Well that has been quite a dramatic couple of weeks for both the UK and France politically, leading to one very late night / early morning, but at least there have been some fabulous sporting distractions taking place to take our minds off global events. I can’t say with much honesty that we have had a productive couple of weeks here, hence me not posting a blog last Sunday.
While the Wimbledon fortnight is never the most productive, I normally feel a bit guilty watching tennis when I should be doing other things generally, at this time of the year, projects in the garden. However, as the weather continues to be somewhat short of summery, I have not had the same level of guilt, many days I was unable to get out and work so no major projects have progressed on my side.
Thankfully, the same could not be said about the pool and, while we had an agreement that all work would stop in July and August the team hadn’t got to the point we had hoped so a few additional days work were required.
That work was to erect the shuttering and reinforcing grid required to lay the concrete pad around the pool that will be the base of the terrace and the floor of the pool house; to lay the initial cabling and pipework for the sockets and taps, and then to actually lay the concrete.
This was achieved over a couple of days across the last 2 weeks and we now have a very obvious ‘pool area’ that shows what will, eventually, be terraced space and the enclosed pool.
What we have managed to achieve is our exploration of the region in our weekly walks (the rain threshold for walking being higher than for working in the garden!) For the last 2 Wednesdays we have visited different parts of the coastline to the north and, rather than use our walking books we created a couple of circuits which followed the coastal path for a few kilometres and then used the inland rural roads to get back to our start point.
The first week, we walked the headland to the north of Plestin-les-Grèves, just in the departement of Côtes-d’Armor, and this week we created a walk on the coast north of a pretty little town called Saint-Jean-du-Doigt.
This whole stretch of coastline is extremely attractive with a variety of rocky cliffs and inlets and fantastic sandy beaches and has a well maintained and marked coastal path. This week’s walk was the most undulating of those that we have done before so a good pair of sturdy boots was required but the amazing views makes it worthwhile.
With France’s catholic history, this part of the world is littered with small chapels, springs / fontaines and impressive buildings, many of which you wouldn’t see without taking some of the paths off the beaten track.
We enjoy these walks for lots of reasons not least that we stumble across amazing little places that we didn’t know about before. One was a bar at the end of last week’s walk, Le Petit Bain Plestin, which resembled a Caribbean beach bar and looked like it could be quite lively in the summer with its DJ booth and impressive sound system. The other was the town of Saint-Jean-du-Doigt which was much more sedate, but had some beautiful 15th century buildings and very well maintained public spaces – although foolishly I don’t seem to have taken any photos of these.
I did take some photos of another pretty town we also visited for the first time yesterday – Saint Renan, just to the north of Brest. We recently heard that the Saturday market in Saint Renan is considered by many to be one of the best in Finistère so, on what was likely to be the last Saturday for a while that we could travel, we decided to go and have a look.
Saint Renan itself is evidently a very old town and retains lots of attractive buildings around the old market square. Also, where so many towns have lost theirs, Saint Renan has been able to keep a number of lovely looking traditional butchers and boulangeries although we didn’t go into these as the market itself was large and varied, with lots of seafood and fresh vegetables, and we enjoyed the sea shanty group performing in the sunshine – actual sunshine!! Definitely worth a look if you’re in that part of Finistère and, I suspect somewhere we will return at some point.
Today is France’s Fête Nationale although many towns have chosen to hold their parties and fireworks last night including Sizun who put on their usual impressive display next to the church.
As well as the tennis, the last couple of weeks have been a bonanza for sport lovers. We had a couple who were big football fans staying in Stable last week who enjoyed watching a number of the Euro Championship games on the big screen. David and I made the most of the British Grand Prix weekend being shown live on a terrestrial channel, with a fairy-tale result of last Sunday’s race; and apparently something big too involving Spain this afternoon – but Djokovic will be hard to beat again!!
Sport concluding today the only thing that will prevent some progress next week will be the weather – and that hasn’t proven very helpful at all this year!!
Salut