Spring cleaning in Brittany.

 Monday 25/03/24

The view from our bedroom - magnifique!

The past six months have flown by and it's hard to believe that it is almost time for us to move on.  

The garden comes to life after the winter dormancy.

Our hosts arrived here on Sunday evening and we'll hit the road south in Dassie on Wednesday morning.  

We have an eight week road trip planned and are heading off without Orthos, our caravan.  The main aims of this trip are to meet my parents for a short visit when their cruise arrives in Lisbon, and then dash across to the UK for Toni's dental appointments.  

We decided to do this trip without Orthos as the cost to store her when we fly to Lisbon and the crazy ferry costs to take her to the UK made us reconsider (also, the weather is still iffy in Europe at this time of the year.  Instead, we've lined up a few house-sits and will fill in the gaps with some hotel stays, seeing some of the cities we've passed by in our trips Bokkie.

For those who are interested in our itinerary: we plan to start off with a short house-sit in the South of France, near Avignon and then visit Carcassonne and Toulouse before a second house-sit, looking after four cats in Saint-Puy.  From there we'll visit Bordeaux and then fly to Lisbon for a few days before returning for another long trip to get across the channel.  

On the life-admin side - our battles with French bureaucracy has started to show results; we've both been accepted onto the social system which gives us access to medical cover without needing separate insurance.  I have also converted my drivers' licence into a French version and today we went to pick up our Cartes de séjour, which are needed to show our residency status.   

Jasper enjoying some Spring sunshine.

We spotted these processionary caterpillars on one of our walks.

The last three weeks have been a blur of sorting the garden, cleaning the house and packing our belongings in a sensible manner so that we can pack the caravan easily when we get back. Our summer plan (for now) is to head off in the direction of Germany by the end of May, and travel around in Orthos.  We also have a summer sit lined up near Hanover, which should be lovely.

Will keep everyone posted!

Bonus:  Some Lily videos

Lily could never resist climbing into cupboards and drawers.

I was amazed to see how close she could get over such open ground.