Here, there and everywhere!

As we've returned to the UK for a spell it seems appropriate that we return to our Blogger Blog - our Wordpress blog detailed our fun and games in France and whilst we still hope and plan to spend time en France, for the time being we are back in England's green and pleasant land.

This shift, geographically, physically and mentally is welcome. Business is good (hence the delay in updating blog entries!) and we are getting to see parts of the UK we have never visited (or in some cases, knew existed!). It is quite the revelation.

Since returning (and in between short return visits to the South of France and the Lot - more of that later), we have met and made friends with a number of new humans, felines and canines.

We have lived in a town house in Kent, spent time by the sea in Goring (with the added excitement of an impromptu trip to Brighton where we met up with friends from New Zealand!!), travelled in excess of 1000 miles to a job near Aberdeen in Scotland, toured Loch Ness and Loch Lomond and currently we are enjoying the scenic Suffolk countryside - and we're only half way through the year!!

Our frequent trips to the south of France were prompted by the sad death of the husband of a regular client of ours - we were simply grateful that we were free to help out. A last minute request to help another regular of ours provided us with a week long stay in the beautiful Lot Valley - and there we were just getting aclimatised to the English weather!!

Aside from a couple of days without bookings (for which we were grateful as we had the chance to catch up with family and friends), we have been pretty much fully booked.

We relish the journeys and Bristol, Toulouse and Nice airports are almost home from homes now but hey, how can we say that when wherever we lay our hat(s) these days are places we call home!

We have a new blog!

For those of you who didn't get the email(!), we have started a new blog.

The address for this lates blog is: http://lafrance2010.wordpress.com

Happy Reading!

Le Duc - Cavagnac, SW France

We travelled from Bristol to Dover on very quiet roads and took the evening ferry over to Calais. We were able to stand on the deck for the whole trip in the warm sun.

We were almost at the front of the boat, so we were able to watch the big doors of the ferry open on arrival. There was only one car between us and french soil. When we returned to our cars the driver in front noticed that he had a flat tyre, but he still drove off of the ferry so he didn't hold everyone else up.

We drove a short distance to the outskirts of Calais, to an Ibis hotel. We tried out our satnav which came with the car, which promptly took us through some dodgy looking streets, so we used the directions from the Ibis brochure, much safer!

Not the best hotel we've stayed in, and we managed to totally confuse the waitress so we had an interesting mix of starters and main courses, ordering far too much, although it was all very tasty.

The following day we started out early and had a good run down, apart from a small hiccup around Paris, (Tracy was map reading, and the Satnav was also chipping in her two pennith, and between them we went out of our way)

Soon back on the right track and we had an event free journey all the way to Cavagnac, arriving at about 8pm.

John, Julie and Rosie, our hosts were awaiting us, and after a brief greeting we went to a local restaurant for a lovely meal. We met John's mum, June and her partner Tony who had been staying at le Duc for the past few weeks, making a lovely job of the gardens and preparing the gites ready for the first visiters.

The following day we were taken around the property and the surrounding area to familiarise ourselves with everything.

John, Julie and Rosie had to leave in the afternoon to get a flight, and June & Tony left the following day to drive home.

We had the opportunity to settle ourselves into our new home, unpacking our belongings.

Le Duc Website