Baptism of Fire (or rather rain and wind)

This last week has been a bit of a test of our resolve. There has not been any improvement from just sweeping showers and wind over almost all the week. Temperatures have dropped 5-8 degrees at about 10 degrees in the morning and maximums getting up to 15 to 16 degrees at best. We have resorted to heading south as far as Nantes one day and heading inland for most of the others. This has generally worked out okay despite spending more time than we would like on the road. For sure, we have successfully knocked Brittany and Normandy off any list for Third Gear options. So that is a positive result.

From a touring point of view it has been a bit disappointing not to have made Brest, Quimper and Lorient areas and we have spent time in towns of little interest. We also have reservations about an idea to do a walk along the coast (GR 34). At first glance it looks an idyllic way to spend a week or so; wandering along the coast and dropping into the next seaside port/village for a great seafood meal and a nice comfortable hotel room ………….maybe one September in the future.

The forced slowdown combined with having Sarah (who is a different kettle of fish to Rachael) with us, has been useful in helping us to move from more of a see the sights mindset and more into developing our ability to “normalize” day to day living. This means, no need to get up with the birds in the morning. One can have a good jog or a brisk walk in the morning followed by a bit of breakfast, a catch up with the news, some work on the computer and then a walk up about 10am for a coffee in the local village.

We can decide on goals for the day and have a light lunch before heading off for an afternoon outing. So this is the time of the day for a principal achievement and the time I expect we will be working harder at this over July and August when we are on our own and a lot closer to areas we are more familiar with. But, for the moment, we are home in time at the end of the day for our brisk walk along local roads, once or twice heading off after 10pm.

The other challenge emerging is how we can each achieve our own day to day goals and amusements without doing things together all the time. At least with Sarah around we can split up into two groups from time to time, but as Randall’s language skills and local knowledge is superior to the other two, our separations have been limited thus far. I expect that next week when the ladies are further into Paris sights and shopping, we will have more opportunity to go our own ways a little more.

We have also learned a lot so far on the pluses and minuses of each gite and the limitations this nomadic lifestyle has on developing new skills and knowledge. We have plenty of things to get stuck into over the coming months.