Weather is rather cloudy with heavy rainshowers though not cold. Yesterday we had a walk around the village and a drive to the lakes at Mervent. Today we are ‘at home’ catching up with website work and chores (cooking/laundry) – sorry readers, dull stuff.
Better weather is forecast for tomorrow so we are planning a drive to nearby Lucon which has a morning market, a nice restaurant for lunch and a cycle trail for an afternoon ride.
The photo shows me writing this blog! We are really pleased to be here in The Vendee – it’s a quiet, rural area and we’ve spent the last couple of days unpacking, stocking up with food and checking out what’s around.
We drove into Fontenay le Comte, the nearest big town and found the market and Leclerc, the giant supermarket. We’ve also driven into Saint Hermine for Sunday morning groceries and done a bike ride to La Chapelle Themer.
La Grange has a good wifi signal and British tv so we’re keeping up well so far with life’s essentials – Spurs, the rugby, radio 4, Strictly etc. Cheap phone calls and FaceTime both seem to work fine so we should be able to keep in touch too.
The weather is a mix of sunshine and showers so far.
Luckily, the sun shone for our last two days as we packed the car ready to leave. The new Thule box seemed gigantic but was soon filled with bedding and shoe bags. The bike rack worked well but we were worried about the bikes being nicked so we left them at Wedge Meadow until the last morning.
We spent our last two nights in the Stratford Travelodge. Had a very ‘English’ final evening – fish & chips for supper followed by Shakespeare’s Richard II at the RSC and then a drink in the pub with Gillian and Michael.
Up early on 31st to get bikes sorted and then off to Eurotunnel for lunchtime.
Long drive to Normandy but spent a lovely evening catching up with Andrew and Fiona. After an increasingly rainy drive on the afternoon of November 1st, we arrived in Saint Valerian in The Vendee. We have been upgraded from the cottage to the barn conversion – it is lovely and even has good wifi!
Pictured is our storage container – all our furniture and household goods are stored on a farm halfway between Wedge Meadow and Stratford. It has taken us over two months to organize it all, with almost daily storage trips as well as to the tip and the charity shop. We sold bikes on Ebay, books on Amazon and Derek’s mini on Autotrader.
It all looks a bit of a mess in the photo but Derek treated the storage container like a giant jigsaw puzzle – the space at the front was filled with the final items to go – the bed, the tv and the plant pots.
Needless to say, we both have bad backs and have vowed to use a removal company next time.