Penhaven at play!

We had three nights in Belgium, and loved our wee snippet.  We sadly farewelled our lovely France home of a month and took a BlaBlaCar from Saint Armond Montrond to Waterloo in Belgium. It was a 6 hour journey with a lovely Belgium couple about our age.  Waterloo  We stayed just down the road from the Waterloo battlefield where Napoleon in June 1815 lost his last battle, which was against the Duke of Wellington. We enjoyed looking around the museum, The Lion's Mound, which is a large conical artificial hill commemorating the location erected in 1824, plus the Panorama Rotunda, which housed a panoramic painting of the battle. Antwerp We had two nights here, a lovely port city on Belgium's River Scheldt, with history dating back to the Middle Aged. Our accommodation was in the old quarters which we always enjoy experiencing. Our first site was all the bikes outside the bus/metro station entrance. We enjoyed walking around see the architecture and the busy port. There was an...

 Well our last two weeks of our house sit was spent reading, Netflix binge and resting- we got Covid! Our first ever dose. We believe we got it from a function at the community hall - most probably the Concert night. We have learnt that the local community are anti government, anti vaccination and ignore all France Covid guidelines! Oh well if we were to get it being at this month long house sit was the perfect place!! We had the last two nights with the house owners who were very easy company! We cooked a welcome home meal for them and they were delighted with Paul's efforts with the compost bins creation and the care of the land. Our friendly neighbour and cycle friend Corinne came to say bye. Plus we enjoyed a lovely French meal out with Annemarieke and Wytze at a stunning wee French restaurant called Le Relais du Facteur in the lovely village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre. We farewelled France via a BlaBlaCar ride from Saint Armond Montrond  into Belgium - so much cheaper tha...

Reigny, Cher Province, FRANCE Well we've been here two weeks already! Really enjoying our time here. We've had a mixture of at home days, cycling, walking and driving to places of interest. Have visited two great gardens. Our favourite being a mediaeval inspired garden - Prieuré Notre-Dame d'Orsan. Got some great ideas for ways to organise vegetable gardens! They use traditional by hand methods and are aiming to be pesticide free. We also visited a beautiful mediaeval village Apremont-Sur-Allier and it's floral Park and castle. We enjoyed a 3 hour bike ride with our neighbour Corinne- no English but our phone app and gestures made it a very enjoyable ride around our area - gorgeous quite roads and farm scenery, small villages - which are usually just a cluster if 5-10 houses. Paul has had fun playing in the garden creating compost bins out of local bamboo and free pallets that I found locally. The house owners had given us a contact to buy pallets at a cost of 10 Euros ...

Where are we? We are living in the Cher Provence, in a small village called Reigny, which is 2 hours south of Paris - almost in the centre of France! Look for the blue dot on the maps! Touch on map to enlarge. We are living in a farmhouse built in 1795. In a small village with an unused church, small school (yet to learn if used now) and community hall, plus about 10 houses at the most and no English spoken and only half the houses lived in😆 No pub! The garden is permaculture style - so great learning for us, and produce to enjoy! The nearest small village is 5km away - Culan - for croissants and baguettes.😋 We can bike there, although it does have some up and down rolling hills, it's a lovely ride also! 

  Saint-Flour A small village with a population of 6,000, perched on a rocky overhang. This 1,000 year old town is nestled between Truyère gorges and the Mounts of Cantal and Margeride. We took a train here from Beziers - another scenic trip over mountain ranges, but the view of the village on arrival was the winner! We had to walk up there to our accommodation in the old quarters. Clermont-Ferrand We travelled to Clermont-Ferrand by train, nothing exciting.  Our time here was mainly spent organising a SIM card for the cell phone. It was easier to buy another card (another phone number to remember) than to top up the Vodafone card that we purchased in Portugal - I thought Vodafone would be good, but they're useless!! This caused/allowed us to once again walk around the place. Once again came across a great mural- look closely to see what is real and what is painted on! This one is much harder to decipher what is real and what is painted! Our accommodation here was entertaining...