Yesterday was, I think, the perfect day.
The location: Île de Ré. The company: perfect. The weather: beautiful.
The children played all day with buckets, spades, body-boards and lightsabers.
We relaxed, chatted and just soaked up up the sun as it continued to bake the west coast of France.
We introduced the Dixies to the game of Kubb [website].
And, most excitingly, our resident hunter-gatherer prised us some oysters off the rocks and both Lisa and I ate one for the first time ever!
The verdict? Not actually as bad as we had anticipated. And these were lacking in any lemon juice, or white wine to wash them down. I think we were both rather chuffed that we had managed to crack another culinary fear.
Now, as for snails and frogs legs, that is definitely a different matter…
See the full set of photos from the day [here]
Each year in the port at La Rochelle there is a huge boat show called Le Grand Pavois [website], which lasts all week and culminates in a spectacular show combining boats, fireworks and music. As you probably know by now, we love anything like that, so when Kevin and Sylvie suggested we go over and watch it with them, we jumped at the chance.
Crocodiles?…in France?
We started the evening with a stroll through the park near their house. La Rochelle is somewhere we have passed around and through in the car, but have never had chance to explore, so it was really good to see some of the parts of the city that attract thousands of people here every week. It was a very picturesque park, with the path leading us through the trees, alongside a river, over bridges, and finally delivering us to the beach. All very nice indeed – we can certainly see the benefits of living here.
On the beach there was an amazing sand-sculpture of a crocodile (dragon?) which even had real fire in his nose! Apparently it was made by a guy who sleeps on the beach in a tent. He is certainly very talented.
Having walked along the walls of the old port, we spotted some empty places on the other side, our intended viewing position for the night’s entertainment. So we hopped on the little boat-bus that whizzed us across the water to the other side, where we found a good place to sit, right on the edge of the wall. No-one was going to come and stand in front of us!
Its Pineau time!
So we were settled in our spot with about 3 hours before the show was due to start, so what were we to do? Eat and drink of course! Out came the Pineau (naturally) and the snacks and we kept ourselves entertained by trying to pour the drink into the tiniest of glasses in a strong wind 
and watching the boys demonstrating their jedi skills to the passing french…
While we waited, the boats that were going to take part in the show drifted past us into the port, and shortly after we were entertained (slightly) by some waveriders (like water-skiers but on a single ski) going up and down down the odd trick. Rather strangely there was also a barge going up and down the water containing some Irish dancers, although there didn’t seem to be much dancing going on which was a bit disappointing.
Anyway, as the sun slowly dipped down behind the La Rochelle skyline, the time for the start of the show approached.
Into the west
As darkness finally enveloped the port-side, it began. Firstly, all the boats, lit by simple torches, floated slowly from the port and out to sea accompanied by some beautifully haunting music and some lovely “gentle” fireworks. It was a really moving start and reminded me (geek that I am) of the ending of “The Return of the King” when the elves sail off into the west… anyway, don’t get me started on that!
After the parade of boats, the fireworks started in earnest, with an incredible display. The walls of the port and the buildings facing us were all lit in a variety of colours to tie in with the fireworks and there was music piped across the port. I know we say it every time we have been to a fireworks display, but we all thought that this one was simply the best one yet. I think the combination of the location, the music, the lights, the fireworks, and sharing it with great friends, made it such a breathtaking end to the day.
We were all very numb after sitting on the port-side for so long, but the wine and the pineau helped out there, and it was all worth it in the end.
This weekend was one of new experiences.
First on the agenda was an evening out at Nathalie and Thierry’s house. They had invited us round for a meal, along with Christophe and Gwénaelle, and we were really looking forward to it. This was to be a big test of our language skills, it being the first real evening with only french people and us. Unfortunatley I was full of cold, and not totally on the ball anyway, so we really had to get our brains into gear.
But we needn’t have worried as the evening went really well. The food was wonderful – Nathalie had clearly been extremely busy baking and preparing – and everyone had fun. The language barrier was well and truly broken down for most of the evening, and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. A very successful night, thank you Nathalie & Thierry!
It was around 2am when we got home from our evening out so on Sunday we were all pretty tired. However, we had lined up a potential day out mushroom-hunting with Sylvie & Kevin and it looked like conditions were right for our expedition. So, at 11am Sylvie gave us the nod and we roused ourselves from our bleary-eyed trances, packed up a picnic and headed off to the forest at Benon [map].
We had never met Kevin [link] or Sylvie [link] before. You may recognise their names, as they are regular commentors here and together run the “FuelMyBlog” community site for bloggers [link]. I had “met” them through this channel and spoken on Twitter [link], but this was the first meeting in “real-life”! Well, we got on like a house on fire. They are a great family, so friendly and good fun to be with. The kids soon got over the initial embarrassment of meeting new people and were off tramping through the woods and playing games like they had been friends for years. MSN ids have been swapped and I’m sure they will be keeping in touch.
As for the mushrooms, although we found lots about 4, most were unfortunately deadly. Luckily we didn’t have to rely on Kevin’s memory to tell us this, as he couldn’t quite remember what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall [link] had said… was it bitter tasting ones are good, or are they the ones that kil you…? Thanks Kevin, very reassuring! Fortunately the well-prepared Sylvie had a book which confirmed the sad truth that none of the ones we found were eatable. 
We had brought along a couple of carrier bags, expecting, in our naievity that we would just be scooping them up and stuffing our bags full. Oh how wrong we were! Clearly the french experts had already been up at the crack of dawn and snaffled all the good ones while we were still snoring.
Ah well, c’est la vie. The thrill, as they say, is in the chase, not the capture, and we all certainly enjoyed a good wander through the forest, fruitless though it may have been.
We ended the day with a picnic in the woods while the children played and had a good chin-wag about our respective lives in France. A most enjoyable day for everyone. Here’s hoping for many more…
