If we had longer we would have travelled round the coast as there are so many beautiful places to see, but with only ten days this time we decided to cut across and drive directly to St Malo – we will definitely be back another time (out of school holidays) to take in some more of the coastal line and perhaps do the coastal path as well.

The drive was a pretty uninteresting one, but it was the quickest route. The campsite is situated on a hill looking over St Malo bay. Once again it is a municipal one – Camping La Cite d’Alet should have been 20 euros 50 Cents, but somehow we got mistaken for a tent and only got charged 15 euros ….

The campsite is set on a hill next to a fort looking over the bay to St Malo (approximately 2km walk from the old town) surrounded by beautiful views such as the following

We were also in hearing distance of the port with the odd tannoy announcement and quite rudely a 7am ‘honk’ on Sunday morning …. and I thought they were a catholic country 🙂

It was actually very peaceful and pretty for its position, so we couldn’t really complain.

For those of you who haven’t been here before, although a port, St Malo is a really pretty walled town with a really nice long promenade to walk along the seafront.

We wondered around the old town on Saturday afternoon when we arrived and then went for a long walk along the coast on Sunday stopping for a picnic in a rather tranquil setting ….

although we did think about stopping for some over sized twiglets on the way but they were too pretty to eat…

Back at the campsite, the unnatural obsession that I have about the weight limit on the motorhome meant I had to go and ask a couple from Guernsey how they get away with carrying a full sized gas bar b q (similar to the one we have at home) and a 750cc motorbike in their garage in addition to two bicycles and all the normal things the rest of us carry … apparently we are worrying about nothing – they have been weighed both in the UK and in France and the border control appear to turn a blind eye ….. oh well, obsession over – lets see what other interesting things we find in peoples garages over the next 12 months 🙂

Huelgoat is a small town centred around walking, cycling and riding. It is surrounded by forest and sits on a lake with some fantastic boulder formations which predominantly are arranged in old river beds but also appear to be randomly distributed around the area. We found a beautiful old cottage with one of these boulders (measuring approx. 15ft x 20ft) about two foot from the house … not quite sure which was there first, but if it was the rock you have ask why they built the house so close….. and if it wasn’t, that was a close game of battleships 🙂

It was a lovely place and we got some good walking in both through the countryside and through the woods along an old mining canal. The campsite we stayed at was a municipal one approximately 1km out of town and cost 12.44 Euro each night, can’t really complain. We managed to pick up some ‘poitrine’ (the closest France gets to Bacon) on the way to Huelgoat, so on Saturday morning we had our first bar-b-q brekkie of bacon, eggs and beans…. Certainly set us up for the days walking!

We met a lovely (although rather insane) couple from the Netherlands who were staying on the pitch next to us with their two very large Pyraneen mountain dogs…. Better described as bears as the smaller one was 70kg. The couple had just bought the motorhome (second hand) and stripped out part of the interior so that the dogs could sit inside and rather ingeniously converted the garage (roughly the same size as ours) into a sleeping area for the dogs when it was too cold/wet for them to sleep outside.

We left Corncanou on Friday morning (1^st August) and travelled to Quimper for lunch. Unfortunately the fayre had arrived before us taking up all the oversized vehicle parking spaces so we spent a good 15/20 minutes getting to know the side roads of Quimper before we finally managed to park … one of those things we will just have to get used to I guess 🙂

Quimper, once we got out of the motorhome was pretty, an old town on a river which has had the advantage of the tourists passing through on the way to the coast, so money has been spent on renovating buildings and providing a decent mix between real shops, sights and bars and restaurants… believe me it can be difficult to find!

After some rather delicious homemade sarnies (yes, we are still making the rolls ourselves) and a tour round a housing estate courtesy of the sat nav system we continued on our journey to a little place called Huelgoat which was to be our home for the next two nights.

14th of July is a national holiday in France with celebrations throughout. To kick off the festivities, Bagnoles De L’Orne mowed the lawn on the local racecourse (it only happens three times a year) and rolled out the horses for a bit of trap racing …. with a bit of sunshine thrown in it definately helped the French summer holidays get off to a good start!

The evening was finished at Pascal’s house looking over the lake (through the trees) with a lovely firework display …. can’t complain 🙂

Finally, after all the looking we have found something that Keith and I both like and think may actually suit the purpose….

It’s ok – I know what you are thinking, ‘it needs a lot of work’ and I guess more importantly … ‘where will you stay when you come over’  – it does have a granny annexe – we aren’t so kean, but I am sure that over time we would be able to get it how we want it….

Ok – you win, it is Chateau de Carrouges…. we quite like the gatehouse, but Keith’s mum persuaded us to go and have a look round the Chateau as well – definately worth a visit if you are over here.

It is amazing what you can do with a few little wild strawberries from the garden! 

I made lemon sorbet last week (on the left of the photo), but after a visit from one of the neighbours who asked if he could take some of our little wild strawberries to make some jam I decided to have a go at a bit of strawberry ice-cream today ….. yum 🙂

Lets hope they grow back quickly so we have a chance to make some more before we go!

Apologies in advance for any French followers … but you are a little backward in your processes.  Today we went to Caen to pay a deposit by card (face to face) for some work on the motorhome. Having thought that I had cracked it and managed to confirm exactly what we wanted done and that the work conformed with UK standards etc the company said they would send me an invoice that I would need to reply to as confirmation before we could book a date for the work.  WIth days disappearing quickly in my naivity I sat watching my inbox for the next couple of days thinking they were busy…… nearly a week later (and a couple of chaser emails) it turned up in the post (yep, that odd looking box at the end of the driveway that generally carries supermarket offers and not much else nowadays) requesting a cheque to cover 30% as a deposit before we could get a date in the diary…. I did see a pigeon hanging around the post box and I do have my suspicions 🙂

When I called them to try and pay on the phone I was obviously talking greek – which to be fair I have been known to do on occassion – only two options 1) a cheque sent from the UK which would take another week, or 2) ‘popping’ over to Caen….. so over we popped 🙂

Anyway, we are booked in for the work now and they were very friendly … just the french process. 

On the way back we thought we would go and visit at Falaise … birth place to William the Conquer.  Unfortunately most of the town was destroyed during the war, but what was left has been lovingly (and some not so lovingly) restored.

It was worth a stop, but why it is twinned with Henley on Thames I will never know ….

It is just like being at home….. cold, wet, grey, windy – but beautiful 🙂

Keith’s aspirations for a bigger garden have got the better of him …… thankfully the weather hasn’t been too great since my parents were last here in September, otherwise we may have been using the machetes 🙂

Three hours later and we – sorry I should say Keith as I didn’t get involved – have a good idea of what the next six months’ gardening has got in for us and we haven’t even started with the edges or beds…..

Most importantly though …. the bar-b-que works 🙂

It can’t all be bad….. although the clocks went forward and we lost an hour the sun is shining and we have just gorged on the most delicious (although visually it may not look that appetising) croissants 🙂

Not that we are trying to entice anyone out here … but just as a word of warning I reckon the almond croissants way at least a kilo each!