Well we're back on the Island after having had quite an adventure for the last 4 weeks! Even the departure went wrong - the VW van wouldn't start so we had to transfer everything, very rapidly, to our tiny C3 - then off we went.  Arrived at La Pelouiniere on 29th to discover that out outbuilding had been damaged - lots of running about to get it sorted, i.e. insurance cover, estimate and then the work.  Next problem was that the Hymer failed its controle technique (MOT)! Fortunately we were given a few weeks grace, which meant we could go on our trip.

Left La Pelouiniere on 1st February and head to a place south of Niort.  Unfortunately due to poor programming of our GPS came off the motorway too early and ended up doing more than an hour on very small roads.  Arrived at St Jean d'Angeny in the dark!  Area was flooded in places, but generally parking was OK.  Next stop Biarritz.  There had been a storm there and we saw some pretty impressive waves!  Went off nice and early on the Monday, only to be hit by ferocious winds while trying to head to Bilbao.  As most of the motorways in Northern Spain cut along the edge of the mountains along viaducts, we were getting blown about all over the place - very dangerous.  Came off the motorway and rested for two and a half hours.  Then off again (fractionally calmer) along the North Coast then eventually hung a left and went down to Leon.  To get there had to go through rain, wind, snow and mountains!  Leon is on the plateau which seems to extend across most of Spain.  Very, very modern city, but had a very cold night.  Ice on the windscreen!  Next stop Palencia - a nature reserve in the middle of nowhere!  Again wet and windy.  Then on down to Il Rocio which is a holiday town just for horse riders - no cars!  Again wet and windy.  Then finally on to Portugal.

Met up with Annie and Martin at Aqualand and followed them to their villa.  Very nice.  Every day was spent out and about and saw some interesting place. I know I'll get most of the place names wrong, but I'm sure I'll get a message correcting them! this is only a sample of the photos we took - hope whoever reads this (besides Perry), likes them

round the corner from Annie and Martin's villa.  Looks sunny doesn't it? Actually is was in between rain showers.  Quite dramatic though!

Storks were Everywhere!  I kid you not!

I think this places is Silves, very nice.  We had Chicken Piri Piri for lunch - yum yum

How pretty is this then? Very colourful

Went up a mountain - unfortunately it was not a clear day so we couldn't see the Atlantic Ocean.  However, Annie managed to construct this (cc's welcome).

Colourful sardine fishing boats - think I might try and paint this.

Orange and lemon trees everywhere - except when I wanted to take a photo of one! Best I could do on the day.

Yes, the sun did shine in between the showers (hence the coats), but the wind was a bit fresh. Sitting outside even in February.

This building was actually tiled in green tiles! Saves repainting every year.

Churches like this were everywhere.  Much smaller than I imagined they would be.

Henri the Navigator - responsible for Vasgo de Gama and others!

The church in Alver - how pretty is that! Even in what appeared to be a poor village, There was a nice bright church.

My favourite picture - here we are eating sardines.  What a fabulous meal!  Really, really yummy. And the sun shone on us (while we were in the restaurant).

 

Now the return journey - initially took the same route - through Il Rocio, Placencia, but then up through Valedolid.  Could see the mountains looming ominously in the distance.

overnighted in Aguila de Campoo.  Not a very touristy place, but very popular with the Spanish.  Very old town centre, church, abbey etc.  However, closed for lunch for 3 hours!  Rained a lot.  Woke up Friday morning to a storm.  Decided we couldn't start out at that point.  Waited till late morning, then off to Biarritz again.

Biarritz after the storm (same storm as hit UK).  Very difficult to take picture to give true impression of the enormity of the waves.  Absolutely jaw dropping!.

 Incredibly mild at Biarritz - even down to jumpers (no coats) for the first time for weeks.  Set off next morning to Mervent (nice place) on a level with Poitiers.  Noticed lots of fields and rivers flooded en route.  Sunday left for La Pelouiniere - noticed even more flooding!

Well, got home safely after nearly 4500 kms.  The van passed it's controle technique (put in very expensive fuel) and then the telly blew up! What a trip.  Had a really good time, shame about the weather.  Still you can't have everything. We're now back on the Island.  Perry's been down to check the boat.  Fortunately no damage.  Bertie has not moved from his bed and I think never wants to travel anywhere every again! 

Well, I've been a bit idle in keeping this up to date, so thought I had better do something today!  Throughout December it felt as though I was continuously eating Christmas meals - lovely, but not too good for the waistline! During December I joined the Womens Institute in East Cowes - nothing like my previous experience.  It was really great, and in additon joined their reading group.

Christmas came and went, but New Year's Eve was lots of fun.  We were invited to a friend's for dinner with some other friends, and we had the most fabulous food. 

We've continued our dancing, and we have now managed to dance once or twice in time with the music - how about that for progress!

The weather through the latter part of December and throughout January has been absolutely awful - flooding, storms etc everywhere.  Fortunately, we haven't been troubled here.  Perry has been checking on the boat as often as possible. However, we did have some damage to one of our outbuildings in France.

We are now getting ready for our travel from France through Spain to Portugal to see Annie.  We will be picking up the Hymer in France in about 10 days time and intend to spend up to a week getting down to Portugal.  We are hoping that we will be able to keep the blog going via our "tablet".  So fingers crossed that everything works.

Well, I've been a real lazy so and so and just not kept the blog up to date.  Since the last post a few things have happened.  The boat is now happily established on its mooring and we (all of us) have been up the river twice, and Perry has actually been out into the Solent.

Bloto in the Sunshine

We went to France for 5 days and took the van down to Baden for the final of the Colours of Brittany.  It was great fun to see the chums again and have a good look at all the paintings in the final.  Quite inspirational in places! The meal was really good as well.

Part of the festivities of the Final.  Daniel G giving his oratory on painting.

Have lost our winter storage for the van, so it has to stay outside until Perry extends the workshop - but that won't be until the summer.

I had an exhibition with four Isle of Wight painting chums.  It was a reasonable success.  Nice gallery space, but I think we could have done a lot better with promoting the show.

This was the picture that went in the paper.  Not bad!

Just a few of my paintings. Put in 11 altogether.

I have managed to get a permanent hanging space in East Cowes for some of my paintings, and have sold three already - thanks Lou!

We went over to the mainland to visit Daniel and Catherine in their new house.  It's very nice - they've chosen well.

We went to see Tosca at Newport, it was transmitted live from the New York Met.  Great!  Following that I went to Southampton yesterday to see it again, but this time with the Welsh National Opera at the Mayflower.

Arriving back home late yesterday evening, what a sight greeted us.  This is the RAF yackt club display.  They come here every year at this time.  How lovely is that?

We've been back on the Island now for just about two weeks.  The arrival here was not very spectacular, boring Channel Crossing, but excitement crossing the Solent.  I managed to rustle a couple of pictures together for the exhibition at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, although I didn't manage to sell them.

Perry went back to France with Ben, almost immediately, to get the boat ready for its return. They only stayed two nights, then returned via St Malo.

This is just waiting to board the ferry. They arrived Monday night and left the boat in Kingston Marine.  Survey took place on Tuesday, and launch was planned for Thursday.  Unfortunately, it was very windy, so ended up being delayed until Saturday.

This is the actual launch on Saturday morning.  How small Bloto looks.  However, it was very successful.

Just waiting for some final bits to be sorted.

Bertie in his new life jacket.  He did keep very still and sat down most of the time.  I think he was a bit unsure of the movement.  Took the boat down to East Cowes and then eventually to its new mooring. Nearly two weeks of rather intense activity which has passed very quickly.

Friday 30th August - well this was the start of quite a traumatic weekend!  We left here in lovely warm sunshine, heading for the Baie de Mont St Michel, so we could take in some sea air.  For the evening we headed down to an Aire we know quite well, Tinteniac, which is near Rennes, because we had an appointment at the Camping Van Concessionaire on Saturday morning.  However, on arrival the place was absolutely over flowing with vans.  That meant we had to find somewhere else, tout de suite!  Unfortunately, there ar enot a lot of places on the North side of Rennes.  Eventually found one, not too special, it rained and was 25 km from Rennes!

Saturday set off for Rennes and our 9.00 a.m. appointment.  Fortunately we got a new leisure battery with no fuss!  Left there about 10.30 off to La Roche aux Fees for the painting.  Low and behold it was not the place for the painting sign-on, but somewhere else - no idea where.  Fortunately someone else was in the same position, and we following him for 25km to where the sign on was.  Arrived there at 11.45 - time limit for sign on is 12.00!  I was pretty grumpy - apparently we were supposed to know where this place was!  Anyway, managed to find somewhere to paint, and got on with the job in hand.

Well this is my effort.  Managed to do it in just over two hours.  Perry checked inside the building and said it was a workman's toilet! (Found out later it was in fact a workman's cafe).  Perry also managed to break the teapot - oh what a disaster.  I managed to get runner up, which was surprising, but in the meantime we decided not to continue on to Chateaubriant.  Stayed the night at a lake at the Southern part of the Mayenne, and Sunday went home.

We are now getting things ready for the return trip to the Isle of Wight.  Quite a bit to get sorted, but we have a week. Next post will be from East Cowes.

Friday 23rd August, set off late afternoon in brilliant sunshine.  Arrived at Combourg about 7.30p.m. only one other chum was there. Rained during the night- here we go again, I hate painting in the rain.
Saturday, signed on and then set up.  After I had roughly pencilled in something, it started to rain.  I covered my stuff up, but it was just too much.  Grabbed everything and went to the van.  Bit difficult to work inside as there just isn't enough room.

Well here is the effort.  I decided to make it nice and bright, but I had lost interest after it rained.  Anyway, evening we moved off to Bazouges la Perouse (not too far away) and guess what, it rained in the night.  Not only that, it was still raining at sign on time.  I was in two minds about quitting.  It eased off, so decided to have a go.  A bit difficult, as it was still very overcast and likely to rain again.  Chose the old school playground, but just as I set up, it rained again.  Moved to a sheltered spot in the playground, but it meant my view was very, very limited.  Worked from here and managed to finish something. 

This is the view from my shelter of the old school and playground.

Here is my version.  Got runner up, so didn't feel too bad in the end.

This was taken Monday.  Boat is now weighed and labelled, ready to go.  Herta the Hymer keeping her company for a her last few days here.

We set off for Lermot on thursday 8th and had a night on the coast.  Very nice, except we discovered on Friday a problem with the Van's fridge.  This meant we had to zoom off to Quintin just after lunch on Friday 9th, and go into a campsite to sort things out.

Lovely picture of the van in the campsite.  Perry manage to sort the fridge out - thank goodness.

Signed on on Saturday, and off I go.  It was a bit fresh to start with and then got very hot - too hot in fact.

This is what I managed.  As soon as the prize giving was over, we set off for Ducey to meet up with Pierre for his painting day.  Turns out Daniel Giffard and Theo were there as well.  They banged on our van at 11.00 p.m. to make sure we would be ready for painting the next day!  Sunday was a good painting day, except I forgot to take a picture.  The paintings are submitted and then put up for auction a week later. Sunday evening we set off for Hirel near Vivier sur Met (Baie de Mont St Michel).  Stayed there for three days because it was lovely and hot.  Unfortunately, on the last day, Bertie developed an upset tummy.  Left on Wednesay 14th for Jugon les Lac.  Bertie woke me up in the night, again with his upset tummy.  So I walked him round at 3.00 a.m. and boy is Jugon dark at night! Not a street lamp, nothing.  We had to walk in the middle of the road to make sure we didn't bump into anything.

Thursday 15th - found a nice spot in a little park.  There were loads of ducks, so I made an attempt.  Fortunately I had finished drawing them before they flew off.  Got runner up.  Bertie still had an upset tummy. Moved on to Lanfains for the evening.  Friday 16th set off for L'Etang Neuf (stupid name for a place). Obviously by a lake, but it is also where a museum for the Resistance is located.  Unfortunately, didn't appear to be much to paint. 

View of l'Etang Neuf.  Fortunately the painting included the village of St Connan, so after sign on, moved on to St Connan.

Bertie having a good sniff round. Unfortunately, still with upset tummy.

St Connan - just to give some idea of people peinting just about everywhere.

Me having a go at something!

This is what it should look like!

How about that for concentration.

And here's my effort! Very hot all day.  After the prize giving we went back to Hirel, managed to have take away Moules and Chips (lovely), but Bertie still had an upset tummy.  Took him to the vet on Monday, and after parting with 50 euros, two injects and loads of medicine, it appears he probably ate some garbage.....what a dog.  He is now much better.