Monday morning!! Usually filled with dread for another week of work but not for meee!! I woke up early snuck into the bathroom to get ready then headed to Port Maillot to meet my Blabla car driver to Bourges! I found the meeting point very easily and just a couple of minutes after our arranged meeting time Bertrand pulled up just as arranged! His English wasn’t great but enough to greet each other and have a small chat! He was very kind making sure the temperature in the car was ok for me and my seat was comfortable etc bless him!
As we got along the way he wanted to stop for a coffee as he is driving quite far today – he treated me to an espresso and half of this French chocolate chip bread for breakfast! So so kind of him I was really taken back! I chose a good guy to travel with! đ
I arrived at Bourges station 20minutes early which was nice! The journey was quick and painless and like I said Bertrand was ever so kind. I waited around for a little bit and experienced the horror that was the station toilets – 20cents to use a water covered toilet with no toilet paperâŚdefinitely worth every penny Iâm sure!!
Shortly after that, Martin and Lucy arrived!! The first thing I noticed was the ring on Lucyâs finger (oh did I forget to mention that they got engaged this week!!! Ahhh exciting!!) was not a very traditional ringâŚit fact it didnât look like an engagement ring in the slightest!! But I figured I would save those questions for a little bit later!!
Martin and Lucy were great all day they tried to take me to places I would enjoy and we thought the ever-changing weather extremes – hot and sunny, cloudy, rainy, sunny and rainyâŚWINDY WINDY WINDY!!
First stop was the famous cathedral, the largest in France. It was beautiful! Such tall arches and intricate details and the most beautiful stained glass windows. We discussed how impressive the building was and how hard it must have been to build. We then found out it took over 100 years to build – just imagine being the person who proposed the building of the cathedral, knowing you wouldnât be alive to see the final piece?! Crazy!! There was also the oldest astrological clock in France and a beautiful organ (well we could see the organ pipes!) suspended high in the cathedral.
They asked me if I wanted to climb the tower, which they had done yesterday, but as the weather was very good and there was a charge to do so, I decided against it. We headed instead to the gardens – beautiful flowers and a great overall view of the cathedral! The wind was picking up a lot by this point! Now itâs not often my brother and I spend any extended period of time together to thought we would get a nice photo to commemorate the day! Plus itâs probably the only way Mum and Dad would ever believe it actually happened!! Ha! We decided to go for a self timer photo, balanced carefully on a bush! HaâŚwell itâs a bitttt wonkyâŚand there is kind of a leaf in front of part of the lens BUT we are all in it and so it the cathedral so I will call it a success!!
Just after our lovely photo moment, some old french lady came past shouting at us in French something about the park being closed and danger?! We were all very confused until we saw an officer who explained that they are closing the gardens due to the high windsâŚ.now we of course found this ever so funny and continued to mock Bourges for in fact closing all of its gardens due to high windsâŚwe joked that the leaves would attack meâŚ.because one already had hit me! Ha! However after a bit more strolling we kind of had to eat our wordsâŚwhat do we see you ask? A huge tree that had fallen down where we had just earlier walked under, landing right in front of/over some guys car and blocking a roundabout!! Probably the most exciting thing thatâs happened in Bourges for a while I expect!! Haha!!
Around the outside of the garden was a photography exhibition that was running in Bourges where people stood on different streets and took photos related to the street name – for example Rue de Poisson (poisson meaning fish) and a guy with a load of tuna/salmon cans! Rue de Liberte (liberation if you hadnât guessed!) and a guy in a jail suit escaping up a tree!!! You get the idea! It was a really nice thing to have attached to the garden rails and a nice idea to get the whole town involved in something creative! I was a big fan đ
Now after realising that the high winds had closed most of the gardens we decided to have a sit down and get some lunch. I just had a mediterranean pasta salad with chorizo, olives and feta – really tasty and Martin and Lucy had some sort of chicken salads. And of course being in France, they all came with bread!! Whooop!! I do love the french bread!!
Whilst we ate we had time to really catch up and I got to grill them on their engagement story and find out about the ring! Turns out it was actually really sweet as Lucy wanted to be involved in choosing her own ring so Martin got her a temporary ring – an Alice in Wonderland ring, as Lucy is obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and he proposed in a beautiful forested area near a castle – pretty romantic huh! After almost 10 years together itâs about time!! đ I am very excited about the situation!
Anywayyyy, after lunch we decided to go for a walk around the Moree – this was a kind of canal and in the middle were floating allotments of land that people had their own little boats to go across and look after!! So cute, I really like them!! As we walked around the waterside we noticed a lot of branches on the groundâŚ.ok so maybe the wind is a bit strong today! We decided to move quite briskly at some points! Ha!
Well this brought us up to about an hour before I had to leave unfortunately! We wanted to go to a cafe for some tea and sweets but it was closed – as is everything on a Monday apparently!! So we just headed to the station and had a drink until I had to go. I had a really nice time today with them both, I think we both agreed that the likelihood of us doing the same in the UK was quite slim otherwise so this was a really good opportunity to spend some time together. And for meâŚitâs really nice to have a brother involved in my life in some wayâŚI think sadly we lost the sibling friendship along the way somewhere and it would be really nice if this could be the start of at least an improved communication between us!
So yes 4pm and I was ready for my next Blabla Car journey homeâŚ.this time with a French lady called Sabine and some French guy as another passenger (I did not catch his name)âŚone slight problemâŚboth of the spoke very very little English!! đ Sooo the journey was pretty dull they tried to make the odd bit of conversation but mostly I just sat there and got very very tiredâŚI may have even nodded off to sleep at one point! Ha!
There was SO MUCH TRAFFIC!!! Urgh!! It was supposed to take about 2 and a half hoursâŚit took 4!! 4 hours!! I can get back to London in less time!! It was so painful and I was so fed up by the time we got to the station – then I had to wait for trains/tramsâŚ.I left Bourges at 4pm and got back to Alexandreâs at 8.45pmâŚ.so painful!!! Fortunately I was greeted by Alex and some dinner his father had made. A famous French fish from Brittany with potatoes – yummy đ
After dinner I sorted all my stuff out ready for my journey home tomorrow EEEEP!! And then just chilled out and had a laugh with Alex!! He taught me all sorts of random French phrases before I left, like how to say âyou are the light of my daysâ âTu es la lumiere de mes joursâ and one for Paris football chanters âhere itâs Parisâ âici câest Paris!!â, which apparently I must chant not say!! haha! We had such a laugh! Oh and of course I canât forget Flocon the guinnepig âle cochon d’indeâ đ
Then I decided randomly I wanted to make a cakeâŚ.which then somehow changed into us making crepesâŚ.except Alex gave me the recipe and it was for pancakes not crepesâŚso even though he wonât accept itâŚ.we had a pancake party not a crepe party as he named it! Bare in mind it was midnight by this point! haha! His dad even got involved! His dad is super coolâŚreminded me of my dad actually, very kind and happy to get involved and be silly with us!! I am SO excited to see my dad tomorrow!!!! EEEEP!!
Well it is off to bed time nowâŚAlex is currently running around the room trying to hunt down a mosquito that he has heardâŚlast night one bit me real bad all down my arm đ typical when I am just about to go home eh!!! nevermindddd!! I have had so much fun living with Alex and his family, they are such lovely welcoming people and so relaxed and laid back too! I will definitely be coming to visit them again!! Sadly Flocon wonât be there next time though!!!
Ok sleep time now – one last journey tomorrow then I am homeeeee!!! Speak to you from London tomorrow when the big surprise will finally be revealed!!! đ
Night world!!
