Vive Le France

We finally got out of London and took the train to Plymouth. This was about a 41/2 hr journey with great scenery. The train was not too crowded and for the first time since landing in England people were happy, relaxed, and generally seemed quite pleasant.The guy selling food at the buffet car thought we were aussies, so we quickly set him straight on that one having a bit of a laugh at Australia's expense.
Plymouth was wonderful, Annie's Uncle Richard was at the station to meet us and drive us to their house about 20 mins away. The weather was superb so so after a cup of tea and a relax we went for a walk along the beach at Wembury. From there you could see as far as Cornwall. It was lovely to stay some where quiet and peaceful after the hustle & bustle of London.
Next day Richard drove us to Exeter airport for our flight to Brest. This is where the fun really began, upon arriving at Brest a rep from Peurgot was there to meet us with our car and all the paper work. Her english was better than my french, but only just, so details on some of the functions for the car we worked out as I drove. Left hand drive, manual, right hand side of the road, roundabouts were an accident waiting to happen. It didn't however and it took some time to get used to, in fact I doubt I will ever be 100% confident driving here.
Our car is fitted with a GPS [Gloria,so nicknamed because she can be quite persistent when I don't follow her instructions!!]and this is an absolute godsend. We found our village Mael Carhaix like we were experts. The drive took about 1hr and there was little traffic on the road, they must have known I was coming, so this was great. This village is so quiet, nothing is open most of Sunday & Monday. Its like the french avoid mondayitis and start work on Tuesday.
The closest town to our village was Carhaix Plougher still smallish but at least large enough for a couple of supermarches. Our first night after navigating to the village we went exploring and to find some food. Now to understand where we were it is important to know that these villages are in the heart of Brittany which is Finistere or Breton country. They don't see alot of tourists and not only is French not their only language Breton is, but they don't speak English anywhere. So night one on French soil, thirsty and starving and unable to communicate ....... we were a couple of resourceful kiwis though who eventually relying on my bad fifth form french managed to get steak and chips and a drink each!! Bloody marvelous.

Another treat of our visit to Carhaix was that we stumbled upon a village fete, where local celtic or breton music and dancing was the order of the day in the village square. It was highly entertaining to hear soulful music and bagpipes in the middle of France.

We also found a couple of friendly locals in the village boulagerie or bakery who kept us supplied daily with bagettes and sweet pasteries. They also tried to improve our French but I'm afraid did not have much success. Omigod we will be huge the food is so rich and wonderful here if we didn't walk for miles everyday we would be enormous upon our return.

Now we are in La Rochelle but you will have to wait till the next blog posting to find out about this amazing sea side town on the Atlantic Coast

AuRevoir for now from us both