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Five days of separation and a lot of kilometers
On the morning of the sixth, we say goodbye to Lindsay and David, promising to stay in touch. We leave Blars at exactly 8 o’clock and head for Paris. The last 20 kilometers to the Gare du Nord take us an hour, but we arrive there in time for me to catch the train. We…
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Summary of our house sit at Blars
We spent a wonderful week in Lindsay and David’s house in Blars. The house is comfortable, well designed and well built. The big garden is beautiful and houses many animals, thanks to the big diversity in plants and flowers. We’ve never encountered so many different kinds of butterflies in the wild ever before. Plus all…
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Site seeing Pech Merle and Saint Cirq Lapopie
Even though we’re only here for one week and we have work to do, we still try to see as much as possible of the surrounding sites. Today, we visit the Cave of Pech Merle. Christophe made reservations for a visit at 14:45 hours today. So after a morning’s work on Ananda, we leave the…
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Site seeing Cahors
If you look up “Cahors” on the internet, you find all kinds of raving reviews, praising the beauty of the city. Well, to be honest, we were disappointed. The city dates from Roman times, but many of the buildings are almost falling over, they are so old and decrepit. The main streets in the center…
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Site seeing Rocamadour
Being one of the most famous sites in France, and at only 40 km from Blars, we had to visit Rocamadour. It’s a small village, but the second most visited pilgrims destination in France, after Lourdes. We leave the car at the carpark above the village and take the shaded zig-zag path down. At every…
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We must have died and gone to heaven, because paradise is here!
After a mornings drive and some searching around Blars, we find Lindsay and David’s place. We park the car in front of the gate and enter the garden. It’s like Alice in wonderland; we are surrounded by hundreds of butterflies! In a dreamlike state, we progress over the main path and meet our hosts. Lindsay…
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Summary of our house sit in Saint Perreux
Today ended our pet- and house sit in Saint Perreux. We spent yesterday preparing for our departure this morning. Packing and cleaning, and preparing a nice dinner for Teresa. She arrived by train in Redon where we picked her up at 20:15h. The three of us spent the rest of the evening dining in the…
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Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo
We left at 8:30h this morning and went en route for Mont Saint Michel. To be honest, I had never heard of the place before Christophe told me about it. He’s the one that researches the region where we are and has a list of things to do and places to visit. I just tag…
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Banking blues 6: the fat lady keeps very quiet while I could scream with frustration!
I am most definitely not amused and becoming increasingly frustrated, angry and feeling powerless. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because HSBC doesn’t do what they say they will do and it seems impossible to get through to them. Let me get you up to date since I last wrote about this: Still no email from…
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Visiting Rochefort en Terre; a surprising pleasure
It’s Sunday, the weather isn’t great and we’re up to no good. So we decide to go out this afternoon and visit a nearby village that could be interesting. It’s only 22 km, so if it isn’t interesting, we’ll be back home within the hour. As we drive there, it starts to rain a bit…
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Site seeing Vannes, Carnac and Quiberon
This is my first visit to Brittany. It’s Christophe’s second, and the first time is over 20 years ago. After a rainy Tuesday, today dawned dry and part sunny. Which was what the meteorologists had foreseen. They said it would rain in the afternoon, so we had decided yesterday that we would go site seeing…
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Banking blues 5: it ain’t over till the fat lady sings
Triodos Bank didn’t end our banking blues. On the contrary, they just added insult to injury. On May 15, we received a polite email from them with the following message: “Thank you for your recent application for a Triodos Bank account for Just Go Pink! LLP. Please accept our apologies for the delay in contacting…
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Pet sitting Munchkins in Saint Perreux
We left Durfort-Lacapelette yesterday morning at 9:45h, and arrived at Teresa’s place in Saint Perreux at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. By that time, it was raining, after a mostly sunny day on the road. Teresa welcomed us to her home and served us tea. We chatted some, and very soon, Munchkins joined the party.…
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Three heavenly days near Durfort-Lacapelette (France)
Wednesday, we drove from Barcelona to Durfort-Lacapelette mostly through the rain. We paid a very quick visit to Montserrat, but didn’t go in there, because of the cloudy weather. We didn’t feel it was worth the time and money to explore in such depressing weather. So we drove on. Even left Andorra for another time,…
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Work space and the faded glory of aquatic garden Risco Bello
This morning, we were able to work from Natalie’s apartment for the first time since we arrived here. Both Natalie and Christophe have been on the phone with Natalie’s internet provider for literally hours, because the connection was so thin, it was impossible to work. Our work space is wherever the wifi signal is strongest…