heel dragging

Long time no post. No time. That's a lie - lots of time, but lots of TV to be watched...

The weekend of the 5th of May was the second round of the french presidential election, as well as a 4-day weekend because of VE day. Mum, Dad and I rented a car and drove up into Normandy to Courtonnes-les-deux-églises to visit the Cassavettis. The 3 of us, Gabrielle, Francis, and their Australian friends Des and André had a really nice few days walking around, watching the election, and eating and drinking well. Dad managed the driving pretty well considering it was his first time driving on the right hand side of the road.

After that, Mum and Dad pushed off to the west for a swing through St-Brieuc, Brest, and Quimper with day trips to the Pointe du Raz, Concarneau, and Pont-Aven. In the meantime, Emily arrived in Rennes from Australia via Hong Kong and Finland, albeit just for a night on her way to Tours. Mum and Dad got back, but pushed off quickly again, this time flying over to England to attend Sheena's funeral and in so doing meet and stay with Elspeth and Derek.

They arrived back on the Thursday, and Emily on the Friday, and on Friday night we piled into a rental car and drove out to Chanteloup for dinner with Véronique, Yann, Jules and Rosalie. We all had a very good time, and Mum's gifts seemed to be a hit with the kids.

Em hung around Rennes for a few days, then mid-last week headed over to Paris before catching a train down to Madrid for a week.

Last Thursday I went around to Erwan & Manu's place for dinner with Liz, Ashu, Fabien, and the couple themselves. A good time was had by all, but it was sad to be seeing Liz for the last time. She hates goodbyes, but in all probability it could be a long time until we are once again in the same part of the world at the same time.

Following that, on Saturday, I wandered down the hill for a barbeque with the Gruël family - relative to Manu: herself, her husband, her son, her sister, her brother in law, her nephew, her niece, her mother, her father, then Ashu and me. One reason for the gathering was the final day of the french soccer league. All seemed well with 2 minutes of injury time announced in Rennes' match against Lille, but the Lillois scored with 20 seconds to play to push Rennes back to 4th and the UEFA cup instead of the Champions' League.