An historic visit....

I am at La Rochelle airport for the first time this year, being half term the BA prices are sky high, and there is no Monday morning flight this week or next week from Bordeaux, so hobsons choice. I flew out on Easyjet from Luton to allow me to collect my car from Bordeaux, so that I could then drive to La Rochelle, then next week I will use the Stansted/La Rochelle route in both directions. La Rochelle is closed on Mondays until April so I am on the Sunday evening flight which basically means this weekend and next weekend are short weekends for me. I discovered even worse news this week, normally after April Ryanair have a Monday morning flight in the summer timetable but I cannot find a Monday morning flight on Ryanair back to the UK from anywhere in SW France. So this may get a little more complicated, but more of that when it pans out.

More lovely weather this weekend, its amazing what 600 miles further south can do to the temperature, it’s the same sunny weather in the UK but the wind feels much cooler in London keeping the temps down even in the sun, but here in Sigogne the sun is higher and stronger and the wind is not so keen, so lunches outside again and working in the garden.

The big event of the weekend was we had the last French owners of our house round for an aperitif as I mentioned in my last blog. They of course were emotional, but in an enthusiastic way which meant they bought loads of photos, and had loads of stories for us, we have learnt lots as well. We thought the house was built in three stages, however we now know that the house was only built in two stages, the first in 1829 and the second in the 1980s. Our house was in fact a sheep farmer’s cottage with a large barn and a granary. Lots more info will come now we know the family Valoteau and where they live. We had too many questions for one session, especially trying to understand the replies, but at one point allegedly the Germans used the house for parties. The house itself was owned by the Valoteau family from 1939 and it was they that converted the farmers cottage into a ‘new’ Charentaise long house. I could go on for ages but I will save that for another time. We are now busy scanning in their black & white photos, which we will blow up and make a little display somewhere in the house. We have the name for the last bedroom upstairs, since it is where the granary was then the room must be called Le Grainiere (hopefully spelt it right). May be the bedroom underneath will be called Valoteau, but we will think about that one.

Otherwise being a short weekend we did not do very much, recovering from our latest visitors and relaxing, but it will have to be back to work next weekend.