Bourges

Bourges
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Thursday 1^st May Still Anne

BEFORE ANYONE COMPLAINS WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET THE PHOTOS UP ON THE BLOG DUE TO THE LACK OF INTERNET CONNECTION AVAILABLE AND WE WILL POST THEM AS SOON AS WE CAN.

Jump day, up relatively early and pack up everything and move out. The E van had a little problem in that the mud had sunk the wheels but they made it. Very pretty drive to get to the motorway. Toll road of course, we went through one toll gate and it cost Euro14 the E van went through a different gate and theirs was E22. We saved E8 as I think the toll person didn’t see the van. How I don’t know as every second shop in France is an Optometrist!!!

Bourges
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Nigel and Jayne has a conniption and wanted us to continually throw U turns which would have meant forever going up and down the same stretch of road. Got into the park in Bourges and set up in no time flat. We were all very tired. Finally cooked the roast pork that we bought back in Paris, the freezers are good. Had more white asparagus and veggies, excellent. Sue and I did some of the laundry.

Friday 2^nd May

Everyone woke up tired, so we decided to have a morning of just doing normal stuff. Sue and I took a 2k walk and then did laundry and housework and cooked a crock pot stew for tea which we could leave on all day. Very satisfying to get it all up to date. The boys made us great awnings out of blue tarps for the princely sum of about $30 including the poles. Later in the afternoon Richard and I took 3k walk to the supermarket and post office. I am now in charge of the family finances so things have changed. No more expensive food, no more eating out and wine is off the list. Don’t think I will get away with it for to long though, especially the wine. Just to test your memory you might recall that Rob got a Frog Television set in Singapore as part of a promotion with his new computer. So Richard played with it (as usual) and we watched a lot of the video he has taken so far. They are really excellent. We can not believe we have only been gone 5 weeks so far.

Bourges
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Had a lovely meal with the usual 2 loaves on bread and about 9pm set off to the town to see all the building lite up. It is something special that they do here. Another 5ks walk, for those that know me, you will know that 10ks in one day is more that I would normally walk in a month! If this trip doesn’t kill me it will be a miracle. The lights were excellent the cathedral here is huge and very spectacular, flying buttresses and gargoyles. Built in 1108 and took 400 years to finish. The front entrance is amazing with scenes that we think came from the bible. Sue decided that the bottom one was Sodom and gamora as they were all naked and in various poses of fornication. She even pointed out one with a huge erection. Mind you I could hardly see the figure let alone the erection. The woman has a medical mind and you can not change that she is also an Aquarian which explains a lot.

Bourges
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The funniest thing was loosing Richard in one of the exhibitions as he was star gazing. Sue volunteered to go and find him and within a few minutes of her leaving he came out of a little alley. We then sent him back to find Sue and then she came out of the same alley. 5 minutes later he appeared out of the alley. Rob and I just sat on a bench and waited till they got sorted out.

Saturday 3^rd May

Beautiful, beautiful day, full sunshine warm, just what we have been looking for finally. Leisurely breakfast and a drive up to the cathedral in daylight for an inside visit. Didn’t let us down, it was fabulous. We are all trying to work out how they built is all in the 1100’s and how many people must have died in the effort. Then we headed off into the country side for a visit to the witch’s museum that Richard had his heart set on. Very lovely drive the canola is in full flower with yellow fields everywhere and the green, green grass. The boys navigated and the girls sat in the back out of control again. Came across this magic village and we had no idea where we were, so we sent Sue of to the tourist information centre to find out where we had landed. They had a market so we wandered through it. Very beautiful medieval town, only ruined by more walking. Then off to the witches place.

Bourges
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Finally found it by using the street signs as Nigel was on strike. Found it amazingly easily. Funny how the old fashioned signs still work without batteries.

Went in full of expectations only to find it was poxy, just a bunch of dummies (that included us) dressed up to look the part. Kerry was there being found guilty of being a witch. Her hair looked exactly the same back then also naked from the waist up, nice boobs. Suppose to take an hour to see it, we took like 10 minutes, so we set off to get lunch. Everything was closed for the lunch break except for a small bread shop which had French sausage rolls and quiche, it was delicious and we ate it in a lovely park.

Great Loco Chase
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Then we were heading for a glass blower in some other town. On the way Sue saw a sign for gas so we headed off, only to come across the most amazing thing. A four seat pedal powered railway hand car with canopy and real live bogies. Normal railway track which went for 15ks. So for E5 we hired on for an hour. Bloody hard work, but great fun. We all took a turn at peddling and we think we will suffer when tomorrow comes particularly after all the walking yesterday. We laughed and laughed. Watch for the photos to be on the blog.

Pedal Railway
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Headed off again to the glass place only to find that it had closed down, so found a bar and they had a beer each. Started back for home and came to another beautiful medieval village and on driving through discovered it was the same one we had been to the markets in earlier! Idiots are us. Got back home and we all groaned as we got out of the car. Don’t think we are 17 any more. Had one of picnic teas and everyone is tired. We are now watching froggie and they video, they are so good. We haven’t heard any news, seen TV or read a newspaper for weeks. Great stuff.

Pedal Railway
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The E’s had photo, but had a disaster and lost all the photos for a few days including the train ride. Richard has been able to take some off the video camera.