Jul
26
Don’t you just love the new baggage restrictions on the airlines?
Madame did some research - can’t we take ‘just one more bag on EasyJet to London as BA will be fine with that’? Yes, of course you can says the EasyJet website - as long as it’s 20kg and you pay a tidy 300 euro!!
So, off we go. Kindly driven to Marigane by Daviiid with two 20kg suitcases and two extremely heavy wheelie cases. Bliss.
No problem with EasyJet. Problem with plane arrival and takeoff but we eventually left after 4 hours! Gatwick was a piece of cake until our Avis car decided that it had a maximum cruising distance of 10km. Then it needed a rest.
Suffice to say, we made Heathrow as an emergency stop and then had a car-swap to Yattendon, near Pangbourne in Berkshire.
The Yattendon Estate is the amalgamation of several smaller estates acquired by the first Lord Iliffe between 1925 and 1940. In 1955, Yattendon Estate was formed to hold the land and run the in-hand farms. Yattendon Farms was amalgamated with the Estates company in 1975 and on 1st January 2003, the entire business became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yattendon Investment Trust.
Yattendon Court is the original manor house and has now been converted into spacious apartments. The Schneebs kindly allowed us access for a few days.
Our first day was a typical English summer’s day - as you can see from a horse we snapped in a local paddock -
[Pouring rain].
What do you do when you see driving rain and you’ve had some wonderful French food for the past few months and are feeling a trifle peckish and in need of good old grub? You visit The Old Boot in the delightful village of Stanford Dingley!. A 16th century inn, it now calls itself a ‘gastropub’.
How can one stray from the signature burger with cheese and bacon?
Let’s not forget the chips on the side - these are NOT frites!
Madame acquiesced to the local fare - bangers and mash. The sprig of thyme puts the ‘gastro’ into ‘pub’.
We spend the next few days catching up on retail and admiring the summer blossoms in the villages in and around Yattendon village. Villages such as Pangbourne, Goring, Hermitage and Bradfield.
[The River Thames meanders through Goring]
Quite a relief from the scorching heat of Provence. However, although mid-summer, the villages were quiet, the traffic virtually non-existent.
Are the English villages going backwards, we ask? For another day!
Au bientot: Lovonne and Simon xx
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