Rainy days and Sundays

Today it rained.

Not bad for an iPhone

So we spent the first half of the day wrapped in the warm confines of Gandalf’s embrace. Or, in English, we sat in the van.
We had arrived the previous day at a lovely campsite on the River Mayenne at a place called Daon (pronounced… erm… I really have no idea how it is pronounced) and had…. Hang on. Rewind…

I really need to tell you about our first full day in France. Sunday 1st August.

Before we started driving on that day I said to Mrs P. “Bob lives in France. I wonder where?” Mrs P has no idea who Bob is, so she simply ignored me.
By the wonders of modern technology and WhatsApp within 10 minutes I had not only found out that we would be driving pretty close on our way through Normandy that very day, but had also managed to get an invite to drop in for coffee. We enter a detour into the SatNav.
Bob is an ex-colleague I worked with on a recent work contract. He and his wife Jill (or Gill? I really should’ve asked) moved to France about 10 years where they renovated a beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. (That’s the beautiful flower strewn version of the middle of nowhere not the rubbish strewn wasteland version by the way.)
They have done an amazing job on their house.

Bob and me outside his beautiful house. The house I completely failed to take a photo of!

By the time we arrived, and after various messages back and forth, ‘coffee’ had turned into ‘Sunday roast and why don’t you stay for the night?’

Never one to turn down a free meal I said yes to both..

We spent a lovely afternoon and evening in the company of Bob and Jill (it is Jill, I just checked) and were very well fed. Roast chicken and vegetables from the garden all followed up with lovely cheeses and baguette.
And do you know what? In all that time we didn’t discus Brexit or Covid-19 once! (We did. Oh, we really did. Don’t get me started!)

When I said earlier that I didn’t get any pictures of the house I wasn’t strictly telling the truth as I did manage to get this picture of the kitchen…

Mrs P, me and Bob about to be Royally fed (in a Republican country. Shhhh! Don’t tell.)

I admit it’s not a great shot so, I will endeavour to describe this lovely country idyll.

The house is a beautiful, stone built, three storey (plus basement) farmhouse built in 1940 (don’t ask - though it is suspiciously taller than other buildings in the area and has a good view towards the channel or, as some might say, the direction from which any invading force might come. - I thought I said, don’t ask?).

The whole of the west face is draped in Virginia creeper, planted by the resident gardener, a.k.a. Jill.
A flight of stone stairs leads to the front door which is guarded by a mixture of cute dogs and Aargggh I’m allergic to them cats all vying for attention in their own particular way.
There are 3 distinct and beautifully kept gardens and the whole is presided over by two rightly self-satisfied owners.
It was a great little stopover and completely unexpected.
So a huge thank you to Bob and Jill.

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