Gite no. 1 (Nathanial)

As we are going to lose the van for a few days we have to sort out somewhere to stay. Beth finds a ‘gite’ at a bargain price bless her, just outside of Saintes. The location is gorgeous, on the top of a hill looking out over Saintes with the river ‘Charente’ just below the rear garden running next to a train line. The gite has an open fire with patio doors looking out over the most amazing sunsets.

The last time I saw a sunset like this, I was on LSD

We can't get enough of these sunsets

We all have our first bath since moving out of the house. The bath is what I have been missing the most, and Beth has been saying how much she misses our fire from home, so everyone’s a winner.

We are being very lazy and staying up late playing cards with the kids, eating malteasers and getting up even later. We’re having long breakfasts with croissants, pain au chocolates, and baguettes with jam on, this is lovely but my waist line won’t take it for much longer, what with all the wine at night too.

Can't complain about waking up to this every morning

After a couple of days of getting fat we decide to go for a walk around the local area, everywhere is covered in grape vines, I suppose because this is so foreign to us we are enjoying being surrounded by them. They just never get boring. 

This took 17 attempts before The Rooster was happy with his smile, how vain is that?

After the walk me and Tom go for a ride into Saintes. We discover a cool place which is housing a load of ruins and cycle by the river for a while.

Some of the ruins me & Tom found

Tom in front of some old bricks

We cross a great little bridge which overlooks the train tracks and have to dismount at this point so Tom can fully take in all the different tracks and points, it’s very exciting. We even see a blue diesel train, smashing. 

"Three train lines together Dad, STOP, take a picture"

If I didn't threaten to leave him, he would still be looking at these points

We ride back up the hill to the gite just in time for dinner.