Unfortunately, Richard had to work on the final full day of Annie & Drew’s visit so I (Lisa) have been put in charge of writing up the day’s activities.
After a long leisurely morning, such is life over here, we decided to spend the afternoon at the lake at Chassenon-le-Bourg. The lake is about a 10 minutes drive from the house. There is a man-made beach, a small play area, picnic tables, boule pitches and also pedalos for hire. This, combined with two big water slides and one little one, looked set to provide enough entertainment for nine. After paying three euros for each adult, this included Rosie, sadly, as she is now 13 and classed as an adult, we found our spot. A section of the lake is marked off and watched over by lifegaurds which is very reassuring. After some time, when castles had been built and moats filled in, the slides opened and provided another hours entertainment.
Pedalos were next on the list. I stayed with all the gear while Annie and Drew took the children out on the lake. Rosie asked for two pedalos with four seats each. Unfortunately there was only one available but Rosie asked if there was any chance of having Isabel on her knee. “Of course” replied the lady in charge. Health and safety, ha! Annie later told me that at Centre Parcs they had gone on a pedalo and by the time they were all genned up on the do’s and don’t s and life jacketed up they had quite gone off the idea. No such thing here. They all came back in different pedalo’s having swapped drivers and passengers in the middle of the lake!
Richard joined us after he had finished work for a memorable game of Frisbee (thank you Isabel!) and a drink as the sun started to dip.
The only down-sides to this place are that the bottom of the lake is really quite stony. Our children wore swimming shoes to protect their feet, but most people seemed quite happy to go bare-foot, so maybe we are just a bit soft! Also the sand could be better for sitting on, but it does make very good sandcastles 
A nice relaxing place though, great for picnics and playing beach games and all on our door-step.
Back home and tea was eaten outside. This was sadly only the first time since Annie and Drew had been here that we had had chance to sit outside. Photographs were taken and everyone enjoyed the occasion, although there was an undercurrent of sadness due to the impending departure of our final visitors of the summer. Luckily we had Annie to make us laugh, by taking photographs from half a mile away, apparently to get the house in shot, although we all looked like ants!
With the children safely tucked up all in one bedroom (a bit of a squash, but they had insisted!) the adults had the traditional viewing of the day’s photographs. Its hilarious to see those where people didn’t realise they were in shot and were pulling strange faces *cough* Drew! *cough
Having regained our composure we went out to look at the stars. It was such a clear night and Annie and Drew couldn’t believe the amount of stars visible from our house. Annie was particularly thrilled to spot the Milky Way and Drew spotted a shooting star. The only thing missing was the moon. We hunted high and low, across every corner of the sky, but it was not there. There were no clouds to hide it either. Most disturbing! We have checked every night since and it is STILL not there. Who has taken it??
The next morning it was time to say our very sad farewells. The day didn’t get off to a very good start after Annie read the “Au Revoir” message I had written on our blackboard. Flood gates were definitely opened there, with tears flowing pretty freely all-round for the next couple of hours! It is always hard to say goodbye to our visitors. This one was particularly hard as it had been planned for a year. Annie and Drew were virtually the first people to book in, even before the house was ours!
We have realised that, although living in another country means that you are not near your family and friends all the time, when people come to visit, you actually have great quality time with them and get to know people a lot more. Nothing beats spending a long time together to help you cement a relationship and we certainly feel we have done that with Annie and Drew.
The enormous forest at Mervent is not only a great place to explore, with lots of places to walk, lovely lakes and streams, and picnic areas dotted about, but it also contains a great little adventure parc called “Parc de Pierre Brune” [website - click on "attractions"]. Rosie had been here on her end-of-term visit with school and had really enjoyed it, so we thought it would be a great place to take our visitors.
So we packed the coolbag with some lunch and headed off to the woods. We managed to find an empty picnic table and settled ourselves in for a bit of sustenance. Once there, we were under attack by a brutal gang of orange slugs, although we managed to survive the onslaught until the end of our meal and made our getaway before the strange creatures could move in for the kill! 
The park itself covers a large area and is great value for €10.50 each. The first section you find is full of “old-fashioned” play park equipment. You know, the sort of things that you used to have in your local village park but they were banned because of “health & safety” (yep, none of that here as usual). So there were things like huge swing boats, two-meter-high see-saws and witches hats. All great fun. There were also some big wooden wheels for people to run in like hamsters. Molly, always the first with an injury, took a tumble in one of these, but luckily dusted herself off and lived to fight another day!
Further up the hill were various bouncy-castles and other large inflatable structures. The kids all enjoyed these, as well as the trampolines. One trampoline was really long, allowing for some great kangaroo impressions as they bounded from one end to the other.
The next area we encountered was really old-school – a “hall of mirrors” and those funny pictures that you put your head through for poeple to take photos of. All totally daft end-of-the-pier stuff, but we all had fun laughing at the strange reflections and taking silly photos of each other. Who says kids need fast rides and computer technology to be entertained?
Another ride that we discovered were the flying chairs – the kids and Lisa and Annie were brave enough to go on them, although poor Emily was very disappointed that she wasn’t classed as tall enough to go on, even though a girl her height had just got off the ride. Most unfair.
From there, we ventured to the mini-golf. This was highly amusing, with the kids all taking a club and ball and finding their own various ways round the course. This mainly involved lots of mis-hits, scoop-shots, hockey-style dribbling, kicks, pokes, drops and all manner of leaping about. The adults had great fun watching all the fun and listening to the kids protesting that of course they weren’t cheating! Not much…
We had a go on the bumper-boats – basically round boats with an outboard motor, surrounded by a rubber ring. These were pretty mad and went like the clappers. Unfortunately there was a teenage miscreant in one boat when we were having our go who was determined to soak us all, which he did. Joe and I came off the worst and spent the next few hours walking like John Wayne due to our soggy shorts!
Just next to the boats was a huge bumpy slide where you come down in a sack. It really was a huge slide and the kids really enjoyed this one. “Again, again!” was the cry after each turn. For the adults, well Lisa and Annie mainly , it was indeed fun coming down, it was just the long climb up the steps to the top that was hard work…
Finally, we took a trip on the petit train. This runs around the length of the park at about 1mph, juddering and creaking along like something out of the wild west. But it was a nice way to see the interesting (and not so interesting…. “ooh look, dustbins, someone’s washing…”) parts of the park again. Having done one round-trip, we decided to stay on for one more ride to get us back down to the bottom of the park again. There we all had another go on the old-school play equipment, before heading back home again.
That evening it was the turn for Annie & Drew’s family to sample mussels for the first time. This is something we like to inflict on offer our guests whenever they visit for the first time, as a way of getting a bit more into the French way of life. And luckily they passed the test! Everyone liked them, although some more than others. Hurrah for them, a resounding success!
All told, this had been another fantastic day. The kids had all got on amazingly well, which is all credit to them as they really didn’t know each other very well before they came here. But I guess the same could be said for the adults to some extent. We had never really spent that much time with each other before, although we have always got on very well. But having them here in France really made us realise how similar we are and, actually, what a great friendship we have developed in such a small period of time.
Warm glows from everyone today, and not just because of the Pineau
In the final part of this series, I will talk about our visit to the beach down the road at Chassenon-le-Bourg.
Yesterday we said more farewells, this time to some very special friends, Annie & Drew and their 3 lovely girls, who have been desperate to come and see us since we first bought the house almost a year ago now. With one thing and another they were only able to come for 3 days, and I think we all wish it had been 3 weeks, we had such a wonderful time and had great fun. Just the best way to end our first summer in France.
We managed to have some of the best days out with our final visitors, enjoying places old and new. So I’ll break these down into 3 posts to give each one the focus it deserves.
First we spent a while with them at their camp site – Sequoia Parc [website] near Marennes. This very attractive site reminded us of the place we used to visit for our holidays near La Palmyre – lots of great slides and pools for the kids, entertainment at night, great accommodation. After meeting Annie, Drew & the kids we went into the pool area to test the water. Its a shame it was a cool morning as it made the pools feel even colder than they normally do – not something that seemed to bother the kids much, but the adults were glad to be warm and dry again!
After shivering for too long, we decided to go and find something for lunch then head out to la Cote Sauvage, a breathtaking stretch of beach nearby, and a place that holds many memories for us. The morning was partly spoiled by the discovery that someone had stolen Molly’s flip-flops from the communal shoe-storage area outside the pool complex. We could have believed it if they had been a swanky pair of designer sandals, but as they were only £2 flip-flops from Primark, we were somewhat perplexed. Luckily Annie lent us some spare shoes so Molly didn’t have to spend the rest of the day barefoot.
La Cote Sauvage was fantastic. As I posted previously [here], this place had a huge impact on us when we first visited, and it has drawn us back time and again. La cote sauvage means The savage coast, and on this day it really lived up to its name – a strong wind blowing in off the Atlantic conjured up huge waves that seemed to roll in from a mile out to sea. The tide was crashing further and further inland, forcing us to relocate about 4 times to avoid the incoming torrent. But what a fantastic feeling it was to be blown about by the wind, while jumping over the waves, all under the watchful gaze of la Phare de la Coubre, the huge old lighthouse that guards this treacherous stretch of coastline.
After a great day, and a final dinner with the folks back at the campsite, we headed home to prepare for their visit to our house a few days later, full of hope for a great few days together.
In part 2 – all about Le Parc de Pierre-Brune, and passing the mussel test!
