Gites South Brittany

I spent the whole 2 weeks of the holiday lesson-planning and studying for my exam – "Habilitation" – which I sat (in front of a board at the Education Authority in Vannes – gulp!!!) on 19th April. This is the official qualification to teach English in primary schools and which I needed to pass in order to continue teaching in September. Although for the French teachers taking the exam a large part of it involves verifying their level of English, for me it was my level of French that was tested. In addition to this, we all had to answer questions about the "Textes Officielles" (Curriculum and Teaching Practice). Anyway, big sigh of relief, I passed with flying colours! This has greatly boosted my confidence and I have gone into the schools with renewed energy this week!

The gîtes are beginning to get booked-up a bit more. We even have a 10 day booking for both gîtes from the "Commune de Nivillac" (the Mairie, basically) – a troop of actors who are coming to put on a play at the local "Forum" theatre. For details of the gîtes (holiday cottages) and availability go to our main web-site (link on the left of this page).

On Saturday we managed to sail further than ever before up the Vilaine river. We set off from La Roche-Bernard (where our boat is moored) at about 10.30 am (having spent over an hour just rowing out to collect it from its mooring, towing the rowing boat back to the pontoons, ferrying dogs, cat and supplies from the car and getting the sails ready) and arrived at "Le Pont de Cran" (between St. Dolay and Redon) at 1 pm. We had lunch on board and the dogs had a swim – Harry, the cat, declined! – before setting off back to La Roche. Harry is a very cool ship's cat – he takes it all in his stride.

We sailed part of the way back. Although there was very little wind and most of the headway was made thanks to the current. Arriving back in La Roche-B, we set the boat on the end of a pontoon and Paul set off to collect a rowing boat to tow back across the river with us. Just then a very large yacht appeared – we had stopped in its berth! Luckily for us it was our friend, Jean-François, who took it all very well and even looked after the dogs on his boat whilst we moored up. We then "had to" stay for an "appero" with him before finally getting home at 9.45 pm!!!!!! We were both very tired and sun burnt – it had been an extremely hot day – worthy of July, never mind April. Life's so tough here in Brittany!!!!