Another interesting Friday

One of Rob’s colleagues is married and his wife works at the Napoleon and African Museums on the Ile d’Aix. The Ile d’Aix is very small and no cars are allowed, especially in the summer months. The ferry ride is about 20 minutes from the mainland.

Last Friday saw us catching the ferry to pay a visit to our friends. They actually live in the south of Charente Maritime, but while she is working she lodges in a little house behind the African museum. The family passes their time between two homes. The Ile d’Aix is a wonderful island and their other home is in a small town where artists have taken over the old fishing huts and painted them bright colours. What amazing memories their 8 year old son will have when he grows up.

 The little house is situated in a large walled garden, well away from the public eye and I was fascinated to see this dovecote placed over a well in the grounds:

They had other visitors too and we all started off our visit with a walk around the island. It takes a couple of hours and the day was very, very hot. There’s plenty of shade and between the trees you can catch glimpses of little coves and azure blue sea. Out hostess is a good guide and she pointed out places of interest and told us about the island as we went round.

Lunch was eaten under the trees, which was lovely and delicious and I picked up some new cookery ideas.

After lunch we were taken around the Napoleon Museum. Napoleon slept in the house, which is now the museum, for one night on his way to exile. Unfortunately, I was suffering from too much sun so didn’t really appreciate the visit as much as I’d liked to. I had to go back to rest. Strange to say I visited the museum on a very hot day when I was expecting Christian nearly 30 years ago and was unwell. I’ll have to try to visit in winter!

 Rob and his colleague visited the African museum which was actually the one I wanted to visit as it contains the famous dodo that I got involved with on Wikipedia. The talk page has been cleared over the years but here’s the post I wrote on my postcard blog. I now know that the dodo is not a real stuffed dodo.


After a rest and a drink of water I was fine again. The ferry was pretty full on the way back to the mainland. It was a lovely day – but hot!

We survived!

Despite the hot weather and a very early start to the day.

Bordeaux was quite quiet and cool when we arrived at about 8.45 in the morning. It even rained a few drops when we stopped for a cup of coffee on the way to the auction house. We ate inside at lunch time as it was windy and that is always dangerous in the noonday sun.

The auction went really well and we managed to get some good postcards as well as keep cool. They handed out cups of water to everyone there. Some of the collectors are quite elderly and need reminding to drink.

I wasn’t looking forward to the wait at the station, but it went really well. This weekend is the start of two months holidays here, so I expected a lot more people to be around. It was a reasonable Friday evening there. We got a seat in the bar and looked at our postcards for an hour and then wondered around the station shops and listened to the piano being played. Rob bought me a handbag in the sales; it took me quite a while to choose one. He was patient – anything to kill time waiting for a train.

They were handing out free bottles of water at the station so we had one each which was good timing as our supply was running low. Our train set off ten minutes late which was fine as we expected the worse. Overhead electric cables were dangerously low because of the heat all over France. It wasn’t crowded either so we chose a good seat opposite each other to eat our picnic.

I slept so well on Friday night

Meltiinnnggggg

Trying to drink lots of water and keep cool.  It is hot enough to break previous records here.

Yesterday evening we went for what we thought would be a cooling walk.  We were met by a blast of hot air when we went outside and there has a hot breeze blowing.  Fortunately we have shutters which we keep closed all day with the windows open inside.  I feel like a mole shuffling around in the half light.

On Friday we have an auction in Bordeaux.  Bordeaux is often the hottest place in France.

We're having a heat wave

As I write the temperature outside is 35°C/ 95°F and the breeze is hot. It could be like this for the next 5 days. I feel sorry for anyone who is camping in a tent in this heat.

The house is reasonably cool. With careful use of the shutters as the sun moves around we can keep out the sunlight.

I hope it’s not too hot where you are. Whether or not it is, here’s something to cool you down. I couldn’t find the Carmen Miranda version so Miss Piggy is kindly stepping in.