France

Rural France.
We were up and away on Ryan air from Birmingham to Poitiers last week to visit Liz and Stuart Sanderson, Kathy’s in-laws .This was a wonderful experience, 2 hrs drive from the airport, considerably a long way south of Paris. They have restored a 1700s barn into a delightful summer home. A 10 year dedicated retirement project, have a colourful productive garden, grow vegetables, we picked delicious raspberries. Beautiful countryside, French homes with all the shutters, looks as if no one is at home. They went to a lot of trouble to give us a French experience, wonderful market, phew! the cheese stall was huge, goodbye healthy heart diet!!. Fish!! Alive and dead, snails, I thought they tasted a bit like mushrooms in garlic sauce! The bread was delicious, no wrapping, just put it under your arm!! We were intrigued with the continual greeting in the market, 2 kisses for an acquaintance, 4, for a special friend or family. 6 and you are in trouble
Now we are back home, and into serious bulb planting, being done very slowly, because we had a feed of snails. What a shame we aren’t staying until spring to see the fruits of our labour.