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Initiation To The Vendee
In February I thought that I had better arrange to go to France to see what the ravages of winter in the 'Bocage' had done to my little house.
It was decided that I would go over for the last week in March and the first week in April which would coincide with the time that a friend of mine Wendy and her husband Richard were going over to visit their newly acquired house in Chinon. Mike was to come with me again as he had never waxed roof beams before and he felt his life was building up to the experience.
We left Somerset on 24th March and boarded the 'Bretagne' at Portsmouth for the overnight to St. Malo. The following day we motored down to the Loire and followed it's banks in glorious weather to Saumur where we visited Bouvet-Ladubay, did a tour of their 'caves' and purchased a few cases of their spakling stuff.
Wendy's house was our next port-of-call which we found easily thanks to Richard's instuctions. Their house is sited on the hill above Chinon. It is in between two vinyards and the back garden goes on for ever. Their two dogs love it. We all went into Chinon for a meal that evening and the next day visited the Chateau de Chinon where Jean d'Arc once famously visited. After lunch we said our 'au revoirs' and 'a bientots' and headed off to the Vendee so find how my house had fared.
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The house looked the same, the electricity was ok but when I turned the water on Mike noticed a little wee of water running down the wall. There was a split in the pipe just near wher it had burst last year - I should have changed the pipe then!! We went straight to 'Bricomani' where I had got spares last year but it has gone. I asked in the new shop and they said to try 'Bricojem' next to the 'Super U'. That was amazing, there is a new warehouse where there was nothing last year, it is called 'Bricojem'. It turns out that it is the same people but a different franchise and it's a bit bigger too. I managed to get what I wanted and got the pipe repaired. We did some food shopping while we were out so had dinner and a bottle of wine and everything is ok again.
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Over the next few days we did some work in the house. We boxed in the cables in the new bedroom and rewired the upstairs so we have lights and power now. Mike filled and rendered some of the holes in the walls where somebody previously had driven a truck through to fit the old split tube conduits. We generally tidied up and painted and it looks nice now.
After the weekend we decide to go to the coast for a couple of days. We visited Les Sables-d'Olonne, St Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, (stayed here the night), St Jean- de-Monts, and Noirmoutier then headed home for mardi soir.
Wednesday we did a bit more, Mike started his beams and on Thursday we went to Fontenay-le-Comte to sort out my electricity bill and visit the bank.
We started back on Sunday and stayed overnight at St Malo catching the morning ferry home next day. The end.---- more to follow.