FOOD AND FRANCE

DJ and I spend much of our time enjoying food. Planning what to eat, shopping for ingredients, prepping, cooking and of course...eating. As a result we probably eat too much but it's a grand hobby and you can take it anywhere, so we took it to France. We treated ourselves to a little gas barbecue.We cooked a lot of sausages on it and brought even more home. It also produced garlic prawns, pork chops, fried potatoes, bacon, eggs, and tomatoes and the cooker inside the van produced the rest.We managed to eat outside the van on all days except the downpour day and even then we cooked outside and just ate inside. At la Trenche-sur-Mer in the southern Vendee we had wonderful weather and treated ouselves to a groundsheet (grandly called "un tapis de soleil" by the french) and doubled our territory in one unfolding. The people opposite us in the campsite had been there all summer. At the start of our last day they were packing up too. Monsieur started by taking up the wood block flooring and folding down the outside furniture (including 17 chairs!). He then dismantled the awning and parasols etc.When we returned after a spot of beach-combing he had reduced much of their summer home to neat piles. That evening he went off to get a truck to load it all into and drive it home to their house, five kilometers away. Apparently they set up every summer in the same place. We hope to see them again next year!!!We love our coffee and sat happily in cafes drinking our morning dose and watching the people on the boardwalk and the Atlantic waves breaking on the sand.We had a couple of fine meals in restaurants. In Orleans we had lunch at a Thai restaurant with a multicultural clientele. Orleans is in fact a very multicultural city and we shared the tram into town from our campsite with university students from all over the world. The lunch was great value and memorable eating.

In Auray in Brittany, we went with my sister and her husband for a "moules" lunch at a quayside restaurant on a sunny day. We sat outside on the terrace and watched the tide race out under the bridge. Another fine memory. We arrived in Calais a little early for our ferry, a couple of days in fact, and spent the last of our holiday cash in Carrefours. Sausages, cheeses and wines were loaded on board the van now that we no longer had to put the bed down.

Tonight we plan to turn some of the pork mince we bought into Sang Choi Bao and Sausage Rolls for our meal. Lunch has been the cheese.

Cheers Gillian