This is the start of our latest trip & firstly, in order to try and be more prompt with our posting, we’ve found it much easier to cover each day with separate postings several minutes apart. This will explain why you get several emails through in quick succession. 

Also, some may have noticed that we have actually missed out our trip to Brittany and Normandy in May/June completely. These posts have been drafted, but time just hasn’t been on our side, so those will be deferred to a later date. We thought it better to keep as current as possible with our latest trip. 

Lanfains – not a great start to our trip being here in a heatwave! It really has been unwelcome and unhelpful and all got a bit too much for me!
The drive here was good however with the cooler (though still warm!) evening air giving some respite, windows all the way down, and passing through the beautiful countryside of Le Gouray and Collinee with the setting orange sun and mauvey pink hues of the sky.

See how a bit of poetry written in the shade of the aire’s toilet block is taking my mind off this wretched heat!!!

We had been planning to head down to central France, but had postponed that feeling it might be less hot here in Brittany. Hmmm!!!! I can’t imagine anything less hot than this!!!

We’re here at ‘Lanfains’ and passed this way on a previous trip and Michael was determined to return to stay the night here by the etang (lake). We arrived late but stood outside to hear an owl and see a ragondin (kind of like a big otter!) swimming (well Michael saw it close up, I only at a distance, as I was on board at that moment!).

That was a jolly hot night and tensions were abit frayed in the morning what with Michael sleeping on in and me being in turn unable to open up all the blinds and get the place ship shape! The heat in turn progressively getting to me!

Once he was up and about and the van back to day use, the atmosphere lightened – just a shame the temperature didn’t improve too!

It wasn’t heaps of fun sat in the little shade we had, as the air was just so hot. Still, we stuck it out for much of the day, and I used the time to enjoy a book. At some point we decided to make tracks, knowing the drive would allow some respite, albeit just for its duration.

A stop at a blissfully cool Lidl was marvellous en-route!

En-route too we spotted a signpost for ‘La Ville Audren’ and turned the van around to follow the signs to a small hamlet. Michael’s mother’s maiden name was Audrain, and her family had been Audren before arriving in Jersey, where their surname became misspelled. The Audrains/Audrens came from these parts and certainly Michael’s great grandfather and his brothers who came to Jersey as farm labourers, hailed from a hamlet by Saint Brandan, not far from Audren

Date of visit: 18/07 to 19/07/2016