The Marais Poitevin is an absolute haven for wildlife. On our first afternoon/evening here we saw, for our first time ever, a stoat and a pine marten. Being a combined marsh and woodland area though, probably the most striking feature here is the bird life. From our campsite we have seen or heard:

• chaffinches (of course);
• robins
• cuckoos;
• spotted flycatchers;
• black redstarts;
• black kites;
• blackcaps;
• green woodpeckers;
• nightingales
• golden orioles;

Today, however, we could see nothing; everything was taking shelter, just like us, and getting very fed up with the rain. It began just after we awoke, around 7:00 AM and continued without pause for 15 hours finally dripping its last at about 10:00 PM as we were going back to bed.

We did have a worthy highlight, though. Mike, Linda and their daughter, Imogen, came down from Arçais to visit us and have lunch. Actually, they really wanted to visit Billy and get a taste of what life in a caravan might be like. They are planning to move over to France full time and are thinking of running their house in Arçais as two gîtes. At times when both the main house and its converted dependence are let, they are thinking about a caravan to go travelling in themselves. Billy, of course, is a very comfortable, modern van and they seemed quite taken with him. Time will tell if it’s the right solution for them.

We had planned to barbecue some duck breasts and some duck merguez (spicy sausages) but, because of the pants weather, we changed the menu to a salade tiède (a warm salad) of confit de gesiers avec lardons (preserved gizzards with bacon) followed by some cheese and bread. This was all washed down with lashings of local vin rosé.

Not only did it rain all day but it was cold, as well; a T-shirt and a rugby shirt in France in mid-June!

(Carol has pointed out that on each occasion that we have moved on, the following day has been dreadful. Maybe we should stay put.)

Today we moved off to Damvix. This was a bit of a mental challenge. The journey was a mere 65 miles but it was 65 miles north and we don’t usually do north only halfway through a trip. Logic and emotion dictate south but, this year, logic has to be discarded. France continues to be very unsettled vis-a-vis the weather with the south and the east seemingly taking the brunt of the storms. Counterintuitively, the more settled weather has thus far been in the west and the north.

Casting tradition aside, we set out and headed north. Shortly after leaving we began passing dozens of stork nests built on the side arms of electricity pylons. Since French roads are largely straight and largely empty, especially on a Sunday, even the driver gets to snatch glances without much danger. To make sure we continued to concentrate, after we had entered the Marais Poitevin  area, a stoat shot across the road in front of us. Rarely a dull moment.

We made the short trip in a little under 2 hours and received a very warm welcome from the campsite owner who remembered us from previous visits. Such a greeting instantly makes one feel at home. We arrived to a marché fermier (farmers’ market) in full swing in Damvix so we pitched up and wandered off to investigate. The first thing we bumped into was a very chirpy man selling all manner of live poultry: chickens (both hens and cockerels) ducks, young geese, quail, guinea fowl – very French. Amongst others, there was a lady making cane work for chair seats, another lady with a bread oven, a young blacksmith and, of course, a man selling goat cheese so I just had to dip into the food budget.

The star turn, the one that really got my digestive juices flowing, however, was a couple of guys barbecuing anguilles (eels). This being a marsh area of apparently reclaimed land, now drained by an extensive network of drainage canals emptying into the La Sèvre Niortaise river, eels are plentiful and very much a local speciality. Unlike Carol, I love them. Cheap they weren’t but €8 just had to be sacrificed to buy an assiette des anguilles. They were excellent. As I walked around the market happily munching away, a few people greeted me with a cheery, "bon appetit". So polite, the French.

We returned to Billy for lunch outside where we were causing a pair of chaffinches to fret because we were too close to their nest in one of the trees on the edge of our pitch. We’ll try to ignore them and, hopefully, they will become accustomed to us.

In the later afternoon we cycled the short distance, about three miles, into Arçais to find Mike and Linda’s house. Now armed with a complete address, we realized that, on two previous trips when trying to find their house just on the off chance that they would be here, we had been looking on the wrong side of the road. That was because I knew they had a barque (local boat) and the canal was on one side only. It seems that all houses, however, have right of access the the water. Live and learn.

Much to Mike’s delight, over a drink or two, Carol found some as yet undiscovered lizard orchids growing in their garden. One had fallen to the lawn-mower but more care will now be lavished on the survivors.

There was quite a gathering for the evening with Linda’s family being in residence as well as some of the colourful and friendly locals joining in; eleven in all. Mike and Linda are pretty well fluent in French and some animated conversation flowed. Carol and I followed some of it though not, of course, all; the occasional translation was necessary. Damp and overgrown barbecues were dried out and eventually encouraged to burst into life and a great time was had by all.

Cycling back in the fading light, a dark shape began running along the roadside before us. I accelerated and closed in on it just before it crossed the road and disappeared into the undergrowth. It was a pine marten. Not a bad wildlife way to end a good day.

Today is our last day at La Palmyre. The wind was more from the west so there a few more clouds but, consequently, it was a little warmer.

We popped in to La Palmyre for one or two final essentials in preparation for tomorrow’s journey to Damvix in the Marais Poitevin; wine, chiefly, since we are being entertained by Mike and Linda on Sunday. We got a bottle of pineau de Charente to take them. Pineau is a regional speciality, a blend of wine and cognac supposedly both made from the same property/grapes. It comes in white, pink and red varieties and, being slightly sweet, makes a good aperitif but also goes well with cheese (in my opinion, though the French would doubtless disagree).

The car park used as the market square in La Palmyre was bustling again with a vide grenier (empty loft) in progress. This is the French equivalent of a car boot sale/yard sale/garage sale. This is most definitely not my kind of diversion but we snapped it for a bit of local colour.

As we were indulging in lunch back at the campsite, our English friends returned and announced that they had had no trouble finding fuel to fill their almost empty tank. Let’s hope that continues to be the case. Although we feel very self-righteous with all our cycling in preference to driving, it also cannot help but make us feel a little restricted. We just are not certain what is happening or will happen. Never mind, just enjoy the sun while it is here.

We cycled out to phare de la Coubre (a lighthouse) in the afternoon only to discover, to Carol’s great disappointment, that we couldn’t climb up inside it. We had been able to do so when we were here six or seven years ago. It was a good excuse for another pleasant cycle ride through the coastal forest, though. The route back took us into a Club Med area full of the beautiful beginners learning how to wind surf, control kites for kite surfing and occasionally whizzing about on Hobie Cats. No one seemed to kill anyone else but they may have come close once or twice.

We’re supping a beer in our cybercafe doing our last postings before entering what may be a wi-fi black spot in the Marais; we’ve no idea. Let’s hope they’ve got diesel and have heard of McDonalds.

Today started cloudy with some brightness drifting through. After a lazy start to the morning, we loaded the laptop into a rucksack and cycled into La Palmyre to investigate a cybercafe we’d seen. A couple of pressions (draught beers) and a wonderful connection soon had our outstanding three blog posts published. There was even some French version of MTV entertaining us with a Coldplay track, amongst others. We were glad to see that we weren’t the only nerds in town; in a booth to one side was an English couple complete with webcam and ear buds carrying on a Skype conversation. They were supping a half carafe of local hooch and finally had lunch. Good for them – a most enjoyable way to avoid international phone charges.

In preparation for our weekend and travelling up to Damvix, we called in to a local boucherie to pick up two days worth of meat to go with our fridge full of veggies, then poodled back for lunch – the last of our rotisseried chicken. Maybe now we can have something different. 🙂

Anxious for some more exercise, we cycled south down the coast to St Palais-sur-Mer. By now the wind had shifted around to a more northerly direction and the skies were basically clear with some clouds drifting through. The cycle track through the coastal woodland got a little "interesting": there was one section of the piste cyclable (cycle track) described as "difficile" (difficult). It went up and down through some dune areas and there were some short, sharp shocks of climbs; not too severe, though. We’d never seen road signs beside a beach warning people of sable! (sand!) before, either. No shit, Sherlock!

St Palais-sur-mer was a typical French small seaside town, as far as I could see. There were a couple of architectural curiosities, though, including some interesting fishing constructions just on the way in to town.

On the slog back to La Palmyre, largely into wind, we realised that the excruciatingly expensive local fuel station was completely dry – pas d’essence, pas de gazole. This place was selling diesel at €1.60, a whopping 22 cents per litre more than we had paid, almost a euro per gallon. If that’s sold out we may be stuck here some time. We have a tankful that will get us to Damvix to meet Mike and Linda but we may not be going much further. Another English couple is off out looking for fuel tomorrow so we’ll see how they get on.

We sat outside to have dinner under the clear skies brought by the northerly wind but boy was it cool. I cannot ever before remember wearing a long sleeved shirt and long trousers in France in the summer. Another first!

Finally, a local disco playing incessantly tedious, monotonous rhythmic tosh that some call music started up and we put on our own Coldplay CD to try to drown it out. Hopefully it won’t go on all night. I’d rather listen to the baby long-eared owls.

We awoke to beautiful blue, almost cloudless sky with little wind. We’d been planning to be in Damvix in the Marais Poitevin to meet up with Mike and Linda Eaton on Sunday. Since we have such a wonderful pitch on a largely empty campsite (the nearest other campers must be 50 metres away) and the weather was looking reasonably stable, we had decided to maximize our time here and stay until Sunday morning. The wonderful local oysters were also demanding a repeat visit and today looked like a perfect day for it.

Having been here for almost three weeks now, my remaining few hairs were in need of a trim so Carol set about my head with my travelling rechargeable beard trimmer. One simply must look presentable for oysters. As we were making preparations for another bike ride to La Tremblade, Carol announced that we had had a visitor crawling over our sandals just outside the caravan door. A small lizard, clearly not as skittish as some, had waited long enough for Carol to change lenses and snap it. Maybe the Teva material looked uncomfortably familiar to it?

Carol had picked a somewhat circuitous route to La Tremblade in an effort to avoid the more direct but relatively busy road outside the campsite and, eventually finished with hair cuts and lizards, off we set. The "somewhat circuitous" route turned into a very circuitous route as we struggled to find the appropriate cross-country lane amongst many lanes, none of which were signposted. I tried asking a local which was the road to Dirée but my question was met merely with a quizzical look. That could, of course, have been the fault of my French. Eventually we seemed to arrive at a hamlet that we assumed to be Dirée but it was something of a leap of faith since, like all the lanes, it didn’t have a name posted either.

We were on familiar territory now, though, and were soon at La Tremblade in our favoured oyster shack putting together our own, do-it-yourself, plateau de fruits de mer: 8 huitres (oysters, #2 fines), 8 palourdes (clams), assiette de langoustines (langoustine/Dublin bay prawns/scampi – how many names does one crustacean need?), bouquet de crevettes rose (prawns), assiette de bulots (whelks, cooked). Accompanying this feast with another bottle of the delightfully tangy blanc marine, we were set for a splendid lunch.

This area seems to be hollyhock city; they are all over the place. By way of example, a little way along the quay at La Tremblade was what estate agents might describe as "a bijou property full of character" acting as a backdrop to a small but colourful collection.

The weather began to look "a little less settled" as we finally left the quay but, seafood not being calorie-free, we decided to cycle back the long way via the forest cycle tracks to work off some of them before launching into more courtesy of our remaining rotisseried chicken for the evening meal.

Wednesday is one of two market days in La Palmyre. We’d been in to the Sunday market which was absolutely heaving with humanity. Now, after 2.5 weeks in France and without yet having had a spinning (rotisseried) chicken, we fancied trying the market again, hopefully being quieter on a Wednesday, to remedy the situation and buy un poulet rôti.

I think it’s the unseasonably poor weather that we had during the first two weeks that has been responsible for our missing out on many of the things that define, for us, being in France. Let’s hope the remaining time is good enough for us to rectify things.

After Carol’s breakfast run to the local supplier of splendid croissants, we cycled in to La Palmyre and hit the market. As we had hoped, life was much more civilized – very much calmer. We were able to purchase some good looking green beans, an enormous spinning chicken that would do us for two lunches and a dinner (at least), and some picholines, a typically French green olive. Olives were another thing we had yet to sample on this trip. Unless one is sitting outside in the sun supping a pastis, they somehow don’t seem relevant.

Sauntering back with our purchases, we spotted an Internet cafe proclaiming free Wi-Fi, so perhaps we wouldn’t need to use any of our precious diesel on a second McWiFi run to Marennes.

Next door to the cafe was a shop selling delightful clothes of blanc de Nil (beautiful white Egyptian cotton). Carol was inside sifting through their wares and I sat outside waiting. The next corner shop was a boucherie/charcuterie selling, in addition to the meats, portions of cooked meals such as paella. In this case, the large paella pan was at the very edge of the counter open to the elements. As I watched, a cheeky little sparrow hopped onto the the edge of the paella pan and helped itself to a beak-full of rice before whizzing off back to its nest, presumably to feed its hungry clutch of chicks. Brilliant! (Brilliant provided that you don’t buy that paella, I suppose.)

I did have to use a little precious diesel taking my punctured tyre to be repaired five miles away. Since I had to leave it there being done, I had to use a little more to return and collect it. Having shelled out the not inconsiderable sum of €29 for a puncture repair, I gave the car a severe ticking off about causing us too much unplanned expenditure. That’s the cost of a decent oyster lunch with wine, for Lord’s sake!

In the late afternoon we cycled through the forest to the coast and into La Palmyre again, lugging the camera along in the hope of seeing some more kite surfing. Alas, the tide was a very long way out so no kites were surfing.

The day was brilliant and the skies in the evening were completely clear and blue. We’d planned to indulge ourselves with what I like to call "sun on a plate", one of the world’s great salads, a salade Niçoise. It was about time we were able to sit outside and enjoy such sunny treats. (Please excuse the olives being green instead of black.)

It was most enjoyable and none of it got pinched by an epicurean sparrow.

Another beautiful morning greeted us. We putzed around the campsite doing chores and preparing to find the "local" McWiFi in Marennes for some publishing. We’d be needing some supplies and some diesel, too, so this was a driving day. Since we’d be crossing to the north of La Seudre to get to Marennes, we thought we’d combine our excursion with a visit to Brouage just a a few miles further north. We left at about 11:30 AM as the skies were beginning to cloud over.

McDonalds was classically easy to find on a roundabout on the outskirts of Marennes. We popped in for two espressos, one sundae de la saison (cherry) for you-know-who, and a publishing of the last four days blog entries. Two were glitchy and timed out but we eventually got them done. Though we were in the "restaurant" this time, it was good to see another punter sitting in the car park using his lap top.

Administration over, we set off for Brouage, an old fortified village now lying in the middle of a marsh. This place is quite exceptional. It is an old town, apparently housing "some 4000 souls" in the 17th century, and is completely surrounded by fortified walls. The wall formation is essentially a square but each corner of the square has protruding structures giving covering fire over the outside of the main walls. There are small turrets scattered at intervals along the walls. It used to be on the coast but, I suspect due to the silting up off the estuary, now stands in a marshy area.

We played tourist wandering around the fortified walls, then returned to the car to drive back to Marennes in search of a supermarket for some food and diesel. Driving into the local Leclerc, there was a foreboding "clack, clack" sound coming from one of our wheels as it rotated. A quick visual inspection, having pulled into a suitably empty part of the car park, revealed a large screw embedded in the right rear tyre. "Bother", or words to that effect! Time to learn how to jack up the relatively new car. This was becoming something of a habit; we’d had a similar incident with a nail embedded in one of our previous car’s tyres two years ago down in the Gers region. Carol went in to do the shopping in the nice, cool, air-conditioned supermarket while I set about the messy and sweaty business of changing the wheel (which didn’t seem yet to have lost any pressure) in the hot, grubby car park.

Messy, sweaty task and nice, cool shopping completed, we discovered that this Leclerc had relatively reasonably priced diesel but, since nobody was in la caisse, we couldn’t actually buy any. We did try. (Same old problem of UK bank/credit cards not being accepted by French automated machinery.) Some things in this technologically advanced society still seem painfully archaic. We drove off to the local Intermarché to try there but, not only did that have no person in la caisse, it didn’t appear to have any fuel in the pumps either; they were all cordoned off. Could the good ol’ French fuel protests finally be causing an effect?

We drove back to our local town, Les Mathes, and managed to find a Shopi supermarket with both some fuel in the pumps and someone in la caisse. Not only did they have diesel but it was also a relatively reasonable price. Relief – we now had a full tank which would be more than enough to get us to our next stop. There’s also a tyre place next door to the Shopi so I should be able to get the puncture fixed. For now, though, we had to get the food home to stop it spoiling.

The skies had continued to darken and thunder arrived while we were having a late lunch outside. The thunder was rolling around gently a little distance away. It got closer and forceful rain and lightening followed shortly thereafter. It looks as though the puncture will have to wait until tomorrow.

At least I didn’t have to change the wheel in pouring rain.

A glorious morning that promised to get hotter said that it was at last time to break out the silk. Crocs get a little warm in warmer weather, too, so it was also time for the Teva sandals. At last; this is what France should feel like.

After sampling the croissants (excellent) from the most local supplier, we set off on our bikes to investigate La Tremblade, a small town, situated in a marshy area with mud flats on the estuary of La Seudre river in the heart of the ostriculteur (oyster farming) business. The oyster fishermen/farmers (whatever they are) make for interesting entertainment. Every day, flotillas of small, unstable-looking flat-bottomed boats go screaming out into the estuary to do whatever they do to their oyster beds. This seems to happen approaching low tide when, I imagine, they can jump off the small, unstable-looking flat-bottomed boats into what remains of the water wearing their waders and do their thing. The flotillas of small, unstable-looking flat-bottomed boats then come screaming back in, some laden with a new crop of oysters.

We had visited this area once before, about six years ago, and had enjoyed a magnificent plateau de fruits de mer (seafood platter). We were in La Tremblade largely to check out the restaurant at which we had eaten this feast. It was still there but shut on a Monday.

It was getting into lunch time and I needed little persuasion from Carol to pop into one of the several degustation (tasting) shacks belonging to the oyster producers and sample their wares. Following a cursory investigation we returned to the very first shack we’d considered.

Here, they were selling assietes de huit huitres (plates of eight oysters) which could be washed down admirably with a bottle of blanc marines, a dry white wine with a suitable salty tang that complements the oysters very well. There were two choices to be made. The oysters are graded between numbers one to six based on size, one being the largest. Within size, there was also a choice between fine and supérieur. If I understood the French explanation correctly, the latter were "fatter" (how poetic). We chose to sign the death warrant for 16 fines number twos.

Being a producer’s shack, the whole experience was utterly unpretentious, quite basic and entirely delightful; sitting in a shaded veranda, sucking down what turned out to be quite simply the best oysters I have ever tasted anywhere, sipping the occasional glass of cool white wine and overlooking a sunny creek. Heaven!

Invigorated by our oyster feast, we cycled up to the bridge over La Seudre to watch some of the little oyster boats scream in and out, where we could see the bridge over to the Ile d’Oléron in the middle distance, before returning to camp the long way via a cycle track through the wooded coastal area to La Palmyre. An enjoyable ride of 31 miles in all.

That oyster shack apparently does plateau de fruits de mer. Now there’s a thought.

(Yes, I know that spelling’s wrong …)

After catching up on some blogging activity over some coffee, we cycled off to La Palmyre to see the Sunday morning market. It was heaving. The "spinning chicken" (rotisserie) machine was doing a roaring trade; the poissonerie (fishmonger) was doing a roaring trade. It’s a good French market. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon one’s viewpoint, we were fully stocked with food so didn’t need to join any of the queues.

When we returned to our campsite after our quick dose of France, there had been developments near us on the site. There are certain types of caravan that you just get uncomfortable feelings about. Anything that is large, twin-axled, of a couple of certain makes, and loaded with people, sets off the alarm bells. Behind us and relatively close was a van, with a shop-blind canopy, that must have exceeded the legal British length limit. Since it had apparently been pulled by nothing larger than a Ford Focus, the intensity of the alarm bells was increased. There was also accompanied by a 5 series Beemer without a tow bar. This screamed "gens de voyage" (itinerants, to be polite). Most French campsites reject such units though, to be fair to this site, they are usually accompanied by white vans rather than cars, and travel in convoy.

They weren’t actually being any trouble and we tried to shrug off our feelings of unease and relax but nature is a funny thing and it clearly wasn’t working. Carol had read about an aire naturelle campsite little more than half a mile away so we cycled off, checked it out, found it blissfully empty (only about four units in an enormous space)  and decided to move. We returned to the original site, paid for our one night, packed up both awning and caravan and were on the road, albeit very briefly, in what must have been a world record time of about 30 minutes.

We were met at the new campsite by an absolutely delightful older lady who seemed to use the occasional German word mixed in with her French. She seemed to notice and apologised, explaining that her husband was German. Once I told her I spoke a little German, she started flipping between the two with gay abandon. We had a most enjoyable if strange conversation.

After a false start and some difficulty with the sun canopy caused by a gusting wind from an adverse direction, we finally got Billy settled into his new home and dinner on the go. There’s nothing like a sausage fest, Toulouse and merguez, after a slightly rushed day. As we were attacking the cheese course and light was fading fast, we started hearing some strange bird noises the like of which we had never heard before. It had to be an owl but which owl?

One benefit of having the lap top is that it is loaded with a bird recognition suite with sound files of their calls, albeit only for British birds. We knew a few owls that it wasn’t so I started with the remaining suspects. Purely by chance, the first one I picked hit gold; we were listening to the young of the long-eared owl. After a while we saw a few ghostly shapes flying from tree to tree whereupon the noises would start again. There were at least two and maybe three young owls around us. Since this is in our category of thrilling, we spent quite a while watching and listening in the near dark.

I awoke a few times during the night and the vocal little devils were still at it.

Having decided to leave on Saturday morning and Saturday being the day of the huge market in Sarlat-la-Canéda, we were away early to try and avoid any disagreeable traffic jams. Sarlat passed with no difficulty and the only other potential bottleneck was Périgueux, about a quarter of the way through the 170 mile journey to Les Mathes near Royan and the Ile d’Oléron. As we approached Périgueux, the sky appeared particularly threatening; not at all what we were hoping for from our strategy of heading west. Not wanting to waste precious diesel driving into more bad weather, we found somewhere to stop and buy yet another Aujourd’hui but predictions for the west still looked good so we stopped questioning our decision and got on with it.

Our journey didn’t use any autoroutes so the 170 miles took about 4.5 hours and, glory of glories, the sky was basically blue with a scattering of white clouds blowing down from the north. The northerly wind produced a lower-than-might-be-expected temperature of about 20°C but, at this point, we were simply happy to be in dry, sunnier weather.

We are on a site that we used once about six years ago. They’ve clearly had plenty of rain, as has France generally, because part of the site is closed off due to being too wet. However, we found a pitch that we liked, got set up and settled down to a late lunch in the sun of good ol’ grilled asparagus with goat cheese.

This is much closer to the coast than we usually like to stay but it is an area with some interest, not just a beachy place. This is oyster farming territory. There are some slight aspects of a kiss-me-quick seaside culture but they can be avoided. It is another area where some effort has been put into good cycle tracks so, after lunch, we used them to go and see the coast at La Palmyre. The brisk northerly wind seemed to be proving ideal for a considerable collection of kite surfers off one of the beaches.

We had a chunk of veal for our evening meal and, given this first realistic opportunity, I had to stir "ze little grey cells" into remembering how to barbecue. The poor cooking grid in the portable Weber had developed some rust from lack of use. Argh! If the weather keeps up I’ll also need some more charbon de bois. Let’s hope I do.