Normandy – Day Two

A lazy French Sunday.

The sun shining through the window and the dawn chorus started this morning in France. After the rigours of travelling from the various corners of the world a quiet day was called for. France on a Sunday is much like Britain twenty years ago with the majority of shops closed and the day seems to be treated very much as a family occasion. So when in France do as the French do.

Firstly a walk to the local village to the only shop that is open, the boulangerie, to collect the breakfast requirements of bread, croissants etc. The village is situated around about a mile from the property, a lovely walk down a long lane bordered by fields of wheat on one side and barley on the other. The edges of the fields scattered with poppies and other such flowers giving a very French feel to the walk.

After breakfast, apart from a visit to the one supermarket in Felaise open on a Sunday, the day was spent lazing on the lawn or utilising the facilities of our holiday home.

“La Hamberie”, where we are staying is a 17th Century Normandy farmhouse that comprises now of five gites that form three sides of a rectangle around a central lawn. The four side is occupied by out-buildings that include the massive play barn. We are staying in two of the gites, ‘La Demeurre’ [the home of the Hewitts and associates for the next fortnight – shown below]……….

……….and ‘Le Foumil’ the Robbins residence for the duration here.

 

Virtually all the bedrooms in both houses have en-suite facilities and they are well equipped for all one’s everyday needs. Inside the play barn are two table-tennis tables, a table football machine together with numerous toys for children of all ages. Even if the weather turns nasty there will still be plenty to do. The extensive ground of the complex boasts a field for playing football and badminton plus an outside play area with swings and slides. The centre of attention today though was the swimming pool where nearly everyone had a swim [ I was one of the few abstainers]

Josh demonstrated his diving techniques while Oliver need a little assistance from Poppy’s armbands.

 

 

As the day got warmer all most people wanted to do was to sit on the green and soak up the sun, while Sylvia sketched in the background.

 

 

When the holiday was booked I had a clear plan of what I would be doing this evening, this involved finding a local French hostelry with TV access and watching the World Cup being returned to it’s rightful home, England. However due to a rather pathetic performance by our national team two Sundays ago that was no longer a consideration. Despite the fact that an English team were taking part in the final, I felt that an English referee and two assistants were not a reason to venture out into the French hinterland after dusk. We attempted therefore to watch the match on the laptop but due to “copyright issues” this became very difficult to achieve. After much sterling work by Oliver we watched the match albeit with a French commentary [ who said that geeks can’t be useful].

Our efforts of finding the match were not matched by the 22 players on the pitch in what turned out to be a very boring final. An indication of the boredom level can be demonstrated by our discovery of  the “25 facts about carrots” website, where we learnt that orange carrots were invented by the Dutch, that carrots were the third most popular vegetable in the UK [sprouts being the LEAST favourite] and that the longest carrot ever grown was 17feet long. If we get bored tomorrow we may visit the “20 facts about celery” or “15 facts about eggplants” sites. Watch out for these facts in future quizzes.

 

Tomorrow we will intend to discover some of the local area while we await the arrival of Helena and Diarra the final members of the party.