In the morning, we continued our
search for somewhere to stay tonight – firing off emails to anywhere that
looked acceptable. Hotel check-out time was looming when one of the owners
replied and as we were so desperate, we took the place, despite some misgivings.
Then, one of the other people to whom we had written wrote back to say that
although the cottage we had enquired about was occupied, he had another on his
books that might be suitable. It looked small and pretty basic but nicely
furnished (and, crucially, it had a wood-burning stove in the living room), so
we cancelled the other booking and started the process of booking the new place
– waiting with increasing nervousness for the confirmation and directions to
come through. Which they duly did and we headed downstairs and checked out with
about half an hour to spare.
On the way there, we took a detour
to find a supermarket. The E.Leclerc at which we ended up seemed rather tired
(the presence of sparrows flying in and out of the aisles didn’t exactly
inspire confidence), but it did have Roche Baron – we bought a whole round –
and everything else we needed. It was around lunchtime by now, so we sat in the
car in the rainy car park and had our traditional French on-the-hoof lunch:
rosette and baguette (although Kate went off piste this time, opening up a pack
of Saint Agur and smearing that over her bread).
At around 5pm, we finally arrived
in the little village of Balleroy, where we grabbed some cash to pay for the
cottage and some baguettes at the sweet little boulangerie. From there, it was
a short drive to the tiny little hamlet of La Bazoque, where we met Stephen,
who let us in to our lovely little stone cottage, where we quickly lit a fire
and got settled in.
No comments:
Post a Comment