Well, this is very promising: two blog posts in as many days! Yesterday I told you that the whole month of June had been incredibly busy by our standards and today I thought I would let you into just one of the reasons (the main reason really): a wonderful time away in France with fab friends. We had various issues in the build-up to this holiday - all surrounding travel visas for Mr. V - which made it seem as though it would never happen. In fact, only four weeks before we were due to leave for the holiday, he was denied a visa to enter the country. You can see why we might have been a little downbeat at that point!
However, to cut a long story short, God turned the situation around pretty miraculously and, against the odds, Vianney got his visa with just under three weeks to go til holiday. We had looked forward to this time away with Clare and Tom since last summer and the place we booked together looked really lovely from the pictures online. It was a bargain and so I think we all scaled down our expectations of the gîte (like a French cottage) we were staying in, simply hoping it would be a nice place for us all to chill out and relax together. What we got we could never have dared hope for; it was clear even a few miles before we reached the gîte that it was going to be beautifully secluded, in gorgeous French countryside. The lane leading up to it must have been at least a mile long, and rabbits were playing along the side of the road the evening we arrived. Later, we would discover other kinds of wildlife living in the area, particularly a number of very cute little lizards! The gîte itself is surrounded by vast corn fields and backs onto a particularly pretty rock, my appreciation for which was mocked mercilessly by my lovely friends! :)
The owners were incredibly friendly, a French couple who barely spoke English - this was good practice for all of us with our varying ability to speak the French language, Clare being the pro among us - but made us very welcome. They were waiting for us the night we arrived and showed us round the gîte, probably highly entertained by our wide-eyed, open-mouthed reactions. Despite the slight language barrier which stopped us from fully expressing our amazement at the accommodation, it was clear we were very happy with our home for the next ten days! The place was like a luxury villa to us, we had no idea we had stumbled across quite such a gem, and I for one was thanking God over and over, as they led us from one beautiful room to another. The pièce de resistance was definitely the fab swimming pool just a few steps from the front door - much bigger and generally aesthetically pleasing than it had appeared online. The owners even provided funky Lilo and floats for us to laze around on, meaning I could spend a lot more time in the pool than I had envisaged being able to. The whole place was truly a gift.
We spent the ten days soaking up the sun which shone on us every day bar two or three, feasting on all our favourite French food, splashing about in the pool whenever we needed cooling off and reading many books between us. We also did a bit of exploring of one or two delightful little medieval-style French towns/villages, most of which were situated on hills, making Vianney's trips out more of a work-out as he pushed the wheelchair up and down the slopes! Tom put in a sterling effort in taking some of that load as well! (Thanks boys).
Looking out of the window at the grim, wet and windy weather, it's hard to believe we were there only just over a week ago but the pictures are still keeping me entertained! I've included a handful in this post so you can get a feel for where we were. More to come on Facebook asap.
1 comment:
I thought I had commented on this! The place looks amazing! It sounds (and looks) like you had a fantastic time. I may have to get the details of that cottage. Also loving the join efforts to push the wheelchair up the hill! Heeheehee!
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