If you don’t know where you’re going any road will lead you there….(not quite) Lewis Carroll

Okay.. so today was a huge day and so I will split this into two I think. So let’s start at the very beginning. To quote Maria Von Trapp, it’s a very fine place to start. This morning started pretty much the same as all the others but I was actually dressed when I went down to breakfast today. Usually Im in my pyjamas and oodie but I felt quite virtuous at being up, dressed and even make up on this morning.

It has become my routine to have my first cup of tea then wait until the boulangerie goodies get here. Well they almost beat me this morning, but not quite. David arrived with them as I was having my first cuppa, so i had my usual baguette with delicious french butter and vegemite. French butter has salt crystals in it and seriously, it is to die for. Anyway, a few more cups of tea and I was almost ready to start the day. Gary was going into Fresnay sur Sarthe to do some grocery shopping so Cate and I decided we would go with him and his friend Lyndsay who has recently joined us as we needed to stock up on wine for the last few days and nights.

We headed in and started to go down roads we hadn’t seen before. We just thought it was a new route to get to the supermarket. Finally after longer than it should have taken, the GPS said (in her best patronising voice) “you’ve reached your destination”. Well if our destination was a carpark, we would have reached it but this was certainly no supermarket. But it was a lovely little village. So not to be deterred we put in Super U supermarket and there was one nearby which we still thought might be the one, but it wasn’t.

It didn’t matter, it was the same chain so we went in and did our shopping. I must have looked like an alcoholic because I had 8 bottles but to be fair, 4 of those were Monica’s shopping. We grabbed a few other things and we all took our stuff out to the car. Now just to find our way home. But by then it was past lunchtime, so we went in search of a pizza place that google said was nearby. Well Google lied!

Yes the place was there but it was closed as were most restaurants around it. So we went for a walk through the gorgeous little French town till we found somewhere to have a bite of lunch. The place we found was a kebab shop and it was a good choice to be fair. The poor waitress didn’t understand English and we didn’t understand French. I feel so bad when this happens but then another waiter came over and helped out a bit. We finally worked out what the meat was (it was lamb) and we had a wine (me) and a beer (the others) and enjoyed our lunch.

I snapped some photos including a restaurant that had an address on it and it turns out (I think) we were in Sillé-le-Guillaume but I can’t be 100% sure on that. We also passed the sille beach, which if said with an accent could be mistaken for an insult to a woman lol. After lunch, we wandered back to the car and headed back to the chateau. This time the GPS took us where we needed to be and we arrived back at the beloved chateau.

Then it was time to get some work done. We had agreed last night that tonight we were going to have a bit of a showing of our work. We would each show what we’ve done here and talk about it. So I wanted to get a few more things done which took the rest of the afternoon. But in between the work, Gary having accepted my challenge to make bernaise sauce, gave me a lesson in making it. Oh and it was good but more about that soon. I went back to work and had started a new image which was coming along nicely when dinner was ready so I packed up in readiness.

Dinner tonight was baked salmon with my bernaise sauce, a salad, brocoli with a cheese on it and a parmesan risotto. Now let me just say that salmon is not my favourite fish, though I don’t mind a bit occasionally, but this salmon was the ultimate. It was baked with home made breadcrumbs sprinkled over it and copious amounts of the aforementioned bernaise. And it was magical. So with the earlier mystery tour of parts of the countryside and the magical salmon, we had a Gary inspired magical mystery tour. The man is a genius. Dessert was a pistachio gelato and cupcakes.

While we were sitting barely able to move due to the large amount of food we had scoffed down, it was almost time to do our art show. I am going to do a part two of this today, as it’s late and I need sleep. Besides, these amazing artists deserve a blog of their own. I want you all to meet them through here and I will also give links where possible to their social media art accounts so you can give them a follow. But for now, sleep is beckoning and I am ready to listen to it. So more tomorrow…

Happy getting lost in the moment…. Livvy xxx