Another weekend, another adventure

Our Saturday was spent cleaning up to the best of our ability, packing some warm weather gear and preparing for an early departure to La Rochelle Aeroport. It's about an hour from Les Petites Rivieres and in typical Phillips style, we arrived in plenty of time, dropped our car into the long term carpark and waited patiently for the coffee shop to open. La Rochelle is a tiny airport, reminiscent of some of those very basic airports in NZ back in the late '60's. It serves the budget airlines, Ryanair and Easyjet, our carrier for the day. Nevertheless it is very friendly and efficient. There was one 'moment' as we passed through the departure immigration booth when the pleasant lady officer asked me when I had arrived in France. I confidently replied, 18th March and her face went white (accord to Roger standing behind me). You see most tourists are only allowed to stay 90 days in 180 days, and I'd already been over 180 days. But when I pointed out my 12 month visa, she visibly relaxed, stamped my passport and smiled. I got the feeling they don't see many long stay visas at La Rochelle Airport.

We're flying to London Gatwick for some catchups with family. Our flight arrives early! - can you believe it, so we're out the door and through customs in no time, to cross the road to the Sofital where our car hire awaits. More efficient service from Drivallia and before we know it, we're heading along the M25 and down the M3 towards Winchester. Stockbridge is a beautiful village en route, and our home for the first 6 days of our stay to look after Laura Jane's little dogs while she heads to the Scilly Isles to celebrate a friends 80th birthday. We had originally committed to two of the four pups, but plans changed when another dog minder, Bessie, who lives just across the road had to have a fence replaced so now we have three pups. Laura Jane took the fourth pup with her on holiday.

We had a lovely catchup with Laura Jane over a couple of nights and mastered the art of dog management in no time, before being left to our own devices on Tuesday morning. A quick wander down the High Street refreshed our memory from a previous visit. Five pubs, two gourmet groceries, numerous pretty cafes beside the Test River plus an Italian, French and recent Indian restaurant all combine to make it a very popular destination. Theres also the Grosvenor Hotel, home of the local Test Fishing Society and frequented by notables, including the King and Malcom Fraser in days gone by.

We're on the main street in a 17th century house with old timbers, low ceilings and plenty of character since the landlords renovations a couple of years ago. There's also a large garden which Laura Jane tends with her very green fingers. It's a very pleasant place to stay and our four legged friends couldn't be easier to look after.

We spend our days relaxing, walking the pups on the marshes and browsing the very trendy upmarket gift shops and country clothing stores on the High Street. The world's best butcher is just across the road and has a cabinet full of beautiful meat, including venison, garlic and honey sausages, paper thin veal slices for escalopes and one of my old home favourites, oxtail - beautifully trimmed, full of meat, so of course I had to have some. We also picked up a little half a lamb roast to take to London.

We only moved the car once, to visit the reccomended Peat Spade Pub for dinner.It was the quintessential country pub with friendly staff and delicious olde English food, think crunchy fish and chips with mushy peas and a beef hot pot with a crusty potato top. They had rooms at the pub as well, and sitting right behind us was a couple on their honeymoon. How did we know? She had a spangled hand bag with 'Mrs' on it, and a furry white cardigan with 'Just married' on the back. They looked about 18!

Laura Jane's daughter, Charlotte, arrived from London late on Friday night to take over the dog minding duties so we were on our way to London on Saturday morning.Read more