bill and cathy travels: May 2016

SURPRISE VISITORS

We get a call to say Cathy's niece Gail and family have managed to organise themselves to come from Cornwall and visit us in Guemene. Not an easy task and it will be their first visit. They are coming on the overnight sailing of the Brittany ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff arriving at 8am on Monday 30 May. Our Renault lease car will only carry five persons so I will pick them up. I'm convinced I was told 9am but anyway even that is early when there is almost a two hour journey to the ferry so we made an overnight booking at the Ibis Hotel for me.

Part of the Nantes-Brest canal on the way to Roscoff.

Arriving at the coast with the tide way out.

Artichokes growing near Roscoff. It was to transport these to Britain that gave rise to the creation of Brittany Ferries.

Church in the centre of Roscoff

View from my hotel room.

There is a huge rise and fall of tide here so the quay has a terrifying drop when it's out. I saw people ambling along the edge. Would they walk along the edge of a three storey building I wonder?

Two huge sea gulls, almost the size of pelicans, picking at a dead crab.

The ferry to Ireland on the way out.

Small 17th century church of great significance to the boating community.

Made it to the front door. Iona, Gail, Paul and Archie.

Archie expressed a wish to eat SNAILS! So he gets his chance.

Cathy and myself both had a go. Cooked in a Garlic sauce, it's a bit like eating calamari.

Archie really getting into the French spirit! Baguettes and croissants.

Alongside the gate to the 15th century chateau in Guemene.

At Roscoff, while waiting for the Ferry, a treasure house of coloured glass pieces, blue, green and white, polished by the action of the sea was found. Back in Cornwall where such things are rare they have a collection in a glass bottle.

The tide was in.

A pigeon, looking very much at home, followed Gail into a boulangerie and settled on the top shelf!

Here we are again, happy as can be, tra la!

At least we are but the same can't be said for the French at the moment as they are embroiled in strikes. As I understand it when a company takes on an employee here it is virtually a job for life and it is very difficult to dislodge them. There are blockages at oil refineries as workers believe the contract they have is the only protection they get against the powers of capitalism. The government wants to make it easier to sack employees and are pushing to change the law. The natural result of the current arrangement is that French companies are taking on fewer and fewer permanent employees as they can't afford the risk and as a result unemployment here is twice as high as any other European country. But you can appreciate the other sides point of view. France has a very relaxed and cohesive lifestyle and people want to keep it that way.

We managed to get under the radar, get fuel to bring us to Guemene and we have since filled up again. There were long queues at the pumps last weekend but that was probably nervous drivers worried they wouldn't be able to get to Grandmas!

The flights over with Etihad were good. We couldn't believe our luck when it looked like the four middle aisle seats to the right of us on the 14 hour leg to Abu Dhabi were empty. When I checked in on line they were greyed out suggesting they were taken. I sat on the second seat in to deter other opportunists like myself and was surprised when no one turned up! This left Cathy with three seats to herself. We therefore had a very comfortable flight.

Gail travelled from Brisbane and arrived 15 minutes after us at Abu Dhabi and journeyed on the six hour flight to to Paris with us if not next to us.

We picked up the lease car without hitch. We were getting smug at this point and wanted to show Gail how easy it was to get to Guemene this way. One year had passed since the last trip and the sat nav (in English) was ready set up for us. They can't stop tinkering with modern technology can they? The voice chosen was not Beryl from last year but a computerised voice. It gave all three numbers of French highways, two of which are not signposted then gave the name of a suburb in such bad French that we were totally at sea and I made a mistake at virtually the first turn off. Not to be outdone the voice then, instead of turning us around, tried to redirect us through unintelligible suburbs! I rebelled at this point and made my way back to the highway where, from past experience, we were able to circumvent Paris and escape south. We stopped at the first available lay by and changed the voice - not Beryl but a nice English lady.

The country is so verdant that in the nine months we were away nature was taking over. Our friendly neighbour has moved to a different town so these nettles were allowed to survive.

It was cold on arrival, about 14 degrees, so first priority was to bring the second fire into service ( the flexible flue was not connected last year). Made in Spain it works like a dream so we had two fires on the go.

We arrived on Saturday May 14th. The next day the Cavalcade des Fleur was held in town. We had Grandstand seats at Gail's front window and enjoyed a rowdy reception back to Guemene.

CAVALCADE des FLEURS

GUEMENE-sur-SCORFF

This year it was the 60th anniversary of the Cavalcade so more effort was spent on it than usually every two years. Unfortunately I haven't learned how to incorporate sound and movement with my camera so I'm afraid you have to imagine the din. Earplugs were essential!