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Published: September 20th 2011
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Oh when the Saintes go marching in – Tuesday 13th September
Well when I started to first read blogs I decided that I wouldn’t fall into the trap of writing song titles for headings but just look at me – nearly every one seems to ending up as some kind of pun or song title. It's strange how easy it is to fall into the trap although I am not as good at it as some of the bloggers. The weather is still pretty unseasonal for France and we cannot believe our bad luck. The lack of the good weather has made us think very much about televisions in motor homes, satellite dishes to get UK TV and solar panels. I have always said I think it expensive to put a satellite on the motorhome but somehow in this bad weather it seems less of a luxury and more of a necessity. We are hoping to get to the Motor home show in Birmingham next month and have a good look at all the options and price them up. It seems buying the motorhome is only the start of a very large expense but sitting here watching French TV on a rainy day brings it home that perhaps you need something to watch if the weather is bad. Must download some books on to the Kindle as well. There is only so much walking you do in the rain !!!
We decided to brave the weather and head for Saintes which was described as a pleasant town situated on the Charente with some Roman remains including a Triumphal Arch, the Germanicus Arch. Our first thoughts a bit of a workaday town with not a lot going for it. The town hadn’t seemed to have made much of the riverside location compared with some of the other riverside towns we had visited. The arch had been moved from another location in 1836 and looked as if it had been put back together by Bob the Builder. Very few of the pieces looked as if they fitted together and we got the feeling that when it was taken down no-one bothered to number the pieces to make sure the right pieces ended up together again. The church seemed rather drab but perhaps the poor weather wasn’t helping things. .
Sat for lunch in a cafe near to a roundabout . The French have made an art form out of rond-points – one in Rouen has a herd of plastic brown and white cows grazing upon it and then we spotted another decked out resplendently with giant beach umberellas, old fashioned deckchairs and big striped beach ball placed on a sandy beach.
In the afternoon headed out to Chateau La Roche Coubourne , decided not to go on the guided tour but instead to walk around the garden. Not the most fantastic garden, an area full of annual bedding, canalised waterways, large pond and steps into the hillside. We visited Casserta , near Naples earlier in the year and nothing can compare with that garden yet.
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