Bonjour x x

Bonjour mes ami,

I have just spent the last two wonderful weeks en francais, it has been fantastic. We go every year and love it. This year we went to Ronce Les Bain on the West coast.  I have so much that I want to share with you, I hope you don't get bored!!!!                                                                                        The weather has been delightful, last Wednesday it was 41 degrees in the shade. I love the sunshine, but that was a little unbearable!

In the first week we visited Mornac Sur Sudre a wonderfully romantic village, we visited it last year and just had to go back. The village has won an award for one of the most beautiful villages in France.

I  love the village because most of the houses have been converted into lovely craft shops, how fantastic. This one is a fab pottery shop.

These are a wooden hand crafted toy shop, hand made jewellery, hand sewn cushions, clothes and a contemporary artist.

There's also a tiny port here, my children loved watching the little fish, whilst eating crepes in a restaurant over looking the water.

I mentioned in a previous blog how much I loved the Geraniums in France, here are some in Mornac.

You know that old saying , when in Rome, do as the Romans? Well, when in France, do as the locals? and that's exactly what we did this year and have done every year. Picked free supper off the beach.

You can see my daughter Daisy centre, digging for moules and poulades. That's muscles and cockles to you and I. It is such great fun, as the tide starts to go out the locals come down to the beach with their cockle baskets and tools for the job. We use sand castle buckets and our bare hands and really do work hard for our supper. A couple of hours later and hey presto.

They were delicious, so fresh and tasty. They went down well with baguette dipped into the juice.Yum, Yum.

My new bike had lot's of use, we cycled into the next town, into our town to the local market, to the various beaches and down the path of lizards, which is the most fabulous path that takes you to the many beaches and another town 16 km away. One day it was abit cloudy so we went on a 3hr cycle ride, the children did extremely well. We rewarded them with ice-cream and orangina.

This is a house I cycled past most days on the way to the market, the flowers are amazing and so well kept. They left me wondering whether my mum had been watering my garden!!!!!!

As soon as we arrived in France I mentioned to Gavin that I'd like to visit Royan, we visited last year and I remembered there was a fabulous yarn shop there. Unfortunately the shop was closed for 3 hrs for lunch and we couldn't wait around. This time we arrived in Royan at 10am and after a walk around the market the shop was found. The Blue Raspberry.

It was so sunny I couldn't get a decent picture! But the owner happened to speak good English and let me take a picture of the fab buttons.

There were millions, every kind you could imagine and yes, of course I bought some. (Will show you later).

There was also floor to ceiling yarn, fabric, ribbon, felt. I was in heaven, as you can imagine. Charlie helped me choose buttons and Daisy chose beads with help from her Daddy.

I bet your wondering if I managed any projects whilst we were away.............. of course I did, after action packed days with the children and Gav, over bottles of wine I created......

the lovely Lucy Blooming Flower cushion and I made a start on the shrug. I finally finished it on the 7hr Ferry journey home.

One more row to go!!!

I'll show a pic of the finished shrug next time.

Before I go off to bed I must just show you some of the items I picked up from a local french Brocant Market. (Antiques).

3 gorgeous bone crochet hooks, a huge leather needle, the buttons on the cards and the lovely metal needle holder. The loose buttons were from Le Bleu Fromboise.

I also picked up four balls of brightly coloured chunky wool for a cardi for daisy at our local market.

And lastly a picture of me and my babies coming into port at Portsmouth armed with duty free.

Another Fab holiday over, where does the time go. The worrying thought I'm left with is that Christmas is only around the corner!!!!!!!! oh dear.

Well au revoir for now, night night and happy crocheting x x