When Sue and Peter came to stay.

My friend Sue, who I have known since we started grammar school in 1954, and her husband Peter visited us for a week at the beginning of September. They live in a beautiful part of the UK in the Cheshire Peak District and I stayed with them for a couple of days last year. Although we don't see a lot of each other we have always kept in touch by phone, letter and now e mail. Whenever we meet up it is as if it has only been a few days since we last saw each other and there is always lots of chat and laughter.
They had visited us several years ago when we were at Carol and I was now keen to show them around this part of France.
 Theu flew out from Manchester to Bordeaux and caught the train down to Mont de Marsan where I met them on the Thursday evening. On Friday, after a lazy morning and lunch I took them up to the pretty little town of La Bastide d'Armagnac. It is a very old, picturesque little place and one of the highlights is a drink at one of the oldest bistros in France which is hidden away in one of the narrow little alleyways.
http://www.saint-justin.eu/saint-justin_b07.php
The bistro Tortore is run by Colette Tortore who is now 78 years old and has been there all her life. It was started by her grandfmother in 1885 and has been in the family ever since. Sadly there is no-one else in the family to continue the tradition as Colette has never married. Colette was very pleased to chat to us and to show us her albums of photos and newspaper cuttings.

Sue and I on the train to Marqueze.

On Saturday we all went (Nigel as well) to the museum of Landaise life.http://www.landes-tourisme.info/marqueze-ecomusee-de-la-grande-lande-1157-a.html  This park in the middle of the forest displays the life and traditions of the area. Access is by an old train from the village of Sabres a rather rickety ride of 10 minutes. There are a number of different old landaise houses which have been carefully dismantled and reassembled in the park and are furnished as they would have been over a century ago. It was easy to spend a lot of time wandering around and taking in all the history before we caught the train back to the station at Sabres where we then went into the pavilion where there is an extremely interesting permanent exhibition of life in les landes over the past couple of centuries.
On Sunday morning we all went to the vide grenier at the nearby village of le Vignau. There were a lot of stallholders both inside and outside and we all had a good time hunting for bargains. Back home for lunch and the Sue, Peter and I went to visit the chateau de Ravignan which is about 10 kms away
http://www.armagnac-ravignan.com/eng/presentation.html  There was only the 3 of us and one couple with a small child and our guide was very friendly and chatty. After the tour the others left and we were treated to a visit to the cellars, where hundreds of thousands of euros worth of Armagnac is stored, and then to a taste of the wonderful stuff!

After lunch in Eugenie.

On Monday we went into Grenade, I picked up my paper and we sat and had a coffee and watched the world go by before going on to Eugenie les Bains for lunch.
http://www.ville-eugenie-les-bains.fr/

In the gardens at Eugenie.

After lunch we walked around the gardens and gazed at the expensive and well known hotel, Les Pres d'Eugenie which is run by the celebrated chef Michel Guerard. We would have to win the lottery to stay or dine there! On the way back home we called in to have a look at the Rugby chapel in Larriviere, always a stop on my guided tours of the area!
The weather had been a bit too warm over the last few days but on Monday night we had some welcome rain which continued until lunchtime on Tuesday.  After a relaxing morning at home we went to have a look around Mont de Marsan and once again sit outside at the table of a cafe and have a drink and watch the world go by.
Wednesday dawned damp and cloudy but it wasn't a problem as we had planned to go over to Marciac, meet up with Kate and Peter and have lunch on La Peniche, the boat that is moored on the lake there. However, before we were able to leave we had a bit of a drama. We had noticed over a period of several days that we had one or two hornets, each day, crawling on the sitting room floor. Luckily they were quite dazed and easy to kill. We couldn't understand where they were getting in as the windows are double glazed and the ceiling is insulated. Peter happened to notice, on the Wednesday morning, that there were a lot of hornets flying around and going into the chimney. The chimney has a liner and it seemed that they were nesting between the liner and the chimney. The fire was set so Nigel lit it in an attempt to smoke them out. It wasn't wholly successful as several fell down on to the hearth and Nigel and Peter were kept busy swatting them. As the fire died down we left to go to Marciac in the hopes that the house wasn't full of hornets when we returned!
We arrived in Marciac in time for a quick look around the market before joining Kate and Peter at La Peniche where we had a good lunch with lots of chatting.When we arrived back home the hornets were still buzzing around the chimney and Nigel wanted to light the fire again but I thought that more serious measures were called for. I popped across the road to ask Alain what we should do. Apparently now the fire brigade doesn't generally deal with this sort of thing but he said that I should call them and stress that the hornets were in the house and that I am allergic to their stings. I came back home and called them and convinced them that it was a dire emergency so the controller said that she would send someone round. Two volunteer firemen, a male and a female, arrived in half an hour and took stock of the situation. The male half of the duo donned his protective suit and his partner zipped him into it. He then climbed up his ladder and spent quite some time squirting some noxious substance into the chimney as well as spraying any hornets that were trying to get back to their nest. Before he left he said that there was a possibility that they may return as he hadn't been able to get in the chimney to destroy the nest and that if they did return to call them again and they would come back. Thankfully we have seen no sign of them since.
Not quite the entertainment one wants to provide for one's guests!
Next day we were up and about early as Sue and Peter had to catch the 8am train to Bordeaux at the start of their journey back home.