First housesit

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Tuesday 4/09/12 St Aubin des Chateaux/ Chateaubriant

We had a late check-out and breakfast at a bakery in town before we hit the road again.

Now it was time for our first house sit assignment and we headed north-east for about two hours. We were a bit early, so instead of driving direct to Corinne and Barry we stopped in Chateaubriant to have a look at our nearest town. La Gautronnais is situated 10 km outside of town so we thought it was a good opportunity to check it out.

As always we arrived in the middle of lunchtime and Chateaubriant was totally dead. Even the tourist office was closed, so we wandered around and soon discovered that the centre is rather small and there was just a few restaurants that looked interesting. We did find some posters about a big sort of Country Show that would be going on for four days over the weekend though. That will be interesting.

With a bit of phone guiding we then found the way to Corinne and Barry's place and were introduced to the dogs; Lou and Paddy and also to their son Jack - in that order. We were installed in the mobile home for the first night as our hosts is not leaving until tomorrow and we were also instructed how and when to feed the cats and the fish.

The Newtons is a very down to earth family; all three of them English, but as they have lived in France for over eight years, Jack is as much French. They're off to Italy for a wedding and thats why we are here, to look after the house and animals.

We left them to get organised in the evening and went back to Chateaubriant and after quite some time we found Restaurant Le Poelon d'Or, where we had a great meal: Pancetta wrapped Langoustines in a Pesto dressing for me and a Langoustine Feuillette with a leek sauce for Lyn. For main course we chose - Chateaubriant - of course and the meat was just as good as you would expect in this town.



Wednesday 5/09/12

We left the Newtons to do their packing and Jack to register for the new year in school and because it happened to be market day in town we went in to do a bit of shopping. As Chateaubriant is rather a large town the market was quite big and there was plenty to see. We bought some cheese, creme fraiche, bread, fruit, a grilled chicken, some sausages and some veggies and that, we felt should be sufficient for a few days.

When we got back home our hosts were ready to leave, so we said good bye and bon voyage and then we moved out of the caravan and into the main house. For dinner that night we made a chicken and avocado salad with a dressing made from mayo, creme fraiche and some ketchup.



Thursday 6/09/12

We have been instructed not to take the dogs for walks as they are not used to be on a leash and likely to take off if they spot a rabbit or something, so the only thing that happened today was that Lyn and I went for a half hour walk through the forest. The rest of the day we spent playing with the dogs and chilling out.

Dinner at home again - sausages from the market with a home made potato salad.



Friday 7/09/12

Even less happened today. We did not go for a walk, we just stayed at home, relaxed, wrote our diaries and played with Lou and Paddy. They are really nice dogs; Paddy just wants lots of cuddles and pats and Lyn is spending hours brushing his very thick and long coat. Lou is the white swiss shepheard who is also extremely friendly and social, but a bit more alert. She misses her family a lot and constantly goes to the gate with her ears and eyes scanning the horizon. She wont relax until her flock is back together.



Saturday 8/09/12

Time for a road trip again. We wanted to see a bit more of the Loire-Anjou region and had drawn a triangle on the map from Chalonne-sur Loire to Thourace to Brissac-Quince. All of these right in the middle of the wine making area according to our guide books.

Well, as always we were a bit late to start as we found it a bit hard to leave the dogs locked up in their pen, so by the time we got to Chalonne it was already luch time. The first hour was spent looking for a tourist info and a toilet. The toilet was found but the tourist info was closed - of course and we did not see any restaurants that took our fancy so we hopped back in the car and continued towards Thourace. Street wise as we now are we realised that we were seriously running the risk of missing lunch al together now. We stopped at one place along the road with a terrace with a great view but the menu was boring and the restaurant a bit smelly so we sped along and as luck would have it when we came to Thourace we found Le Cheval Blanc which was a really old fashioned country town restaurant. The four course menu was about 19 euros and every dish was exceptionally good value for money. OK, not a huge amount of food but, what the heck, it's a lunch!

We were now well satisfied but we still had not found any other wine than what we had had with our meal, but as always here, you don't just pull up to a winery and ask to taste their wines. Almost all the wineries is a private home and as this was now a Saturday afternoon we did not want to knock on someones door and ask for a tasting. Especially as we know that we are not very likely to buy anything as we still have 15-20 bottles of wine in our luggage.

On the way in to Brissac, though, we found something that looked like a rather large cooperative with a shop selling wines from several local wineries. We were served by a very friendly lady who happily let us try some 8 or 10 wines and as she realised that we knew a bit about the subject she was also very informative.

We explained why we couldn't buy a lot of wine and she totally understood and in the end we still bought two bottles of the wine that we both liked best. It was a 2011 Chenin Blanc from a local producer and we paid 3.40/bottle! I almost felt ashamed not to buy more. It's a great wine!

In Brissac itself we went for a little stroll and found ourselves looking at France's highest castle. (7 stories) We didn't have time to go in and it was booked for a wedding reception anyway but it did give us an idea about where to spend the fourth night with K&O...

As we now started feeling bad about the dogs at home we decided to just drive through Angers to get a general idea of what it looks like rather than staying. Immediately we both liked it. It is a big city with pedestrian malls and shopping streets but what we liked about it was that it was alive and boiling. Most french towns we have seen are very quiet, bordering on dead but her there was pulse and action.

Well, we haven't booked anywhere to stay Wednesday night yet so I think that problem is solved...

When we came back home we let Lou and Paddy out and ran around in the paddock with them for a while. We thought they would be full of energy after having been locked in all day but at about 8.00pm they both went back into their pen and made it clear to us that it was bedtime.

For our part, we were no hungry after our big lunch, so we just had a bit of cheese and half a bottle of Champagne for dinner.



Sunday 9/09/12

As almost everything in France is closed on Sundays we decided that this would be the best day to go to the show in Chateaubriant.

We got there about 10.30 and it was already very busy. The showgrounds was massive and there was absolutely everything from underwear to winetasting, tractors to roof insulation, live cattle to line dancing, football scarves to cooking classes and every restaurant in town and the neighbourhood had a stall where you could buy food or just have a drink. We had the worlds best hot dog for lunch and a few beers with that.

We were just about to walk past a stand with wines from a winery in Bordeaux (we were still concentrating on the local wines) but the lady convinced us to come and have a taste and, boy am I glad she did!

Chateau Haut-Lambert is a small producer in Blaye, totally run by Martine and her sister, two ladies in their fifties, who are also housewives, mothers and wives at the same time. They make som amazing Cabernets and unwooded Merlots and probably a few others that we did not get to taste.

Martine was really nice and when I told her about my background in the wine industry we were immediately friends. We exchanged addresses and promised to contact her in a few weeks time when we come to Bordeaux.

This is the kind of contacts that i have been longing for and hoped to find on this holiday. Can't wait to get down there and see them again.

After another half hour of wandering around we decided it was time for another drink and guess what; we were served by a French (of course) girl who had worked in the kitchen at Rusthållaregården in Arild in Skåne! For those of you not familiar with the geography of Sweden, this is a restaurant in a very small village less than 100 km from my hometown of Malmö.

We were by now tired of walking in the hot sun so we headed back home and for dinner we opened one of our three cans of lobster soup and had that with some fresh walnut bread we had just bought at the show. It's a delicious soup and I'm glad we bought three of them.



Monday 10/09/12

We didn't feel like doing much at all today. After tending to all the animals Lynette did some ironing a I spent a good two - three hours catching up with my diary.

While I was leafing through some tourist brochures, looking for anything worth seeing, I found a three star restaurant a few km out of town called La Ferriere. We decided to go for a little afternoon drive around the neighbouring little villages and on the way have a look at La Ferriere. When we got there we were quite impressed and booked a table for 8 o'clock.

Back home we did some internet research about hotels in Angers as we, so far, have nowhere to stay on Wednesday night. After a while and with the help of booking.com we booked a room at Hotel Anjou right in the centre of Angers. It'll be fun to be back in a city again.

We changed for dinner (as one does) and drove the 10 -15 km to the restaurant and we had another great 4 course dinner experience. Entree, Main Course, Cheese and Dessert cost 39.00 euro. I am starting to realise how overpriced Western Australia is and in particular Margaret River. The same menu would cost A$100.00!



Tuesday 11/09/12

I'm now writing this a full 8 days later and neither of us remember details of what we did this day. We probably did some washing and took the collection of empty wine bottles to the recycling station. We got some yummy fruit flans in St Aubain but the rest of the day was spent at home with the dogs. As our hosts are coming back tomorrow we got most of our packing done too.

To make things as easy as possible we settled for the second can of lobster soup for dinner.



Wednesday 12/09/12

Pierre Sauvion is a young winemaker and owner of a family chateau just south of Nantes. We worked together as cellar hands at Howard Park Wines in Margaret River in 2004 and today we had organised to meet him at his winery. It was a one and a half hours drive so we left at nine to be able to make it back by the time the Newtons were due back.

Chateau Cleray is a classic French wine chateau and it has been in Pierres family since the 1920s. They don't have a cellar door area as we are used to from Margaret River so we sat down with Pierre in what seemed to be the staff kitchen and he let us try his whole selection of wines.

Chateau Cleray is part of a bigger company based in Alsace (I think) so they also source grapes and make wines from other parts of Loire. It would take too long to describe all the wines we tried but they were all very good, even the Sauvignon Blanc that Pierre had made just like a NZ style. He said it wasn't too popular among the french but he was happy as it sold very well on the export market. Or as his grand father had told him: Make wines that you like yourself, because if you don't sell them you have drink them yourself.

We had a great time and there were some memories to share and some stories to tell, among others that Pierre is married since 2010 and have two small children.

On the way home we stopped in Valette for a quick sandwich in the car before we drove back home to Chateaubriant.

The Newtons arrived an hour later than planned so we had plenty of time to pack the car and say good bye to Lou and Paddy. The dogs were overjoyed to see their family back, especially Lou who has clearly been missing them.

So we left our first housesit quite content. We have had a great time with the dogs and it has been relaxing to just sit still and not having to feel like a tourist who have to see and experience new things every day. We got very attached to Lou and Paddy and we will miss them and remember them for a long time.

Back on the road again and off to Angers. We found our hotel which was a beautiful old building in the centre of town. OK, it's Best Western, but they have retained much of the old charm and for 90 euros/night I think we got a good deal.

It was now getting a bit late so we hurried out to see if we could find that good feeling that we got when we passed through here last Saturday, and yes, we did! It's a great town with wonderfully positive vibes. We happened to arrive on a day when the city was full of first year uni students who were collecting money for their schools. For the fee of one euro you could slap a plate of whipped cream in their face. Lyn wanted to give them 5 euro without throwing cream but for that amount of money I obliged and creamed a young girl.

After a bit of walking around we found a cosy little restaurant and we got a nice meal but our waiter was a bit stressed and there was a bit of confusion as the entree arrived before we had finished our amuse en bouche which was just snatched away from the table without any comment. We never found out what it was. But the charcoal grilled duck breast was sublime!

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