Cooked up a tasty tagine, minus the couscous!!! It has lentils in it so doesn’t need the couscous. Will be cooking it again. Bags of flavour!

We have enjoyed walking around La Ferriere aux Etangs lake

Croissants aux Amandes! Our friends will be excited to hear how easy these are to make! I researched it on the Internet being curious! These I made – well, part made! I won’t say anymore or I’ll have to reveal the ‘magic’ to making them, and I want to wow them first!! They’re delicious!!!

A beautiful day for a spot of light laundry!

and while Michael’s been working I did some of our 50:50 dark/milk chocolates, and made some green soup. I was tempted to call it Sophie’s Swampy Soup! – it does however taste good, so an awful name didn’t seem such a great idea!

Basically I set out to do pea and lettuce soup, but instead it consisted of onions, celery, lettuce, cucumber, a vegetable stock cube, a few mint leaves, some parsley, and black pepper, and 1/2 a tin of cooked lentils, and blitzed it with my trusty ‘Lakekand’ cordless blender.

We called in at Tinchebray to top up with free water from their town Aire.

We stopped at an abbey just a street away and Michael stayed on board while I went to have a quick peep inside.

Well, talk about surreal!!!! As I walked into the abbey courtyard I was enveloped by the unctuous smell of melted chocolate!!!!! It felt like I was on the set of the film ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’!

The abbey proved locked and clearly unused, but, next door, was indeed a chocolate factory!!!

Of the two, I wonder which one would have me feel most like I was in Heaven!!!

Vire, Calvados, Normandy

Vire was badly damaged during the Second World War, as in previous wars (hence the ruined castle there).

It is a fairly buzzy town with a few historical points of interest, shops and cafés.

The old chateau/castle

The clock tower

Waterfalls – Les Cascades du Pont-es-Retours, Calvados, Normandy

Les Fours de la Bocagerie, Orne, Normandy

There is a great deal of evidence of the old iron industry you’ll notice as you travel about – you can follow a circuit for it, all clearly signposted.

La Ferriere aux Etangs town in the evening:

The village lake/plan d’eau

Eating alfresco! Can’t beat it!

A rare chance to use the awning, and thoroughly appreciating it!