Thursday 25th February 1999

Don, Helen, Martin Brenda and Charlie.

Left home at 10.00 PM, arrived at the port and went straight on the boat ,went to the bar for a couple of drinks and then retired to bed.

Friday 26th February 1999

Woke up at about 6.00am and went for breakfast, departed from the port at 7.00am, arrived at Carrouges at 8.15am and stopped at the Boulangère where Helen practiced her French, it must have been ok as she came out with bread and croissants.

When we arrived at the house we lit the fire, and washed the mould off the table and in no time we had a roaring fire and sat down to tea and croissants. The girls made the beds up and pottered while Martin and myself set about fitting some new door handles I had taken. Helen went and spoke with Martine to see if it was ok for lunch.

The food was really good, the bad thing was the news that she is closing the cafe at the end of March. Apparently they are going to sell the place and move to Nantes where Daniel works.

They both had the flu, although Martine was not as bad as Daniel, but they still insisted we went for drinks on Saturday night, after a long lunch and plenty of wine we went back to the house for a rest. Spent the rest of the day at the house followed by more drinks in the evening.

Saturday 27th February 1999

Started the day with a huge cooked breakfast, then we went for a drive around as Martin was keen to make use of the new map that he had purchased. We found some really interesting places, we then went to Alencon to do some shopping, Martin and myself had a look around the Bricolage while the girls looked around the clothes shops. We then stocked up with wine and food and made our way home.

At 7.00pm we went to Martines as arranged we thought it was going to be one quick drink and then we were going for a meal in Carrouges, but it was not to be as Martine had prepared trays full of food, so we decided we would not go for a meal after all.

Martine helped us to compose a letter to ask for our Granary back at the end of March. She also said that she would arrange for two more bundles of wood to be delivered and put in the garage in a couple of months’ time.

Sunday 28th February 1999

Woke up to a sunny day so we had breakfast and went for a long walk ,when we returned we packed the car, had a bite to eat and left about midday. We stopped on the way back at a small town called Putanges, then at the port we went to the wine shop. As we left the weather was fine but after a couple of hours it started to get rough, this deterred the girls from eating, so Martin and myself sat down to a fine meal in the restaurant, smuggling a couple of rolls out for the girls.