France

This was supposed to be a post on our trip to the Malvern Quilt show, but I seem to have lost all my pictures.  If  I stumble across them, I'll do a post then.  We had a great time though, saw lots of beautiful quilts and did a bit of shopping.  Obviously bling is in, lots of the winning quilts had crystals glued onto them, pretty and sparkly but not necessarily something I would want on my bed.....

We went by coach to Malvern;  it was the Swindon Town Football team's coach, which, funnily enough, with the same driver, picked us up from St Pancreas Station to bring us home from France!

So - our French adventure.  We went as part of the Hungerford Twinning association.  We have hosted members of the Bertrand family to help out over the past few years, so this year I decided we should have a long weekend over there.

We got up at 4.00am on Friday and left Hungerford at 5.  We then caught the train at St Pancreas and went all the way down to Tours.  A coach picked us up there and took us to Ligueil, which is Hungerford's twin town.

We spent the next few days eating our way through the Loire Valley.  Francoise, Daniel, Ofilie, Coco and Elodie were the perfect hosts, and made us feel so welcome.

Here are some pics

 

Visiting a goat farm



Working our way through a six course lunch

A beautiful old village

Jonathan with Daniel and Francoise in the square

Inaugurating the English Telephone Box Hungerford sent to Ligueil

Enjoying lunch on the terrace

Daniel entertaining us with his hurdy gurdy

On the last day we went to the beautiful Chateau de Chaumont-Sur - Loire and walked around the beautiful gardens where they have the International Garden festival.

 

 

There were loads of different gardens, with different themes.  The one above looked like a wild patch but the mirrors on the wall at the back revealed the beautiful secret garden planted behind.

 

 

This was obviously supposed to be a potting shed and one garden was devoted to the different plant dyes:

 

 

And of course we had a picnic:

 

After that we went to Reggis and Thereze's farm and saw their cows

 



 

and had something to eat

Their farm had been in the family for four generations and the stuff in the old barns was amazing

Everywhere we went we could hear the Cicadas and frogs:

 

 

What a brilliant time we had! 

Thank you very much Mr and Mrs Bertrand and the Hungerford Twinning Association!