THURSDAY, 17th August 2006 – Bernay to Le Chapelle Achaud.

Journey South (yes, The X-Factor is back on our screens)

Up bright and early, with showers and whatnot, ready for the baker when he arrived at 8am. Fresh croissants and baguettes consumed and stored for later, off to the grey water dump, and we were on our way at 8.30.

Checking the TomTom again (just to make sure it was still working), we decided it needed a French name, and a French voice. We eventually decided on Catherine, because she was French, she wasn’t as stern as the blokes, and she had a nice name. Annie thinks that I’m more likely to follow the strict instructions from a female voice, me being used to it an’ all. She might well be right.

A brief stop for a cup of tea, a splash of diesel, a stop for lunch and an hour’s kip, but we still arrived at a small village close to Les Sables D’Olonne, in the sunny Vendee region by lunchtime. Sunny, it wasn’t. Gusting cross and headwinds, and frequent showers, made driving less than pleasurable.

We were looking for a France Passion site in the village of Le Chapelle Achand. We (or should I say, Catherine) found the village, and proudly announced “Vous etes arrives a votre destination”, which was sort of true. She didn’t know anything about any France Passion site in the vicinity, despite having been loaded with them before leaving Blighty. So we followed the directions in the book, and the tiny signs on the roadside, which always seem to disappear at an important intersection.

Blindly (Catherine had now fallen silent, presumably resting because she’d achieved her arduous task of taking us down a few motorways, and getting lost in a non-existent industrial estate, following signs for an Intermarche supermarket), we drove slowly down winding lanes, turned right, and we were in a farmyard, with a hand-made sign indicting where the accueil (reception) was. I waved our France Passion card, managed to make a pig’s ear of asking her where we should actually park, and she pointed in the same direction as a tiny France Passion sign on the tarmac, which I hadn’t seen, and we were in a small field, with picnic benches, close-cut grass, and a goat.

The goat, whom we later called “Little Billy”, on account of “Big Billy” sharing the paddock next door with two ponies, was very interested in our arrival, bringing him his tea. Not quite as interested as the little tortoiseshell cat which marched across from the house behind the paddock with determination. The cat, who was called “Gatto” for a while until Annie realised we were in France, not Italy, became a friend for life when Annie produced some cheese from the fridge. The goats and ponies enjoyed the apples, produced from the same place.

We decided to check out the small farm shop, where the lady of the farm informed us we were allowed to take a tour to see the deer. We piled in to a makeshift trailer, and the farmer took us and a few other willing volunteers about half a mile down a farm track to an enclosure, where he kept approximately 80 deer, of various ages. One stag deer still had his antlers. There was a long discussion between the farmer and the other tourists, most of which we couldn’t catch. Odd words sprang out, and we gathered that deer less than 3kg in the autumn struggled to survive the winter. I thought he said the oldest deer was 98, but I think I may have (literally) misinterpreted.

We dutifully visited the farm shop again, but we managed to resist the temptation to buy some venison, or a lovely coat rack made from deer feet. The deer skins, also, stayed in the shop. We did, however, buy a jar of confit de onion, to have with our lunch in the next few days.

After dining al fresco on pasta with mushroom and cheese sauce sans venison, we read, after a while realising that “Little Billy” had somehow found his way back inside the paddock, and was happily reunited with “Big Billy”.