Je retourne...

...or words to that effect - one thing is certain, my French can only have got worse (going at least on the looks of most of the natives faces when I attempted to engage them in conversation!)

...mixed blessings this holiday, and I'll post at slightly longer length on various activities over the next few posts, but suffice to say that for this summary:

• the weather was on the whole bloody awful... got to the first destination just north of Biarritz and it proceeded to rain, and I mean RAIN, for the first six days, given we were only there for 10 days this was a bit of a downer.. just a couple of days of sun, and a couple of grey days.. we then moved on to the Loire for 3 or four days where the weather was better (no rain) but being further north a bit colder...
• highlights for me were the Loire Chateau's which this year were excellent - I'll post further on these..
• got to visit Bayonne (it was raining - typical - didn't I say it would be either baking, or raining, before I went!?) but didn't get to visit the fort I wanted to as it's still an active French military base.. did see the crossing point though...
• the beer was a bit disappointing this year - neither the Basque country (Biarritz and south), or the Loire (not surprising given this is the centre of the wine industry!) is renowned for a brewing history and the few local examples I tried were OK but not special - more later, but I did get one bottle on the way back through Caen that was outstanding..
• the reading pile I took was good - and because of the weather I made some serious inroads - more on that as well later..

...and I think that'll do for now - can't tell you how nice it is to be back in the command bunker/attic, and how nice it is to see that I went through 3000 visits in my absence, crikey, I must be writing something that people want to read......nah, must be morbid interest!! Thanks to all...😏