Holidays 2010

Holidays for three of us this year, me, N and Rambo! We left home on April 27th, mid afternoon, in glorious hot - 25C - weather. Cristel is going to be looking after the tomato plants that I potted on and will also water the garden if the hot weather keeps up. First stop was for 4 nights at Martin and Meike's in Ariege. Good to see them both again and to see Meike much better than we have seen her for a while. Ramo seemed to remember being there before and he and one of the dogs, Chai, must have remembered their previous "arguments" as they both kept well clear of each other! On Wednesday morning we went to Fossat to visit Ann and Mark a couple of Australians who are renting Jez's house and had coffee and a long chat with them. They are friends of Graham and Judy another couple of Australians who we knew well when they too were renting the same house. Then we went into Fossat and had a pleasant lunch on the terrace before N dropped me off in Artigat. There I met up with Meike and spent the afternoon at the Scrabble club, it was good to see my old Scrabbling friends and they too seemed pleased and surprised to see me again. On Thursday Meike and I went up to Andorra to do a shop and have lunch. We had good journeys there and back and were back at Landry by 3.15. In the evening I went with Martin to see the horses who were up at Janirou and then we met up with N and Meike at les Etoiles the old home of Sjef and Leonoor. It has been bought by Baas, Dutch and Julie, English and they are doing a lot of work there. They had a couple of Irish girls visiting them and we spent a couple of hours there drinking aperos and chatting. As we were sitting there I remembered that it was exactly a year ago since I was last there, with Leonoor, just after she and Sjef had split up and just before her return to Holland. I felt quite sad,
Thursday evening a couple of Martin and Meikes friends arrived, in camper van, to spend the night before continuing on to Spain. N and I went to Mike and Jik's for dinner and spent a very enjoyable evening with them. When we got back to Landry drinks were flowing! We both had a drink with the 4 of them and then made our excuses and went to bed whilst they continued well into the night.
On Friday morning we went back to visit Dominique and Ines at Carol, Jean-Marc was working. They have done a lot of work since we were last there. Where the old pig sty was they have installed a huge boiler and hot water tank. The boiler works on wood of which they have plenty and radiators are installed throughout the house. They are now in the process of converting the rear of the house above what was N's workshop and bathroom. It will make another bedroom as well as dressing room and bathroom. Dominique is expecting another baby in November so they will need the extra room. Outside there is now a manege for schooling the horses although I am not sure how Dominique has time to do that as she is working full time again. The garden is still a mess but they are still finding the time to grow some vegetables.
After saying our farewells we went over to Sainte Suzanne to visit Tim and Tina - always good to see them and catch up with their news. Then back to Artiat where we had lunch at l'Escale. We did sit on the terrace as we had Rambo with us but the weather was definitely cooling down. Back to Landry for a lazy afternoon before packing most of our belongings ready for departure the next morning.
So, Saturday the first of May, we set off for Provence. Our first stop was in St Gilles, clost to Arles, where we had lunch with Phillip and Christine. Phillip was married to a childhood friend of mine who died a couple of years ago. He has recently met Christine and she is charming. It was nice to have a lazy lunch and a long chat before leaving for the last stage of our journey to Massanne. The weather was definitly getting cooler and rain was forecast.
We arrived at the camp site, just over the road from a small beach on the Etang de Berre, at 5.30. The mobile home was fine and we soon unpacked and made ourselves at home. There is a small bar and restaurant just over the road so that evening we went over there and had a pizza. We ordered one each and they were huge so we brought 2 large pieces back home with us. The meal was accompanied by "entertainment" from a Dutch lady who had imbibed rather too much of the local brew!
We awoke the next morning to the sound of rain! We had breakfast and soon the rain stopped. I had a look on the internet for any vide greniers (boot sales) and found one nearby. When the rain stopped we set off to find it and got ourselves mixed up in a cycle race! Luckily we were just going through before the cyclists and found ourselves waved through. After browsing around the vide grenier we went back to the mobile home and had, guess what, pizza for lunch! Later in the afternoon I decided that we ought to find a seaside resort to visit.After looking at the map we decided to go to Sausset les Pins. We set the sat nav and off we went, through the town of Martigues and down to Sausset. Just before arriving at Sausset we went through the village of St Julian where we found another vide grenier so we stopped there to have a browse. Sausset is a nice little town with a large pleasure boat marina. It was very busy as the weather had cleared up and I suspect it is a popular place for day trippers from Marseille and the surrounding area. We had a walk along the beach, watched some surfers, and then repaired to the terrace of a cafe by the marina for a beer. It was very pleasant sitting there watching the world go by and we may well have stayed there to eat later on but for the fact that the waitress"forgot" to bring me my 5 euros change! Once reminded she looked somewhat shamefaced to say the least. In he end we ate at a Buffalo Grill on the way back home, France's answer to American dining!
The area that we are staying in is very watery! The Étang de Berre is fed with fresh water by the rivers Arc, Touloubre and La Cadière-d'Azur and – since 1966 – by the Canal de la Durance. Two canals link it to the sea: the Canal de Caronte leading towards Port-de-Bouc and the Canal du Rove which leads towards L'Estaque. However the underground portion of the latter is blocked by a rock fall. In central Martigues the road goes over the Canal de Caronte giving the town a seaside appearance.
On Monday we made our first visit to Nadine and her mother which was the main reason for us holidaying in this part of the world. We met Nadine when she sold us Carol, our first French home, and we became very good friends. Sadly her mother had a stroke a couple of years ago and Nadine is now her full time carer, not an easy time for either of them. The journey there took about 40 minutes, most of it on dual carriageways similar to that of the Toulouse ringroad - that is to say extremely busy roads and some horrendous drivers! They live in les-Pennes-Mirabeau between Aix en Provence and Marseille. We were so pleased that we had the sat nav as it would have been very difficult to find. After leaving the town we got to large commercial centre, drove past that back into wooded landscape and then to the housing developement where they live.
http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/bouches/pennesmirabeau/pennesmirabeau.htm
Their house is on a corner plot,hidden by high hedges and in a quiet area.It was so good to see Nadine again and she was so pleased to see us and of course Rambo! It took a while before Rambo and Nadines 2 dogs, Tommy and Ouska, made friends but they were all right in the end! Mme was up and in a wheelchair in the sitting room. Nadine and N went out, down to the supermarket, and I chatted to Mme. She seemed very bright and mentally not as bad as I had expected. When Nadine and N returned we had an aperitif and then lunch. In the afternoon we chatted and I showed Nadine and Mme photos of Carol. The nurse came to put Mme to bed about 6 and I helped Nadine get acquainted with her laptop. It rained all day so we weren't able to go out for a walk with the dogs. We got back home before dark laden down with leftovers from lunch which was very good of Nadine as I didn't have much to do to serve them up.
We woke on Tuesday morning to torrential rain and high winds - wonderful!! Luckily we are well prepared for the weather, we have the laptop with internet connection, Scrabble and books! Later in the morning we went to Auchan on the outskirts of Martigues for a few essentials. I also bought a pair of rubber boots as I had not brought any wet weather gear with me! In fact I spent the week in one pair of jeans and one or other of the two sweatshirts that I had brought with me! All my summer clothing stayed in the wardrobe waiting for warm sunny weather that never arrived!
We had lunch in the Auchan complex and then came back home via St Mitre les Remparts. It had stopped raining so we were able to explore the old town.
Wednesday was Nadine's 60th birthday so went went over to see her again. I had framed some photos of Carol for a present for Nadine and she was very pleased with them. Mme was in bed this time and she stayed there whilst we went out for lunch with Nadine. After lunch we spent the afternoon and the early part of the evening with them. Mme came out of her bedroom, in the wheelchair, for a while until the nurse came in to put her to bed. Nadine said how much brighter she had been whilst we were there, we said was it not possible for her to go to a day centre sometimes, somewhere where she would meet more people but apparently she refuses to go anywhere, not even into the garden. It was very sad to say goodbye to them both, Mme said why did we have to go, why couldn't we stay, when would we go back again. Nadine just looked so sad and exhausted.
Thursday, no rain but dull and cold. Went to Arles, walked round had lunch there before driving through the Camargue to Ste Maries de la Mer.Beautiful area but so busy and so many tourists (like us !). I fancy that a lot more land on the Camargue has been given over to rice production since we were last there. In the evening we had a very pleasant and reasonable meal of quail and chips at the bar over the road.
Friday another dull cool day but with the odd sunny period this time. The best part of the day was, for the first time, being able to talk and to see my grandchildren on Skype!! I had persuaded Rob and Julie to set it up for me. What a joy it was. We then went to les Baux de Provence an ancient village perched on top of huge rock outcrop.
http://www.lesbauxdeprovence.com/
We had lunch on the terrace of one of the many restaurants and at times the sun even made an appearance! Then back to our holiday home to pack and prepare for our departure next day before a final meal at the bar over the road. On our return from the restaurant I had another chat with my NZ family it being Saturday morning there and Dannielle's birthday.
Saturday we were away by 10am and set off back to Ariege where we were to spend the night before the last leg of our journey back home. On arriving at Landry we were amazed to see piles of broken branches. Apparently it had snowed - snow in May!!- the previous Tuesday and the wet, heavy snow had settled on the trees and broken off many of the branches. We had a pleasant evening with Martin and Meike and left on Sunday morning. We called in at Mike and Yiks to pick up a half lamb for the freezer - one of theirs that had been killed the previous week - before heading off to call in and have llunch with Kate and Peter on the way home.
Finally back in our own home at 6pm. Good to go away but good to get back as well
Hopefully, you will find a slideshow of our time in Ariege and Provence at the bottom of the page.