Something for the weekend sir.....

Friday was a day we each had our own little hard time.

Management was left in charge of 2 reviews, predicted to be toughies and seemed to get through it all OK.

I went off to what should have been an easy straightforward meeting. Hmmmm, lets draw a line under that I think I got through it OK.

So it was back and of course off we went for our wild weekend away.

Loading the plugeot up and up the motorway drop off a child at nans and onwards into the traffic....

45 minutes in the car park M5 was enough for any sane man, and me.

Still a bit of brisk driving and we made the ferry with 20 minutes or so to spare.

I am a fan of Brittany Ferries but am less sure about their latest offering the Armorique. For a start there's the name, this is the second ship they have named that and the first was a monument to instability. The management was once feeling sea sick even before it was off the berth! Now, don't get me wrong, it's a roomy modern ferry, comfortable, well appointed and it only has a self service restaurant.

One of the nicest things about BF is the food, a lovely sit down 3 course meal in a proper restaurant but not on the Armorique, it's carry your tray all the way.

Then again, we had a generous portion of steak each, nice cut of meat and well cooked, a red wine of bewildering brilliance and change out for 25 pounds and that was for both of us.

All was well with the world, or was it?

Now, I am going to be careful as to how I put this. Not all people are the same, some people are erh different, some people are very very different, some people are, quite frankly; downright odd.

Odd people are grist to managements mill, some people say that's why she lives with me.

Send her into a room full of people and out she will come with all the odd types in tow.

Naturally she found not one but two, two really amazingly odd people, together they were an odd couple. Soon it became clear that the odd couple had taken a real shine to us.

She wanted us to go to their cabin with them, this was not good in a seriously not good sort of way.

I have been told that I am not very good at reading women, if only that were true. Illiteracy can sometimes be such a blessing...

Now, if I was not enjoying this someone else was reveling in delight, a wicked mischievous gleam was lighting her eyes like a lighthouse in the storm that raged around me.

I did consider some sane coherent responses like running screaming out the room or jumping off the ship. I also considered slipping away discreetly and leaving management to extricate herself. Something which could have been fun if watched from behind a chair at a discrete distance.

But of course I had to factor in logistics, management had decreed that we could save a few pounds by not having a cabin and sleeping on the deck. There was a real possibility that I might lose contact with her and should I not find her again her fertile little imagination might hit overdrive and that would not be at all good.

Eventually, we managed to give them the slip and settled down for a none to uncomfortable night on the floor in a quiet corner of the reclining chair lounge.

Well, quiet isn't the exact word I would have chosen. Besides managements serene snoring there was the couple somewhere over the other side of the room who seemed to have a copy of Karma Sutra; started on page one and were well on their way to their goal, finishing the book by dawn....

Next day, we decided we would not be put off by the odd couple, would not be cowed, so we left it till the very last minute then broke cover and made a mad dash for the car deck. Not quickly enough, they were waiting for us, or rather she was.....

That was us safely on our way, driving on the right, right on time.

Excellent time we made too and arrived at the house.

It might pay to slip back a few days here.

The management is, if I may say so, super efficient. She is quite superb in all she does so of course I knew there was no need for me to ask if she had packed the keys to the house. I just knew she would have.

She of course has the same faith in me, She knows I am super efficient and superb in all I do. So, of course she knew there was no need to ask me if I had packed the keys to the house.....

There we were then outside a locked house, locked out.

The builder, who I had asked to return the keys to the letter box hadn't. Then he was probably sulking after I told him I could have windows made in Wales, bring them with me on the ferry, fit them, spend several days down the pub, eat out, pay for the ferry and still have lots of change from what he quoted me.

In fact sticking a zero on the end of the bill I had here for changing some windows on our house in Wales would not be enough to make the bills equal, I didn't think he was pleased.....

Hmm, all the timber and bits I brought to seal the windows was a bit unnecessary and wasted. Still the strimmer was useful and put to use soon we had finished all we had to do and we were at a loose end.

Intermarche for it then, that job done it was loose end time again, what to do?

"Lets go up the trois marchands!"

This of course our local eatery but that does not really do it justice, it's the sort of restaurant that every town in France used to have where the cuisine is never nouveau and the food is simply brilliant. Having each invested €11 wisely; we left full of 4 course meal. Onwards to Morlaix, ignore the supermarkets there and on to St Pol, Red Cash and a car load of wine. On again to LeClerc and the far nicer St Pol branch.

This was going swimmingly well, in we went to Roscoff and our residence for the night the hotel Triton. Thankfully we had decided to stay in a hotel otherwise it would have been kipping in the car!!

The evening was planned, into Roscoff and the my favourite creperie in the whole wide world; Ty Sauzon. Which was of course full.

On to CReperie le Poste packed with locals and proper fast food the Breton way.

In serious danger of digestive explosion back to the hotel and sleep.

We would not normally stay in a hotel but the alternative would have been out of the house at 5 am a mad drive to Roscoff and then embarcation.

Instead we had leisurely out of bed, copious coffee and over to the ferry 5 minutes drive away.

The day was made by a nice surprise. Not the Armorique on the berth, but the Pont Aven.

With the Pont Aven having a proper restaurant we might need to lunch on board.

Which of course we did.

3 courses, starting with as many langoustine as I could pile on a plate, that's rather a lot a lovely steak, then a decimation of the desert board.

I am not a desert person - unless it's France, I can always make room in France.

At the very last moment we sprung out the restaurant and drove home. Management drove - funny that could it have been the 10 pounds spent on unbelievable red...

God; that was such a good weekend.

Home and Tallie and D had rearranged the place all the wood had been stacked, the back of the house seriously tidied.

The weekend had been such a serious funfest we went back to bed Monday to recover.

Today, the chainsaw came out.

And I started the scrapheap challenge.

Sorting the mound of metal outside the house so that we can start to rebuild it.

R







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