The start of our travel in France.

Sorry for the delay in sending our next message but it has taken time to get set up with an email server.

It was nice to touch down in Paris after the 13 hr flight from Singapore, of course our friends Roger & Christiane were there to meet us even though we were an hour earlier than originally expected (Roger is always on the internet & would have been aware of the new arrival time).
We spent the rest of the day recovering & had a great nights sleep.

The next day saw us heading towards Reims to view one of the oldest Cathedrals in France which is a Gothic edifice begun in 1211 AD with the most famous event being the coronation of Charles 7th with Joan of Arc at his side on 17th July 1429.

From there we headed north to the walled city of Laon & then on to the Australian War Memorial at Villers-Brettoneux where in WW1 the Aussies & Brits repulsed the Germans on 24th April 1918 to give birth to the Anzac tradition.

It was very poignant standing there trying to imagine the battle scene as the conditions were absolutely disgusting.We stayed overnight at Vecquemont a little village not far away.
The next day drove to Amiens for a quick look before going to the Atlantic coast at le Crotoy,Fort Mahon,Berck before finally finding a place to park at le Touquet-Paris-Plage,honestly we had never seen so many people pack into beaches like we had seen along this stretch of coast.
We stayed for an hour or so before returning to our B & B in Vecquemont.
Sat 15th July was a long one as we had to get from Amiens in the north down to the Mareuil-sur-Cher to meet up with Kerin to get some last minute instructions before she went back to OZ.We made it by 4.15pm,did our business & were on our way back to Paris by 5.15pm as we had to meet up with Wayne,Sandra & Allie ( Sara's brother ) that night.

We found the street so parked the car & went looking for Tim's apartment. What great timing, as we walked down the street we saw Wayne,Sandra & Allie on the kerb just about to enter the apartment.We said our hellos & then headed to the nearest bar as the temperature was still in the 30's at 9.00pm,it was great to catch up with them.

Over the next week we saw them most days but with the temperature hovering in the mid to high 30's it wasn't pleasant to be getting around.We managed to get to see Notre Dame,Sacre Coeur,The Louvre was too crowded so we decided we could do it later when there were less tourists around ( look who's talking what posers ).

We thought that all the dramas with our long stay visa had finished & that all we had to do was to go & apply & that would be it, forget it after that we then went to another part of Paris 2 days later only to be told that we need to come back on Thursday 19th October to see if we will be granted a long stay visa-what a load of rubbish.

As you can imagine I nearly cracked it, but the lady just said to me " everything takes time in France ".

We said our goodbyes to Wayne & Sandra on the Friday before making our trip down to the quaint little village of Mareuil-sur-Cher to take up our residency for the next 3-6mths.

On arrival we grabbed some supplies from the next town at St Aignan which has a very good supermarket the "Super U", excellent selection of all products while back in Mareuil the local little Proxi store while quite good has limited selection in some areas.

On Sunday 23rd we went to the local "flea market"where we bought ourselves a couple of bikes to give us mobility.Monday saw us going to a magnificent smaller Chateau at Rigny-Usse.

The 1st known owner was a fierce Viking GELDUIN 1 who erected a wooden fortress in 1004. In the 15th century a fortified castle was built which makes up part of the present building. The legend tells that while staying in Usse, the writer Charles Perrault ( 17th century ) was inspired by the romantic feature of the place & wrote here the tale of " Sleeping Beauty ".Roger & Christiane stayed until Tuesday & then headed back to Paris.

What a shock we were finally on our own what would we do without our security net. As it has turned so far we have been doing some walking & have already been out a couple of times on the bikes discovering the local countryside, its a very peaceful existence here & it is nice just relaxing & not having to get up & go to work.

We feel like real farmers down here as the house itself is almost 170 years old set on almost half an acre with plenty of vegies planted like tomatoes,beans,lettuce,eggplant & zucchini so we have a good basis of vegies,in fact it is hard for the 2 of us to keep up with the ripening of the toms.We also have 2 plum trees that are overloaded with friut so we have already stewed up a large pot & will attempt to make jam at a later date.

We were originally going to go to London on the 8th August but have decided it was too difficult to organise as it would have meant that R & C would have had to drive down to pick us up & then do the same on our return.We do feel a little cut off here without a car as there is no taxi service in the area & the nearest train station is over the Cher river at Noyers-sur-Cher some 8kms away.

If there was a service we could then take the train from Noyers to Tours with a connection to the centre of Paris.R & C will come down again on the 12th August & drive us to Nantes to pick up our lease car a Peugeot 206 which we will have for 3 months so once we get that we can start getting to see some of the fabulous Chataeux that the Loire is famous for.Until next time.