. . . and brighten our return

OUR RETURN was a splendid progression and I can do no better than to refer you to the route we took, with minor alterations and adjustments, to bring us back to the Contentin peninsula and our ferry back to Poole and the motherland.

We did not take the Utah beach variation, in case you were wondering (no, I know you weren't, wondering, at all, why would you?).

 As usual we were brought up a little short at the seemingly impossible temperature drop as we came north. Angers was a delight and the hotel pretty good too, right in the centre. We ate superb crepes there. Cahors was our first overnight stop after calling in on Jo, Peter and Nell in Mèze, for a protracted chinwag and town square breakfast.

And thus to another bunch of phares, eastern side of the Contentin, mostly known to us but now recorded a little more thoroughly with d'camera. Excellent fish lunch in St Vaast. No climb up the superb Gatteville light this time, (3rd highest stone lighthouse in the world!) far too many doing the 365 steps to the top – we prefer off season for such exploits. Of course we have climbed it — last time we passed this way . . . Noted that many ascenders seemed to have done so just to get a signal, mobile-wise!  Cap Lévy (another distinctive lighthouse of Contentin) bypassed too this time,  although spotted from several points. But next year's calendar was secured at the shop below Phare-de-Gatteville, lighthouse themed naturally. Incidently, the Bretville lights (anterieur and posterieur) shown below are more commonly called Becquet,  the harbour of the afore-mentioned Bretville, but who cares, I am sure you don't.





I intend in the fullness of time (and if I am spared) to complete this blog with a what-happened-in-between-the-out-and-the-in covering note, but who reads it anyway,  I ask myself?

admission: omission

LOOK, I HAVE TO COME CLEAN HERE, I just have not managed to make the posts that I had hoped to make during the summer this year. I have been trying to make amends but my heart is just not in it, as you'd expect.


Of course, I hold my school partially responsible for this as I continue to struggle with the language, but mostly I have to admit it's my equipment that is at fault. Not for me the smooth and effortless state-of-the-art MacBook Air [–other laptops of similar ability are readily available for those who are suitably flush].


I am stuck with my 2006 pre-Pentium Processor iBook G4, pride of the fleet in its day, but now obsolete as far as the digital world is concerned, almost a museum piece I gather; and as operating systems continue to develop they have left behind my ancient laptop . . . un-upgradable, dim, but still working in its own way perfectly well for those less ambitious tasks. True, I could attempt to do it on the iPad like Mary does but I find it less than intuitive to say the least, and as for the insertion of pictures, well it is a total bore to try.


So if you want to know anything at all about the sort of stuff we did in the summer I can do no better than refer you to Mary's le blog as indicated on the right hand side of this page for some coverage of all of that. While she was spitting tacks trying to get the latest message out to her public, I was probably up on the terrace reading m'book or drinking bitter lemon and tonic . . . when I wasn't fretting over the latest blisters in the paintwork and the salts lifting off the plasterwork of course . . .

footnote: One aspect of the summer visit that stands out though, as it always does, is the sense of fun and rapport with have with all our friends in Sablet. Most of these I have to say speak English. I hope that by my lamentable lack of the language, I have not compromised our getting-to-know the natives too much, but if I have, well, blame my school . . .