Hotel Ibis Poitiers Beaulieu

We spent our last ten days of travel at the family farmhouse in Coussay, reunited with the French family and introduced to the brand new and shiny swimming pool which was constructed whilst we were away. I managed to try the swimming pool 2 minutes after arriving, and we managed to ...

Moby is running well. We stopped slightly further south than originally intended as we decided to spend Wednesday at Futuroscope. I might be doing (and most probably am) the French a complete disservice by suggesting that some years back, some brainstorming went on as to how to attract tourists to this part of France as this is just the middle of France with not much going on in the way of wine or river setting. Futuroscope was the result.
As you approach on the A10 you catch a ...

... through the woods. I saw the snakes that everyone has been telling me about an I've been miffed not to see. Unfortunately, not the full body, but a wonderful glimpse of a green and yellow snake's tail-end, even that was around 2.5 foot long and the body as thick as my wrist, to have seen it in its full glory would have been brilliant, but it was busy getting away from me and didn't speak english to come back and pose. There were then ...

Distance covered: 54.6 miles

So a pretty basic day. After a few miles of cycling we climbed up the stairs under an overpass for a nice sheltered spot for lunch (obviously because it was raining... again). Fortunately, the rain stopped and the sun came out in a big way (bigger than if Bear Grylls came out).

We cycled a stupid distance as ...

Distance covered: 38

We woke up to find that we had left the food on from the night before. Well, all isn't lost because we had an excellent breakfast. Although, the race was on to leave the hotel before anyone realised that there was a couple of litres of fat down the side of the hotel and on the balcony below.

Massively hungover we left with high hopes but little gain because after a few hours we were ...

... the house and a lovely dinner of chicken with veg and met Alexandra, Amanda and Scott's (Scott is away working this week) daughter a lovely 9 year old. The next day I got to meet the 2 barn cats, Sophia and Midnight and the chickens (Alex would know their names, I have forgotten).

Monday was spent in the garden with Jan working on the veg patch clearing the weeds around the pumpkins and the like - I know a bit more about these veggies now (I've never really ...

... of this beautiful landscape. Not knowing at the time what type of flowers were giving me such breathtaking views, I knew I wanted as many pictures as possible. As I drove, these yellow fields of flowers dotted the French country side everywhere along the way. As I approach some of the smaller towns, I could not help but make a left turn here or a right turn there, just to explore the some of the ancient, some not so ancient, but definitely old French towns. It was one of my dreams to ...

... is not really a major deal breaker. Also, if you want a drink or snack, they cost you money on board . Nothing on that airline is complimentary! I had purchased a diet coke before getting on the plane anyway, so I did not buy their half size drinks that they were selling for double the money. And on Ryan Air, you can purchase duty free stuff and LOTTERY Tickets ! Yes, Ryan Air has their own Lottery ! You could win 5000 euro or tickets to anywhere Ryan Air ...

... me demandais si je connaissais telle ou telle théorie. Well, sorry madame, j'suis pas un colon, mais j'ai pas exactement le même background que vous autres! grr. Là, aujourd'hui, j'avais trois cours. Le premier a bien été. Le deuxième: j'arrive au cours, pas un chat dans l'amphithéatre. J'attend 2 minutes, et je re-vérifie mon horaire pour une quinzième fois, j'étais au bon endroit au bon moment. Je décide alors de vérifier sur les babillard, au cas où on aurait mis une ...

... reminds me a lot of Edinburgh... I discovered that this residence hall was a psychiatric ward, many years ago, and that the building located right behind it is still one. This would explain why that weird old man spent about an hour pulling out chunks of earth for nothing the other day. Tania noticed this morning that there was a small Virgin Mary statuette on top of the door this morning, with "Hôpital des pauvres incurables 1748" (Hospital for the poor ...