The last two weeks

Wow, it is Sunday 1st september and I cannot believe that time has gone so quickly - this time next week I shall be in if not my bed in my house.

The Saturday before my cousins arrived I attended a guitar concert at La Fontenelle - can't say I've ever been a particular fan of the guitar but I am of La Fontenelle and hence I attended. Met some interesting people, mostly Brits. The next day was a get together for the whole village, i.e. La Revenuais, to which I was invited, We all sat on a long table, there was much drinking and laughter. I spoke with a lady whose name is I think Josiane who is a foster parent. The foster children were stitting next to me and one of them, a very young 12, I got talking to and introduced her to my dogs.

Actually this poor little girl was being rather ignored, so I played with her for a bit first with the dogs and then at some board game involving numbers. I left about 7, but as someone pointed out to me the French really love partying and indeed the party went on until midnight, as when the French party they party. She came to see me later that night complaining of boredom and the unselfish thing would have been to play with her for longer.

She visited me the following day with a young companion, a delightful boy called Farid (8) who said he was from Morocca and like Alison, from the ASE, the organization that helps children who have been relieved from their parents. They played with the dogs and were very good. I do hope they are well looked after.


Actually I was out of sequence, because this happened the weekend before my cousins arrived; after they left I went down with a stomach bug (no connection!) on Saturday and rather in dread that i would not be well enough to cope with the next influx of visitors.

However, I was better by Sunday and pleased to see them when they rolled up at lunch time, although they were shaken at having lost three of their cats to Jan's ex via the rather violent behaviour of Craig, Jan's son in law.

On Tuesday, I had to go out early to fetch Miranda from St Malo, so I suggested to Jan and Cathy that they go and explore Fougeres, which they did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The rest of the time, we made a couple of trips - first to Vitre, and then a whole day trip to Dol de Bretagne, followed by Combourg.

Dol has a lovely cathedral which is very gothic inside and out, with some beautiful carvings and stained glass.

Between Dol and Combourg, we stopped at a rather delightful standing stone (they are called menhirs in this part of the world) which was very talle, very phallic and very surrounded by maize fields.

Dol and Vitre are quite similar in that they are delightful small towns with a medieval centre and fine buildings, a castle at Vitre and a cathedral at Dol. My favourite, though, is Combourg, which is smaller than the other two towns and dominated by a castle dating from the middle ages, but with associations with Chateaubriand, the father of romanticism.

Chateaubriand, the author of Les Memoires D'Outre Tombe, lived at the château as a child; most of his family seem to have died in the French revolution but he conveniently was abroad at the time. He hated the château, mainly because of his very strict father who would spend his evenings pacing about the long gallery whilst insisting that his children remained silent.

There is also a story of a ghost who went about with his cat, when the latter's skeleton was recovered, the ghost was reported to spend his nocturnal wanderings looking for the cat. Poor Chateaubriand and his siblings were sent to bed in rooms as far apart from one another as possible (and very possible in such a large château). Because of the ghost(s), their evening ritual involved searches of all surrounding drapery to ensure that the ghosts had not temporarily occupied their rooms.

Combourg is a very pretty little town, smaller than the other two, and had the distinction of being the birthplace of Honda as well as Romanticism.

Combourg has wonderful views over the surrounding countryside, as is seen in these photos:

Cathy, Jan, Miranda - and dogs - and I spent some lovely evenings sitting out on my terrace eating dinner - as you can see, Honda enjoyed this relaxed atmosphere.

Honda thinks socializing is a thoroughly good thing, especially if she can have some of the food.

She also enjoys just relaxing a deux

Jan and Cathy left in a flurry on the Friday, leaving behind a map which they had brought at Combourg showing Welsh bishops or something. I am supposed to encase this in a cylindrical tube, something i'm not sure I can quite acheive this side of the channel.

Miranda and I made one more excursion, to the Château de Rochers Sevigne, where the extraordinary 17th century writer Mme de Sevigne lived after her husband died in a duel over who was to become mistress of another woman. She wrote beautiful letters to her daughter which were posthumously published. You can only see about one room of the castle which seemed a bit shabby and was approached up some back stairs.  The chapel does not really match the house, being a bit overly flamboyant Baroque, rather giving the impression that they didn't know how to furnish it and so just put in lots of gold and silver and pictures of people swirlng up to heaven.

The gardens, designed by Le Notre, were beautiful and very symetrical.  All the other participants of the guided tour and us ended up in the tea place, and we had a nice conversation in French.