Another feast ... this time Oysters

Here, at the Oyster Farm at Larmor-Baden on the coast near Vannes, is the best example of the Breton flag (regional flat of Brittany) flying that I have been able to find. I found a bit of info about the design and meaning here, if you're interested in flags ... http://fotw.fivestarflags.com/fr-bz.html

Motorhomes are permitted to stay overnight on the big gravel parking lot at the back of the oyster farm and when we arrived - fairly early as we like to do - we were the only folk there and had our pick of parkings. I like that. I love the space to breathe. Especially in warm weather. As soon as seat belts are released I'm back there opening the sky light, windows and doors to flood the fresh air in.

I have an Irish story which indicates that this fresh air addiction may well be another South African weirdity. Some years ago, good friends of ours from Pietermaritzburg in Kwa-Zulu Natal, where I used to live, came to see us in Ireland. On their way to Connemara, they diverted to Cork for interesting ancestoral reasons. The first thing they did on entering their room at a B&B was to fling the windows wide open - as you do. The landlady rushed in, closed the windows, saying: "I know you're South African, but we like to keep the windows closed to keep the bees out". Yeah, well, habits die hard and I often think of that incident with a chuckle.

We thought we were going to be the only ones there for the night ... ha ha ha. This is how full it ended up being ... that's us squished in the middle. Not really our scene to stay in such an overcrowded space, but the pull of a fresh seafood dinner was too strong!

And there were more motorhomes on the other side of the parking lot too ... I think nine in total parked up for the night. Eeek. France is a very motorhome-friendly country and folk sure make good use of their hospitality.

During our afternoon walk-around we sussed out the restaurant built on the edge of, and a wee bit into, a walled-in oyster pool.

Being eager beavers - and hungry to boot - we arrived early so got the pic of tables. The clouds were looking a little dicey though but we took our chances and settled in for a long and delicious meal.

Just as the delicacies arrived and were arranged on our table, the rain started in earnest and there was a mad scuttle of all the diners to move food and drink to tables set out beneath an awning ... quite likely set up for just an event! It reminded me of the Johnny Cash movie where his brother and himself had a little saying in their youth, something like: "I saved my feathers for just such an occasion".

So what do you think of this as a seafood platter? We loved it! Those little blighters in the middle, in the red dish, were a blighter to extract to eat though. We finished the meal with a traditional sweet of Far cake and caramel sauce, a Breton speciality. I found this desciption, and image, online: "Far Breton is a traditional cake or dessert from the Brittany region in France. Its base is similar in composition to a clafoutis batter: a flan-style eggs-and-milk custard with flour added. Prunes or raisins are common additions."

Before the rain started, the tide was out and this was our view of the oyster pool:

Then the tide started coming in and the water began to spill over:

Heavier and heavier, until you wouldn't know there was a pool there.

The pics below are just some of the equipment used at the farm. All fairly self explanatory. Sadly there was no facility for learning what was used for what and how.

And so, next morning, we were off fairly early, heading back to St Gilda's for the last of our lovely much-needed rest days. Even Bridie got good at resting and sleeping. When she wasn't draped on one of the front seats waiting for whichever of us had left the motorhome, she was as chilled and cool-dog as we were ... even resting her head on the steering wheel.

Our next reason to start the ignition was to move in to Melody, the leisure home we have bought, on the west coast of Finistère, as our travel base.

A feast of photography

A blog post ago I mentioned we stayed along the Nantes to Brest canalside at St Samson. What I hadn't done by the time I wrote that post was go through the feast of photography Alan and I had at a tiny town called St Gouvray, between St Samson and Rohan. There's an abandoned farm house at the edge of the village.

For many a moon I had wanted to stop and photograph this building but we were always on the way to somewhere and the opportunity didn't present itself until now. Good thing too because the day was perfect. A fresh and sunny morning with a bit of dew still on the grass.

The chosen images below are in no particular order and are simply a celebration of an ancient building with boarded doors, open windows, furniture still arranged inside (giving strength to the suspicion that folk still use the building at times), a piece of sculptural wood at an open window, the inevitable spider webs, bricks showing through plaster, wood piles in the garden, door handles, shutters ... and Alan taking his own pics.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Coast of Vannes up to Rennes and back again

Ignoring our "only a few kilometres a day" habit we made the trip from St Gilda's, on the coast south east of Vannes, back up to Reguiny, a town in our old hunting grounds, in one hit. Our plan was to get the medical check-up over and done with, head on up to Rennes to visit Ikea for a couple of bits 'n bobs, then drive back down to St Gilda's for a real rest. We'd tasted leisure time at last and most definitely wanted more!

Friday 12 May 2017
Reguiny is within spitting and whistling distance of where we used to live which meant we hadn't needed to stay overnight there before, but had had our eye on it for a time like this as it was relatively close to Pontivy Hospital. It's a typical small Breton village boasting a public swimming pool (piscine) and a pleasant lake area where we could replenish our water and empty our tanks.

The weather was cool with soft rain ... perfect for enjoying this view from out of Milly's front door and windows. Bridie was in doggie paradise with all the sniffs she could sniff in this delightful mini forest we parked next to.

We completed a busy appointment-filled day with lunch with good friends, the Tomkins and the O'Neills, at a well-known restaurant called La Hangar in Ploermel, another close-by town. La Hangar is a converted railway warehouse, now a very worthwhile restaurant and household novelty shop with to-die-for huge merengues, biscuits and nougat to tempt even the strongest will power.

For our overnight stop we headed east towards Rennes where Ikea is, and stopped at the Tregu Aire near to Pleland le Grande, for the night. Lovely, peaceful and next to a lake of course!

Above and below is Tregu Aire near Pleland Le Grande

13 May 2017, Saturday
I could hardly believe that my youngest, Gary, turned 35 years old on this day! Oh wow. Only way to celebrate is to go to Ikea and buy things. LOL. He's living in Cape Town, and is the GM of a well known and well established restaurant there called The Wild Fig ... anyone been there? I haven't seen him for close on five years ... that is heart-breakingly long. Sniff.

Rennes (Ikea) was our turning point on this leg of our journey and we headed south again, stopping off for a rather eventful night in Plumeliau. When we got there, the town itself was closed off, seemingly for a celebration or fete of some kind. We were able to navigate around the town and find the motorhome aire - at the side of a lake - and settle down for a bit of a Milly houseclean and a Bridie training session.

The evening and night was peaceful until 3am when we were loudly awakened by someone literally thumping heavily on our door and yelling something French at the top of his voice. Even Bridie was too shocked to bark. Alan's first reaction was the best ... he sat bolt upright and yelled something very loudly. I can't remember what he yelled ... I think it was Voetsak! (Ha Ha Ha ... a very South African / Afrikaans expression for a strong version of Go Away!) with an expletive or two. He has one of the most powerful male voices I have come across, when he wants to use it, so it was extremely effective.

On investigation, whoever it was, brave person, had run off by the time we put the outside light on and peered out the windows. Later that morning when we emerged from Milly after breakfast, we found that the thumping-door gentleman had pulled our windscreen wipers away from the windscreen, and they were sticking out like feelers, but luckily not broken and no other damage anywhere.

In South Africa we call the mischievous game of knocking on someone's front door and then running away and hiding, Tok Tokkie. I'm too much of a scaredy cat to have done it myself. The only invasion of a stranger's territory I've ever dabbled in, at the age of about four, and encouraged by my fun-loving grandfather, was dialling random numbers on the big black telephone to see if it would ring. One day a kindly male voice answered my random number dialing and I got such a fright I slammed the phone down and jumped wide-eyed onto my grandfather's lap. He chortled merrily and said "Who was that?" and I replied "Mr Nobody". I never did it again. So brave.

And so on to an Oyster Farm ...