Today, Sunday, we took a short journey to the petrol station at Intermarche where we filled our tank. I hoped the card machine would be easy to use and it was even better than expected. It recognised my card as UK and gave me the instructions in English. This is useful as it is a very short distance from the gite.
A short while ago the French petrol stations were going dry as the tanker drivers were on strike and other trade union people were blocking access to refineries all over France. It threatened our holiday seriously. It was part of an all-union response to new legislation passed to combat strikes. France has had a history of workers striking and disrupting life. This has been because successive governments have always given in. Watching the disruption of Brittany Ferries' sailings recently, I have seen that the port workers didn't strike around the weekends. Could this be because they earn more at weekends? However, this week and last week the disruption has ceased completely. They knew we were travelling!
Anyway, this morning we drove a short distance to a village called Prefailles where lots of people were eating in restaurants. We continued as far as Point St Gildas which also had a number of restaurants active. We sat overlooking the harbour with a huge ship's cannon for company. The sun was out and it was very peaceful. Through binoculars I could see the huge cruise liner they were building across the estuary at Saint-Nazaire shipyards. After a while we moved on and drove to an unusual garden known as Le Fontaine des Bretons. Most of the plant life here was of the vegetable variety. There was a number of small animals to see and a lovely donkey. She had the traditional cross markings so I asked her if she was related to the donkey that carried Jesus on Palm Sunday. She did not reply.
We sauntered round the more formal veg garden where they had Gulliver size garden implements set up to suggest it was Lilliput. Pauline suggested we returned to base for a Breton country pate lunch which we did and enjoyed it together with some biscuits our hosts had left us.
It is now 6.50pm and we are booked in at Villa Noe for dinner soon. We need to avoid LARGE quantities this time!
Watch this space!
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