This week we have been on a couple of late night drives, these are a great time to look around new villages, when the temperature is cooler and you can see the beautiful sky in a multitude of orange and pinks before a sun set. The sun set looks magnificent against the sunflower fields.
On Tuesday we went viewing houses! We saw three that were all completely different to each other. One was a 3 bedroom townhouse on a side street of a beautiful village called Bonnes, that was lovely but wasn’t big enough for us long term, the house would need a lot of shuffling around but it did have an incredible sized garden with it.
The next house was in Saint-Aulaye which was more of a town than village. The house was a detached 5 bedroom house which had so much living space downstairs as well as a cellar. The garden was smaller than the other two houses but big enough for playing and it also had a garage and another outbuilding that would be fab for a playroom for Lucas or even setting up my nail salon. We hadn’t been to Saint-Aulaye before so we are going to go and have a day there to look around the area better.
The final house was so picturesque, it was a detached 2 bedroom cottage but with potential to convert the car port into another 4 room, 2 down and 2 up. It came with a small woodland area, incredible garden and another field. The views where just magnificent but we think that it is more a house for when Lucas has left home rather than a family home now. It was great getting to see three new areas though and the estate agent was so helpful, explaining where the nearest school would be etc.
On Wednesday Lucas and I had a drive to Cherval, there isn’t much there but there is a restaurant so we sat outside whilst I had a coffee and Lucas had some chips. It’s the first time since we arrived, he has had proper home cooked chips like my Grandma makes as opposed to the oven cooked fries. After we had a walk around, we picked D up and went for a game of football and play on the park in Champagne.
Lucas has been eager to go canoeing since he saw people doing it in Poltrot so on Thursday we went down to Aubeterre-Sur-Dronne and had lunch at the camp site restaurant before going for our canoe. Lunch was just awful, the service wasn’t good. I ordered a veggie burger which was literally a hash brown in a bun. We ordered fish for Lucas and it was served frozen to him twice! We ended up giving up on him having the fish and gave him our chips. They restaurant then tried charging us for the fish. Anyway, the afternoon improved on the canoe. We booked for a two hour trip which was a 6k stretch. It was so peaceful going down the river Dronne and D did an excellent job of rowing. I made us crash a couple of times and Lucas moaned it was too long haha but has since asked to go again on a one hour journey! On the way back home, we stopped off at Poltrot and went around the adventure play park and maze again so Lucas was very impressed with his day of fun.
On Friday we went out for a drive but ignored the sat nav and went down the back country lanes to see what we could find. We came across some incredible caves about 2 miles away from Mareuil, Lucas loves looking in these, his imagination creating sense for baddies to hide in and him defeating them.
Near the caves was a water site and next to it was a sign showing that this is where people used to wash their clothes.
There was also a church we looked around, it was very serene. As we walked in, music started automatically playing and we could browse the statues in it and the sculptures that we could see were added each year. It’s so nice to see these places can be left unlocked for people to look around without them being vandalised, I doubt they would be in most parts of the uk which is very sad.
After we had finished investigating the caves and church we headed to Mareuil and went around the chateau as it was closed when we last visited. There was a young lady who gave us a tour, she was fab and did the tour in French and English. We saw artefacts from different periods of the chateau including official documents signed by Napoleon. In one of the rooms, there were old games set up for people to play whilst they visited and also lots of games set up on the lawn which we all enjoyed playing. It was a really interesting tour that I would definitely recommend if you are in the area.
Family Travel Pro says
Looks beautiful! Photos are fab. Looking forward to hearing more of the trip!
Kim Carberry says
What gorgeous views!
Good luck with finding a new house! What an adventure x
Joanna Melia says
It looks lovely there. How do you find house hunting is there lots of choice? We’re currently looking but it’s hard to find something that ticks all the boxes
#ordinarymoments
Jenni says
There is plenty of choice but it’s hard to find something hat ticks all the right boxes as you said. The main thing we are concentrating on is looking at the areas at the moment and then when we are set on an area, concentrate on houses around that
Donna says
The canoeing looks so much fun – I’m loving reading about your adventures each week x
betty - NZ says
It looks like everybody had a great time! The cave and church are quite interesting to see. Thanks for sharing.
RachelSwirl says
Such beautiful photos – Thanks for sharing and for linking up with the #MySundaySnapshot linky.
karen reekie says
It is such a lovely part of France, I am enjoying your photos and house hunt updates.
#mysundaysnapshot
Susan Mann says
What gorgeous photos. Looks like a wonderful place to visit x #ordinarymoments