Chateau Courances

Well, well, well.............
It's now 10.40pm the same day. I lost it today. Thought I was having a nervous breakdown. The lack of sleep, stress, post-earthquake, feeling responsible, being out of control all got to me. I thought I'd remedy things by taking a decent dose of my happy pills. I took 4 just to make sure they'd work quickly.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't work like that, but on some level it made me feel better.

I won't go over the day because it isn't useful  to publically vent, and re-hashing will just upset me. Suffice to say, despite my organising the girls and myself, and making it clear we wanted to go out early, with a full-day planned, nothing was happening in that direction at 10.30 and didn't look as if it would (and it wasn't Di holding us up either, in fact she already had a vegetable bake in the oven, organising dinner before I got downstairs for breakfast). I had to go out for a long walk or else I would have exploded or is it imploded? possibly the latter I think. That and the 4 pills seemed to have some effect, so that when I met the others at the market (where we had planned on going 2 hours earlier), I was feeling a lot better. Interesting market with a mixture of sales items from produce (jams, honey, cheeses, chocolate) to potting, art, jewellery, metal work, stone carving and others.



The market, stone carver working in front.



Also an elderly man playing an organ type thing (some smart arse out there will know the name) where he turned the handle and it fed cardboard with holes cut out to play the tune. I told Hils it was like an old computer, she looked at me with her, "are you pulling my leg?" look.   

Singing and playing the computerised organ

Local men having a Sunday morning chat complete with baguette

Our purchases. Two  types of honey (miel) apricot jam, and kiwifruit and pineapple jam (Hilary's request)

I also went to the butcher and got some jambon for lunch, and pork sausages for the meat eaters for dinner. At least that is what they looked like, and Hilary who is partial to a good pork sausage gobbled them with an intensity that made me realise a NZ type meal may go down a treat occasionally. While I was in the butcher's struggling to be understood by the saleswoman, a male customer kindly came up to me to assist. It wasn't what I was saying (i.e the vocab was good, "trois cent grammes du? jambon, si vous plais?" ) it was that in France you buy so many slices, cut fine, medium or thick of ham, and you buy 6 sausages not 500gms.
After a quick lunch, Di and I borrowed Jackie and Nick's bikes, while Hilary stayed behind and went for a walk in the forest, and biked two villages over to Chateau Courances.
We had a lovely time wandering through the gardens/grounds admiring statues and water features, white swan, and clipped hedges, as well as doing the Chateau tour with guide and commentary completely in very fast French, of which I don't think I understood a word, but it was the only way to get inside. You only get to see a small proportion of the inside, I think the owners actually live there, and I must admit it had the most homely feel to it of any grand castle/home/chateau I've visited, even though the part you tour is also very museum like.  I'm missing gardens with flowers though, water and buxus and trees are gorgeous, don't get me wrong but hey, it's spring, where is all the colour?

In front of the Japanese garden

The Chateau reflected

Some "out-buildings"



A stunning display of very fragrant lilacs




A couch fit for Kipper



A selection of garden vistas.

 Guess what? Tiquetonne is fully booked it being Easter and all, so those best made plans of mouse and man didn't work. But the great news is that big brother has come up trumps and the money should be hitting the carsalesman's bank account soon!!! We might even be in our campervan by weekend if I show him that the money is coming from a bank he might start the five days of paperwork sooner. (What are my chances??)

Oh well it's coming up 5.30, I might try and grab an hour or so sleep before I face the day. I'm going for a bike ride this morning while the others get ready for the day, so I feel as if I'm doing something, and it is a beautiful environment to be cycling in, with quaint little villages and beautiful fields, and it is supposed to be 23 today, sun on my face, wind in my hair, the sweet smell of spring in the air....... wow those pills must be working!!!!