It was definitely time to leave the land of nothing but beaches. There are good cycle paths here but all they really do is connect all the beaches. Clearly, what one is supposed to do cycle to one’s chosen beach,…

While we were investigating La Tranche-sur-Mer yesterday, Carol found a post card depicting a large cargo vessel parked on the beach at Les Sables d’Olonne, embarrassingly close to the promenade. It had apparently been driven ashore during a bad storm,…

Our plan, such as it was, was to pop in to see the town of Les Sables-d’Olonne, today. The sky above Billy was bright blue (my favourite colour) so we set off. Once we got beyond all the trees of…

It was finally time to get on the road again. The weather still isn’t very settled further south so you-know-who convinced us that we should explore the west coast some more. Carol had found a peaceful-sounding campsite near the coast…

Having discovered a broken spoke in my bike’s rear wheel, I was reticent to use it in case further spokes, now under increased stress, failed. Cycling 25 miles is fine but I really didn’t want to be 12 miles from…

Once again, we thought we might move on tomorrow so we pedalled into Arçais to say au revoir to Linda and her folks (Mike having returned to England already). We had only just left the campsite when Carol spotted a…

21st June: for those of us in the northern hemisphere, the day with the longest interval between sunrise and sunset. Following yesterday’s very cloudy sky, the weather chose to celebrate the longest day by beginning summer and actually supplying a…

It is a mark of this year’s weather that we have come to regard a day without rain, no matter how much cloud, as a good day. Such a day was today; ten tenths cloud until about about 5:00 PM…

… with a slight modification … Incey wincey spider climbed up the spout, Down came the rain and washed the spider out, Out came the sun and dried up all the rain, Incey wincey spider climbed the spout again. Today,…

Myocastor coypus – the coypu. Britain’s largest rodent reaching up to a metre in length. It was imported from South America for the fur trade and, with the expected human incompetence, was allowed to escape. It established itself firmly in…