A surprising end to the day

A couple of weeks back we headed up towards Angers, for an exhibition called Art et Chapelles. It takes place every year, and involves a site specific installation for six individual chapels being designed by six different artists. artetchapelles.canalblog.com The site is  in French, but it can be translated. The useful thing is that it shows the work of the different artists and has details of all the chapels.

The route took just over three hours to complete and involved a drive between each of the chapels, as they were in different villages. It had been carefully planned to take you across country, which was a terrific introduction to a region we'd not visited before. It was also a boiling hot day, so diving in and out of cool chapels was the perfect activity. Really pleased we went!


We'd not wanted to rush back to Cravant so had booked for one night, in advance with a chambre d'hôte, who were offering dinner as well as B&B. www.loire-charmilles.com  A non-English speaking establishment, but as we speak French, no problem.  We got there around 5.30pm, absolutely famished. There'd been nowhere in any of the villages to buy refreshments, so we'd not eaten anything since breakfast. Nadia the owner, met us and was charming. Ice-cold drinks on arrival. She showed us to our lovely and thankfully, cool room (Pivoine). Then told us it was her birthday and to celebrate, she was having a dinner party there that evening for twenty-five of her closest friends, and we were to be part of it. She'd thought about letting us know as none of them spoke any English, but then thought, no, it would be fine. We went down as she requested at 7.30pm.

The surprise party

None of the friends had been told we were going to be there either. It was hilarious. In typical French style, everyone just dived in and made us really welcome. Apéro 1 came round. Then apéro 2, followed by apéro 3 all with some nibbles. Everyone was getting on brilliantly by now! Chatter only stopped during apéro 4, which accompanied the birthday presents opening. By this time it was about 10pm. Dinner finally began at around 10.30pm, outside, under a pergola of vines. It was all gorgeous. Mike and I were knackered and remarkably, still sober.  The food was so good - fresh fish, meats, salads, cheeses, desserts etc.  Loads of wine of course which was totally different in style from our Cravant wines. We discovered that the company of friends included five doctors, three midwives, two dentists and an internationally-renowned rope-maker, who spent much of his time travelling all over the world, and who towards midnight, wanted to embark on a simple little conversation with me about Anglo-French relations during and after World War 2 and the future of the British monarchy. We finally crawled into bed about 1a.m. What a night! Loved every minute of it.