Espagnac

We took the metro to the Paris Austerlitz railway station to catch the SNCF train to Brive-la-Gaillarde, our next stop. We nearly missed the train, as we'd been waiting at the wrong platform, and had to run past 16 carriages to get to ours - got on the train with about 3 minutes to spare. The train is smooth, quiet and fast and we enjoyed looking out the window at wheat fields, forests and little villages as we passed through. 

It took four hours to get to Brive, and we managed to get ourselves and all our bags off the train and walk the 200m to our hotel. The hotel owner was a friendly and chatty little lady called Andrea. She didn't speak a word of English, so it really challenged my language skills to understand what she was saying to us (I can speak and read French much better than I can understand it!) The hotel was cute and homely with a little outside garden. We walked into town to find some dinner and came across a Subway (I know, I know, we go all the way to the French countryside and eat Subway!) I wanted something familiar, and I didn't have to think too hard about how to order it. We did at least sit outside to eat it on cafe chairs under a sun umbrella, French style.

On Sunday morning we had a relaxed breakfast outside in the garden with a friendly cat, Romero. Then we walked through town to find the church. We had a warm welcome from the friendly branch members and felt very at home, despite the language barrier.

In the afternoon we were picked up by the lovely Sam, who moved to France seven years ago with her husband James and their two boys. They bought an old stone house and barn and spent the next three years, including all their weekends, turning it into beautiful accommodation. Sam is an interior designer and chef, and James is a cyclist, who takes guests on cycling expeditions around the beautiful countryside around here. Sam cooks an amazing four-course gourmet meal every night for the guests. They have up to 10 people staying at any one time. There are three other couples staying - Richard and Genevieve from Paris, Michael and Lynette from the UK and Brian and Rebecca also from the UK. Rebecca is a vet, so we have had lots to talk about. Hannah is doing well, chatting away to the other guests and trying new foods like fennel bulb and aubergine. She's made friends with the two dogs, Henri and Dotti.

There's a lake with waterlilies and hammocks at the bottom of the garden, a lovely swimming pool, beautiful decor, completely restful.  I'm getting lots of ideas for the house and garden from seeing the way they do things over here.

Yesterday James took us for our first bike ride, 40 km along country roads, very well sealed with hardly any cars. We went past villages with stone cottages and farm buildings, forests, old churches, a waterfall and some beautiful lakes. We stopped for lunch at one of the lakes where people were swimming, kayaking and ziplining. The French certainly know how to do relaxation!

Tomorrow we're going to Argentat, one of the towns near here, to have dinner at a pizzeria and watch the fireworks for Bastille Day. We're having a wonderful time and will remember this trip for a long time to come.

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In the morning, Sam took us to a local market, where they had lots of local produce (including live trout!) for sale. It was interesting to see the huge variety of cheeses and salami, preserves, olives and of course, wine. An old man with a moustache offered us a sample of his salami, doing a hard sell on us in French (of which I couldn't understand a word, except "C'est bon, non? - luckily I had the presence of mind to say "Oui, tres bon", and he looked satisfied at that). It was actually horrible salami, obviously made out of wild boar, as it had that really game-y, boary flavour that you only get from wild boar. We bought some lovely blueberries and apricots and a hat for Hannah. The market is obviously the gathering place for all of the surrounding villages, as there were people milling around everywhere in the sunshine. The villages here are tiny, some with only 4 or 5 houses, and each has a name and its own little "mairie", i.e. mayor's office/council building, and the mairie is responsible for looking after the gardens, schools, road maintenance, sewage and water. The villages seem to try to outdo each other. This must be why each village is so pretty - so many window boxes, pots and gardens and such clean roads and buildings. Sam is on the local council, Chateauret, which has nine councillors for only 300 ratepayers.

Apparently businesses here are very limited in their trading. For example, if you are a "boucherie" your license does not allow you to sell eggs or vegetables etc, and if you are a "boulangerie" all you are allowed to sell is things made of flour (bread, pasta, cake…). Sam told us that she is licensed as a hotelier, but once a year she would do face painting for one of the local fairs, and they stopped her from doing that because she was not licensed (it would cost 2000 euro a year for a licence to be a face painter, to earn 120 euro a year!) The taxes are very high here, 60-75%, and it drives a lot of people out of business. Apparently a lot of Parisians commute to London to run their businesses because the taxes are much lower, making London the third largest French city. But they do have excellent roads, an amazing school system (almost totally free, including secondary boarding school and tertiary education) and a fantastic and totally free health care system.

In the afternoon we took ourselves off on a 20km ride with the help of a map from James. We rode to a larger lake, obviously very popular with the locals, and had a swim and an icecream. Interestingly the water in the lake was sparkly from mica in the sand.

July 14th is of course Bastille Day. In the evening, James and Sam took all of the guests to a local village, Argentat, a very pretty historic town built on the Dordogne river. It was so picturesque, slate roofed stone cottages with bright window boxes and shutters, rising above the river. We had dinner outside a pizzeria on the river bank and watched the fireworks when it got dark, after 11pm. People were lined up all along both river banks and across the bridge, and it was very much a festival atmosphere. I was a little surprised that they didn't sing La Marseillaise. I remember learning it at school. 

Today the temperature reached 40 degrees - Chris went for a 60 km bike ride with James and Hannah and I stayed behind and swam in the pool. We had dinner outside under the big umbrella - local sausages, Limousin steak and chicken and Sam's fantastic salads, with tarte tatin and creme fraiche for dessert. After dark there was a spectacular thunderstorm. Sam turned on Handel's Water Music - ideal music to watch a thunderstorm by!

We really feel at home here. James and Sam are so generous with their time and hospitality.