With no one on the lakes this week we decided it was a good time to come up for air, get a few jobs done and catch up with some friends.
With our Saturday guests waved off we cleared the chalets and switched off the fridges to give them a chance for a good defrost and shut the doors. If the chalets are empty for a week we tend to wait and leave them for a few days before we prepare them for our next visitors, as the spiders just make more cobwebs and therefore make more cleaning.
Sunday was the Massignac Bastille Day (or Fête Nationale) celebrations and we went with our friends from Etang de la Vilotte to the village meal and to enjoy the local band Echo Road. After having a few drinks outside Chez Alice we went and collected our pulled pork burgers and chips prepared by the Auberge des Lacs and sat on the trestle tables to enjoy them. Massignac is a very small community with a good expat community and these village functions are enjoyed by the English and French alike. The village is closed off to vehicles and everyone joins in eating, drinking, singing and dancing in the street for the evening. Many other towns in the area celebrate the day with fireworks etc so ours is quite low key in comparison but still a very lovely evening.
We did very little on the bank holiday as shops were shut and noise is forbidden after a certain time. After having a walk round the lakes, something we don’t get to do when we have guests on them, we enjoyed sitting in the garden and swimming in the pool as the temperatures were still so warm. We popped round to see some neighbours who entertained Maisie whilst we had a delicious strawberry tart. Guess what’s in the hedge!
On Tuesday we got our monthly trip to cash and carry out the way, getting supplies in for our visitors over the next month and also had a quick trip to Nigel’s favourite shop, Action, on the way home. In the afternoon we went to our friends at Le Moulin de Graffeuil and had a delicious barbecue with them in the sunshine.
There were a couple of trees that had come down in the previous few weeks, one at the far end of Kingfisher and the other across the stream between Kingfisher and Lac Lucie so Nigel got his chainsaw out and cleared them. There is always strimming to do and even though the grass had not grown much over the last few weeks the weeds and the brambles still seem to survive! There is so little water coming down the stream at the moment that we are keeping a very close eye on the oxygen levels in the lakes. On Thursday we got the last of the jobs done to prepare for the next weeks guests and cut the weeds on the lawns in front of the chalets
This left us Friday free for our planned day out. Having spent a few days south of Toulouse in May when we were closed we decided we wanted to see a bit of the French coastline so headed up towards La Rochelle. Our first stop was Mortagne-sur-Gironde where we let Maisie have a bit of a walk and stopped and enjoyed a coffee on a little marina. We then drove a little bit further up the coast to Meschers-sur-Gironde where we tried to go on the beach but dogs were not allowed. Instead we had a little walk along the cliff top looking down at the ‘carrelets’. These are small wooden huts on stilts, that look out over the sea, with a square fishing net that is lowered into the sea by a winch used to catch shrimp and mullet. The coastline here is stunning.
After having a very lovely lunch we got back in the car and headed to ‘la côte sauvage’ just north of Royan. We passed through the town of La Palmyre, famous for it’s zoo and there were people eveyrwhere so we were expecting the beach to be packed and for their to be lots of tourist attractions near it but it was what it said it was ‘the wild coast’. There was plenty of parking, and plenty of cars in the car park but nothing else. A difficult walk over the largest sand dune we have seen, took us down onto miles and miles of sandy beach, with lots of driftwood around but no rubbish, no ice cream kiosks, and plenty of space for everyone, Maisie included. The sea was very shallow but with fantastic waves and Maisie had a great time splashing through the waves. It was the perfect end to our day out and a real chance to unwind. We will definitely be spending some more time there in the years to come.
We are now well rested and with guests on the lakes until mid October we have a very busy few months ahead but we are still loving life and making the most of every day. Until next time when we will hopefully be back to catch reports, bonne journée et à bientôt…..