Friday, September 23, 2005
My last blog from the Loire…
Well, can you believe it? My time here is almost over, so this will be my last blog from Chisseaux, Loire.
September has been a pretty busy month. We’ve had lots of guests, and a visit from Gerwyn’s mum, who came out for the weekend at the start of the month. She taught me how to bake Welsh cakes, so I now have yet another scrummy cake to add to my repertoire of recipies!! They are quite like rock cakes, but you make them flat and cook them on a griddle rather than in the oven.
I have made an attempt to take up jogging. I absolutely hate it, but decided I needed to take drastic measures to get fit/lose weight, and as the daylight hours reduce, it’s easier to find 20 mins for a jog rather than 1.5 hours for a bike ride! I can manage a 20 minutes circuit through Chisseaux and back along side the river, which is quite pleasant – the view, not the jogging!! But I’m never going to become a “convert” and run the London marathon, that’s for sure!!
We finally got the authorisation for the van’s service from the lease company, and it had to go in for 2 days, but as we’re so busy we needed another vehicle. I spoke nicely to the lady at the garage who agreed to lend us a car for free…so we got this old Renault 21, with a huge crack across the windscreen, drivers window that didn’t go down, rear passenger window that wound down, but not up, etc, etc!!! Despite all of that, it was mechanically sound and actually drove pretty well!! We had to book taxis to do a couple of client transfers as there was no way we were taking them in the car, so that just meant we had a couple of bags runs to do – a lot more tricky when you’ve got an average sized saloon boot (on a 1987 car) rather than the back of a van!! But we made it, and had a good laugh with all the hoteliers when they admired our replacement vehicle!
Mum, Dad and Carol arrived on Monday 12th to start the 8 day cycling tour. There was another couple called Linda and Colin, from Kent, who also started on the same day. They all had a great time, and G and I met up with them on 3 evenings for dinner, as well as catching up with them a couple of times on their cycling days to see how they were doing.
A couple of Aussie ladies who were on the walking tour had a “premonition” dream about getting strangled in the woods (nice!!) and that I shouldn’t go out on my own – they phoned at 8am the next morning to ask for a lift to the next hotel, as they didn’t want to walk through the woods, and I happened to be out on my own jogging at the time – so Gerwyn got this bizarre phone call, and of course felt a bit edgy until I got back. I’m happy to say I’ve had no problems since (not that I jog through the woods anyway), nor have we heard reports of stranglers in the area, so perhaps the Aussie ladies had too much cheese and wine….. but I do now carry the personal alarm with me when I go jogging (until now it’s been gathering dust in the cupboard!!)
We have managed to escape from the Loire for 22 hours this week, but on a work related expedition! Now, most of you probably have not heard of the Berry region – I certainly hadn’t before working for Headwater, but that’s where we went! The original rep had to leave at the beginning of September, to go on an air-force training course to fly helicopters, and the temporary rep Jo, who’s been doing a sterling job all summer of going round and helping out or filling in whenever and wherever necessary, has had to go on to Italy, where she’s needed for the next month. So we were asked to go to the Berry to move bags between 2 hotels on Wednesday afternoon, and then on Thursday morning take the last remaining guests to the train station. So, on Wed morning I started off our last ever Headwater guests – 4 walkers – then we took their bags to the next hotel, went to move our lasts cyclists’ luggage to their final hotel, passing them en route to say our goodbyes (luckily they had their own car so didn’t need a lift to the train station on Thursday), then we drove 2 hours south to the Berry. We stayed in the Rep house in St Savin, east of Poitiers. They have a fab house – we thought ours was ok, but theirs is fab!! The ground floor of a 3 story old building, that has been tastefully decorated: no flowery wallpaper in sight!! It was a bit of an early start on Thursday as we had to pick up the guests at 8.30am, but before that get all of our overnight stuff together, tidy up any mess we’d made, and get the keys back to the owner! But we made it, and now we’re back “home” again.
The next few days will consists of paying final bills, packing, cleaning the house, moving bikes, tools and panniers from our double garage into a storeroom at the hotel (next year’s reps can’t use this house, and Grandson and family are moving in, so the rep will live on the hotel grounds). Our walkers finish on Sunday night, then after I’ve taken them to the station on Monday morning we will pack the van and head straight to Chamonix, so that will mean a long day in the van! But our flights are booked for Tuesday, so we should be back in Addlestone early afternoon…..
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Well, can you believe it? My time here is almost over, so this will be my last blog from Chisseaux, Loire.
September has been a pretty busy month. We’ve had lots of guests, and a visit from Gerwyn’s mum, who came out for the weekend at the start of the month. She taught me how to bake Welsh cakes, so I now have yet another scrummy cake to add to my repertoire of recipies!! They are quite like rock cakes, but you make them flat and cook them on a griddle rather than in the oven.
I have made an attempt to take up jogging. I absolutely hate it, but decided I needed to take drastic measures to get fit/lose weight, and as the daylight hours reduce, it’s easier to find 20 mins for a jog rather than 1.5 hours for a bike ride! I can manage a 20 minutes circuit through Chisseaux and back along side the river, which is quite pleasant – the view, not the jogging!! But I’m never going to become a “convert” and run the London marathon, that’s for sure!!
We finally got the authorisation for the van’s service from the lease company, and it had to go in for 2 days, but as we’re so busy we needed another vehicle. I spoke nicely to the lady at the garage who agreed to lend us a car for free…so we got this old Renault 21, with a huge crack across the windscreen, drivers window that didn’t go down, rear passenger window that wound down, but not up, etc, etc!!! Despite all of that, it was mechanically sound and actually drove pretty well!! We had to book taxis to do a couple of client transfers as there was no way we were taking them in the car, so that just meant we had a couple of bags runs to do – a lot more tricky when you’ve got an average sized saloon boot (on a 1987 car) rather than the back of a van!! But we made it, and had a good laugh with all the hoteliers when they admired our replacement vehicle!
Mum, Dad and Carol arrived on Monday 12th to start the 8 day cycling tour. There was another couple called Linda and Colin, from Kent, who also started on the same day. They all had a great time, and G and I met up with them on 3 evenings for dinner, as well as catching up with them a couple of times on their cycling days to see how they were doing.
A couple of Aussie ladies who were on the walking tour had a “premonition” dream about getting strangled in the woods (nice!!) and that I shouldn’t go out on my own – they phoned at 8am the next morning to ask for a lift to the next hotel, as they didn’t want to walk through the woods, and I happened to be out on my own jogging at the time – so Gerwyn got this bizarre phone call, and of course felt a bit edgy until I got back. I’m happy to say I’ve had no problems since (not that I jog through the woods anyway), nor have we heard reports of stranglers in the area, so perhaps the Aussie ladies had too much cheese and wine….. but I do now carry the personal alarm with me when I go jogging (until now it’s been gathering dust in the cupboard!!)
We have managed to escape from the Loire for 22 hours this week, but on a work related expedition! Now, most of you probably have not heard of the Berry region – I certainly hadn’t before working for Headwater, but that’s where we went! The original rep had to leave at the beginning of September, to go on an air-force training course to fly helicopters, and the temporary rep Jo, who’s been doing a sterling job all summer of going round and helping out or filling in whenever and wherever necessary, has had to go on to Italy, where she’s needed for the next month. So we were asked to go to the Berry to move bags between 2 hotels on Wednesday afternoon, and then on Thursday morning take the last remaining guests to the train station. So, on Wed morning I started off our last ever Headwater guests – 4 walkers – then we took their bags to the next hotel, went to move our lasts cyclists’ luggage to their final hotel, passing them en route to say our goodbyes (luckily they had their own car so didn’t need a lift to the train station on Thursday), then we drove 2 hours south to the Berry. We stayed in the Rep house in St Savin, east of Poitiers. They have a fab house – we thought ours was ok, but theirs is fab!! The ground floor of a 3 story old building, that has been tastefully decorated: no flowery wallpaper in sight!! It was a bit of an early start on Thursday as we had to pick up the guests at 8.30am, but before that get all of our overnight stuff together, tidy up any mess we’d made, and get the keys back to the owner! But we made it, and now we’re back “home” again.
The next few days will consists of paying final bills, packing, cleaning the house, moving bikes, tools and panniers from our double garage into a storeroom at the hotel (next year’s reps can’t use this house, and Grandson and family are moving in, so the rep will live on the hotel grounds). Our walkers finish on Sunday night, then after I’ve taken them to the station on Monday morning we will pack the van and head straight to Chamonix, so that will mean a long day in the van! But our flights are booked for Tuesday, so we should be back in Addlestone early afternoon…..
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