Oh I do love to be beside the seaside!

As many of you will know we experienced a mini heat wave late September early October and although we had some unexpected extra work to complete finishing the grass preparation at the rear of the house we eventually managed to get away to the seaside for the weekend.

The field is now seeded and the first grass shoots can be seen!

One of the advantages of Les Deux Platanes is the central location in France, you can reach the majority of places within three hours and the West coast of France is no exception. The Gironde and the coast from La Rochelle is beautiful throughout the year so we decided to have a weekend at Chatellalion Plage which is just south of La Rochelle.

The MG was rolled out, dusted off, the picnic bag checked and we were soon on the virtually vehicle free roads to the west coast. Within 3hrs we had arrived at our Chambre D'hotes for the weekend and the exploring began.

A happy man relaxed with his MG looking out over the sea!

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll upon the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play: "Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"

So just let me be beside the seaside
I'll be beside myself with glee
For there's lots of girls besides,
I should like to be beside
Beside the seaside! Beside the sea!



The same man minutes later trying to light the disposable barbecue - looking at it helps apparently.

Festering in the bottom of the MG boot was one of those disposable barbecues, the weather was 35C so why not find some quiet spot and have a barbecue lunch? Armed with lovely spicy sausages, lamb chops, courgette and some tomato and pesto paste from a local butchers plus some cheese and wine we set about finding a nice parking spot overlooking the sea. Fortunately late September is virtually tourist free so the roads and coastline were very quiet. After some effort the barbi was hot and we both enjoyed a very nice picnic lunch and enjoyed half a bottle of red wine, French of course.

Its 10.30am and 25C , the beach is practically empty so we had a coffee in a promenade cafe.

We had a wonderful two days and returned refreshed and ready to complete yet more tasks before the winter arrives -including stacking and cutting wood before the cold weather.