To France and beyond

We’re off again! To France and beyond.

We thought we were leaving on Bank Holiday Monday but the ferry was cancelled. The rebooking for Wednesday was then cancelled. The rebooking of that for Thursday went ahead and as we sat on the ferry on Thursday evening we made a decision to drive for 5 hours through France as soon as we docked.

How were we to know France (and Ireland too) would be going through a heat wave? There is a line in the book I’m reading, The mindful body by Ellen Langer, where she encourages us to “treat all of our choices as opportunities for growth and education.” In hindsight we had a choice… stay by the coast where cool breezes take the edge off the heat. Or, move further south, more intense heat, less breeze. We seem to have accidentally chosen the opportunity for growth and education… oh and the engine air conditioning broke! It’s far from air conditioning we were reared – we opened the windows. The wind noise made conversation difficult but to be honest as the thermometer rose past 36 degrees C the phrase from childhood, “if you have nothing kind to say, say nothing at all” came to mind and I said nothing at all.

The number on the right is outside temperature, it went up to 36 C

Seven and a half hours later we arrived at the town of Fontenay Le Compt. Parking ticket secured we headed off to eat. We had remembered a restaurant from years ago. It was in a cute little square near the river. There was a pretty bar across the square and trees dotted around. The setting was gorgeous, the people were friendly, there was air conditioning and the food was divine. What was it called?

Unfortunately, the restaurant remained as a lovely memory in my head – we could not find it or the square. To be honest we didn’t search as long as we might have in a different country. The window of opportunity for meal consumption in France is very precise and there was a dire possibility we would miss out. We googled, restaurants. It’s difficult to get a horrible meal in France and we did not get a horrible meal. We must remember this restaurant for next time, the setting and the food were just as picturesque and divine as the missing one.