Life in the Loire

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Our relaxing time in Vendome has sadly come to an end. Our few weeks have zipped by, with a mixture of ‘touristy’ days and ‘hanging out’ days. The pace of life seems so relaxed here – maybe it’s because we’re on holiday, maybe it’s the warm weather, maybe it’s the small town, but I really think it is just the French way. So much importance is placed on food, and the time required, to prepare and enjoy it with family and friends. Shops are shut more than they’re open, and so many seem to rely on the Friday market for their food shopping.

We were happy to eat out most nights, as there was a good selection of restaurants to choose from. The nights I cooked were only when we had especially bought something interesting looking, or when we got caught short with restaurants being closed (Sundays public holidays and other random occasions). Our morning bakery purchases often covered lunch as well as breakfast. The regular order was two croissant ordinaire (as opposed to giant ones), two éclair chocolat (the girls breakfast), a baguette and a loaf of bread that we got sliced (indicated by chopping hand movements – must learn the French word for that).

The language is going okay. We’re trying, and everyone is very patient with us. Although we are still relying on quite a bit of pointing, hand signals, and their English. The girls have developed their own lists of food translations to have on hand to help with menus. They’re not quite as prepared to take the risks of trial and error as we are. They are very good at ordering Coca (as in cola), frites, chocolat chaud, and glaces.

The driving has not been too bad. We’ve had the help of a satnav (an app on the iphone), which has worked great except when it loses GPS location for just the wrong split second in the middle of one of the larger towns. The roads are generally good to drive, with nearly every intersection or turn off being big roundabouts which are well signposted. The exception is when passing through some tiny villages and the road seems to reduce to the equivalent of some ones private driveway. However everyone is very courteous about waiting and taking turns to pass through the narrowest points. The countryside is also very picturesque with rolling paddocks in varying shades of green (wheat) and bright yellow (rapeseed oil), dotted with small collections of monopoly like houses, often with a church spire, and always plenty of trees.

Our last night in Vendome we went to a concert Phillipe had booked us tickets for. There was a guitar festival on, and this night had two performers playing. We had no idea what to expect from it (and weren’t expecting much). The first performer up was classical. He was very clever and it was nice to listen to, but were happy for him to finish. The second was a jazz group of three including a saxophone, and they were great. They were having such a fun time themselves, it was like we were watching their own private jamming session. They managed to make it humorous as well with their interactions and playful way of playing some of the pieces. They had a bit of spoken humour as well which we obviously completely missed. I couldn’t believe it was midnight when they finished, the time passed so quickly.

Phillipe was great to have around. He never stayed or ate at the house apart from the one meal he cooked us, but he popped in most days to spend an hour or two in the potager at the back end of the garden. It was great because we felt completely independent with full run of the massive house, but we had the opportunity to chat with him when we wanted. We both really enjoyed chatting with him and have learnt so much about French life and everyday things. He was always happy to join us when we invited him to have a drink with us in the afternoons.

Phillipe took us to Tours for a spot of shopping and lunch with Nicole on our last day, as we’d not seen her since NZ and she was keen to see us again. She chose a creperie for lunch especially for the girls, who she was genuinely excited to see. We all got a bit freaked out though by the drunk homeless man who came over and tried to kiss Nicole.

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Photos

Statue in Phillipes house
One of three in a similar position???