We were having one of those rainy afternoons that are fab for your garden, not quite so for a four year old cooped up in the house. Seemed the ideal occasion to nip down to Brétignolles sur Mer to visit Vendée Miniature. This model village is housed under one roof and over was 15 years [...]
Sunday morning, it was already too hot for the beach, and anyhow, I was still recovering from my day’s fishing. We jumped in the car and headed for La Roseraie de Vendée in St Révérend, where there was a craft and natural products market, I so love this kind of thing!
Free entry to the market [...]
I’ve just had one of those perfectly blissful days that come along every now and again…ten of us met up on our friends’ private marshes in Olonne sur Mer for a day’s fishing, good food and wine, and great crack à la française.
We caught one trout between ten of us, but hey, who’s counting! He’s [...]
Just in the door this instant – what a melodic way to start the weekend! A glass of rosé on the port of St Gilles overlooking the boats, then « first row seats » for the open air free concert of the Blue Bayou Jazz Band, a New Orleans inspired jazz sextet.
Just superb, I could feel the [...]
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When we turned up for our first visit of 2010 to La Ferme des Pommettes, the lady greeted us with a big smile and said « Je me rappelle de vous trois! » Nice to be remembered, just hope it’s for all the right reasons!
You could easily spend 2 hours at this living farm, we’ve been back [...]
It was a Bank Holiday last Thursday & anyone who could swing it was on a long weekend.  For the 4th year running, St Hilaire had laid on ‘LA DEFERLANTE’, 4 fabulous days of street theatre. The weather held good & it was Paris Plage in front of the 11th century church with several tonnes [...]
When I first moved here some ten years ago, the folks back home would ask ‘But where exactly IS the Vendée’… My usual reply was something along the lines of ‘Down a wee bit from Brittany and up a wee bit from Bordeaux ». In retrospect, this goes a long way to explaining why I was [...]
