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Published: July 14th 2011
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SUNDAY 10TH
Free day today - and the last in our posh room. Dom shot off to Grandcamp market as soon as we sat down for brekkie at a leisurely 9.30, and we drove down there a bit later. Typical small market, lots of tat clothing stalls amongst the fruit and veg, honey, cider etc. and lots of fish stalls with everything from mini-sharks, dogfish(?) and conger eels, to squid and lobster. Didn’t stay long, headed down the coast to Port-en-Bessin, which was rammed and had a much bigger market running along the quayside. Some serious tat clothing stalls here and E succumbed to dinky little red handbag – absolutely ‘must have’ for an upcoming wedding. Apparently….
We drove on a bit further to Gold beach. Tide was out and the place was quite wild and deserted; a really lovely bit of coast. Demolished a picnic we had brought with us and sat and read for a couple of hours – it wasn’t quite warm enough to tempt us down to the sea and got progressively cooler so eventually we got in the car and drove to Bayeux. Saw a convoy of gipsy caravans on the way, nothing like
UK gipsies with their flash mobile homes and 4x4s – these were big tatty home-made vans pulled by 3 or 4 horses with another few tied up behind - by a bit of string - and they just brought the traffic to a complete halt while they clattered by. We spoke to Dom about it later and gipsies are quite well respected in this area – all the kids go to school and are very well brought up, and they survive by recycling scrap, mostly from the fishing industry. Pity we didn’t have the camera available for this little cavalcade, it was quite spectacular.
Had a nice mooch around Bayeux, especially the cathedral which is wonderful, but probably going back another day to do the tapestry. the place seemed really quiet, given that it was a Sunday - until we needed the loo, when we discovered where all the tourists had gathered.....
MONDAY 11TH
The dreaded day arrived. The day we moved from ‘upstairs’ to ‘downstairs’ – the equivalent of ‘below stairs’ in Upstairs Downstairs’ – phew that’s a lot of ‘stairs’. Our room is about a quarter the size of the one we have been
using, and the bed is ¾ of the size of the previous bed! The wallpaper is peeling, Bill had to go down the supermarket to get a bulb for the lengthy gloomy corridor we have to negotiate to reach it and the “carpet” is just gross. All this so some miserable Swiss bloke can pay Dom E70 a day. In fact he arrived at 08.30a.m., having driven from Geneva overnight, but luckily she turned him away. Not too sure about being this far out of that comfort zone…..
In typical fashion, after le weekend, Monday greeted us with bright sun and cloudless blue skies – it was a scorcher! Bill was unable to take advantage of working outside, however, as his first job de jour was to replace the toilette (the one in the bathroom we are now sharing with 2 other people) – I guess it is a generic skill, replacing a European loo, in any event he had finished by midday (after copious use of carbolic) and was able to spend his last working hour weeding strawberries, with Zara. Elaine, meanwhile, was on front courtyard/garden weeding (yes, more weeding) duties but had to ask Dominique help with
weed ID in case she inadvertently pulled up some rare French orchid – Elaine is not renowned for her gardening expertise. It was, however, an excellent opportunity to catch some of those golden rays so attired in a stylish black singlet (if you’re a Geordie that is) she set to with les secateurs (this involved dead heading as well as weeding, moving up a level now). The trickiest part of the operation was in emptying the wheelbarrow, as this involves opening the five-bar gate to the poultry playground, and as soon as they spot you – or hear the jingle-jangle of the gate chain – they become members of the Poultry Liberation Front and made random bids for freedom and indehendence.
And so to lunch, which today was freshly caught Pollock (caught that very morning by Dominique’s 19 year-old fisherman son, Hugues – pronounced Ooog) swimming in a sea of sauce which was basically, er, cream with a bit of seasoning, accompanied by lashings of freshly dug up spuds. The sauce was so impossible to resist that even after the fish and potatoes had been ‘seen off’, it was necessary to mop up the remainder with chunks of that ubiquitous
French bread.
Today was definitely a beach day so Bill and I set off, walking, in that direction. We agreed to meet Zara there a bit later as she needed to spend time on the internet seeking out a suitable Parisian family to work as an au pair for in September. The beach was a colossal sandy space with the incoming tide far out in the distance and paddling had to be done – but briefly. Very briefly. We all wiled away a few hours, sunbathing and reading respective books, but eventually decided the sea breeze was a bit too much on the bracing side of refreshing and made our way back to Le Chateau.
It was about 6 p.m. by now and with a bit of time to kill before supper – and an appetite to work up – Bill and I took two of the rusty old bikes out of the barn and for the equivalent of a ‘spin’. It is something of a miracle how they even manage to ‘spin’ at all as they are exceptionally modest machines, complete with dodgy brakes and chancy chains – in fact they are a Health & Safety Jobsworth’s
worst nightmare but they work!
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