of detaours through lovely country lanes and villages, not the most easy or direct route apparently.
  A warm welcome awaiting and two days there, with comfortable digs, and a day out to a National Trust propety, which we unfortuantely missed seeing insde as we arrived 4 minutes  before closing! WE had meanwhile found a neat country pub The Badger, serving wonderful seafood from a few miles south on the English channel. We enjoyed a walk around the garden grounds at Petworth all the same. But it huses one of the best art collections in National Trust, notably Turners, so was a bit sad to miss it. Another time...
  It was grandma's Anne's day for the kids so she and Graeme arrived for lunch with the 3 and 1 year old girls, Gracie and Isla. We then came back with them, Anne with Ted, me with Grraeme, so I didb't have to navigate that one. They kidsit  one day a week so that's it over for this week.