Fleur's lucky afternoon

Fleur's long awaited birthday arrived at the weekend the weather forecast said the weekend would be typical late autumn weather, i.e. wind and rain, so we were not too hopeful that the horse & carriage ride we had planned for her and her friends would be that good. However as Saturday mid-day approached the rain stopped and the sun came out, and it was a lovely autumn afternoon. The children all enjoyed the afternoon, and the horse and carriage picnic was a great success. The lady that led the afternoon was great with the children, the children could sit on one of the horses if they wanted. We had two horses to pull a lovely carriage which had room for 10 children and three adults.

We were pulled, sometimes quite quickly, through countryside between the vines, woods and fields, stopping for a picnic in a sheltered spot by a bridge, it was wonderful afternoon, and not much clearing up after the party either. Fleur got lots of lovely presents too with people being very generous in what they gave, so she has quite a few new books in French, lots of things for the bath and costume jewelry too.

From mum and dad Fleur had a PlayMobil castle, and with her Nana and Grandad contributing to the Castle building was started and completed by the end of Saturday. It needed a big table to put it on, and Fleur is very happy with it. From her Oma Fleur got a book of fairtales from the Efteling, if your Dutch you know that is a very famous Dutch theme park, going back much further than Disneyland, to say it was just a book does not do it justice, it is a fine work and wonderfully illustrated.

Sunday morning saw the return of the rain, and we count our selves very lucky that we ahd a great day on Saturday.

Aubeterre sur Dronne

It must be getting close to Fleur's birthday as her grandma (Franca's mum) has arrived in Sigogne, we marked the occasion with a trip out to Aubeterre sur Dronne. Being autumn we managed to see all 4 seasons during our visit. We arrived in bright sunshine, lunched through an April shower and were attacked by a hail storm when walking from one end of this picturesque village to the other.

Aubeterre is one of the 20 best villages in France according to some body or other, but I can't remember which. the village is quite small, has a very neat little square which would obviously be full of tourists eating and drinking in the summer, but I could not help but think that the villaged looked pretty lifeless at this time of year even by French standards, probably way too many holiday homes here.

Aubeterre has an amazing church carved out of a rock face, with some of the best accoustics I have ever come across. To be honest there is not that much to see in the village, the Church being the highlight, there are the usual picturesque houses clinging to the rock face, 2 very nicely restored but unspectacular churches and a monastery which been turned into an old peoples home so you can only visit the chapel, and have to peer through a glass door to see the cloister. I think it is a nice place to stop and visit on the way to somewhere else, it certainly has one atmosphere in summer and a totally different one once the tourists have gone home.

Fishes out of water

Autumn arrived in the Charente this weekend, it's almost like a switch has been flicked, all the leaves have decided now is the time to switch from green to golden, and there was wind and rain so a large leaf fall as well, but the temps were still around 20 degrees. We were sweeping up the leaves in our tee shirts and it was warmer outside than inside at certain points, though heavy rain on Sunday night brought the temparatures down outside.

On Saturday we had a day out in La Rochelle and the highlight of the visit ( for Fleur at least) was a visit to the aquarium, which I must say was amazing, I think the French really have worked out how to run a museum/educational venue in a way certainly we Brits have not totally grasped yet. The only slight disappointment, if you could call it that was that the sharks were so small, however I would probably be the first to complain if there were large sharks swimming around in something too small for them. There was a huge variety of fish and they did their best to create a habitat for them that was as close to the wild as possible. Overall a very enjoyable visit, usually we just give the gift shop a cursary look around before leaving, as it only has the same old tat with a different location name on it, but there were a few different things on sale at the aquarium including for the first time that we have seen, a gift with our daughter's name on it, so we had to buy it.