This morning we had our breakfast on the terrace in warm sunshine, reading todays Sunday Times (French Edition) and eating fresh croissants from the boulanger.

Yes we are back in France.

We nearly didn’t make it though.

Last Tuesday evening, on its way back to Rosslare after a re-fitting the Irish Ferries vessel, Oscar Wilde, caught fire and is out off action for the moment.

My immediate plans for the following fortnight involved two trips on the Oscar so I was on tenterhooks to see what Irish Ferries were going to do for me.

I am delighted to report that they have turned up trumps.

They gave us the option of a complete refund or of booking alternate landbridge routes for us and giving us €150 to pay for expenses through England.
And so we sailed Irish Ferries Rosslare to Pembroke on Friday morning, drove to Poole in Dorset and (after a delicious dinner in Poole, to which I will return) sailed over night to Cherbourg on Brittany Ferries and landed in Cherbourg at 6.30 in the morning, 12 hours ahead of schedule.

Admittedly the sleep time on the Brittany Ferry was a mere 5 hours, one was woken up at 4.30 by Alan Stival playing his harp in the cabin, and so we did find the long (nearly 12 hour) journey hard work- especially as it rained most of the time- but eventually got here at about 8.30 having taken a long reviving lunch in Niort en route.

Returning to a house which one has closed up for the two coldest months of the year is an intimidating experience, and our first action, backing our laden car into the storm gully outside the front door, didn’t help much.
We surmised that we would drive out easily once we had unpacked the weighty load from the car, this proved the case and were just extracted successfully when a neighbour, whose wife had seen our predicament, arrived down with a jack to haul us out. A really good omen for our future here.

The house was in totally perfect nick, cold doesn’t do anything like the damage damp does and it is dry here.
We got our beautiful Godin humming with heat after an hour and even though our bedroom up under the eaves in the attic was chilly the bed was sufficiently cosy to give us the best possible nights sleep.

I have been allowed a mere sixty minutes by Sile to blog this before before we take a contstiutional around the vines, (our habitual and most enjoyable viewing of the French seasons.) and to be honest I can’t wait to set out.

It is great to be home.