22/09/09

Day 14 – September 22
We woke this morning to brilliant sunshine – hurray! – so the decision was made for us to stay at least another night at La Baule.
We walked to the beach from the site, which took us about half an hour, but we have to do some exercise to try to burn off the daily pain chocolat and delicious French bread!
There was hardly anyone around when we arrived at the beach but as it curves around a huge bay there could have been hundreds further along for all we knew! We braved it out and were eventually joined by a few other sun-worshippers and we couldn’t help thinking how different this must have been a few weeks ago when the French were on holiday and probably jostling for space in exactly the same spot. We watched a group of schoolchildren being taken out for sailing lessons in catamarans and as far as we could tell there was only one instructor to twenty eight – can you imagine the Health & Safety reaction to that in the UK?? But what a fantastic activity to be included in your curriculum.
We haven’t had any problems with the language over here so far, the accent has been easy to understand and they seem to be able to understand us when we have spoken to anyone – which hasn’t been that often! We have to confess to not being very sociable beyond the obligatory “Bonjour” – most of the motorhomers we have neighboured with have been French or German and occasionally Dutch, with very few English, probably due to the abominable current exchange rate. France is no longer a cheap holiday option.
We have been away two weeks tomorrow. It seems like a lot longer, and I guess from here on in it is no longer a fortnight’s holiday and more the lifestyle change we have been so looking forward to. There are obviously things we miss about home, not least our very understanding children, but so far we have absolutely no regrets – and we are still speaking!