Same Shirt, Different day-2012 Adventures of the "Devonport Wonder Babes"

Friday 17^th –Monday 20^th August 2012

Chateau des Grotteaux, between Blois and Chambord, France.

Sabine and one of her friends Uli collected us from the station at Blois about 5.30 pm in her little Citroen for the ½ hr drive to the Chateau. It was a very very hot day when we travelled from London to Paris and down to Blois, about 38 C, clear blue sky and blazing sun. The weather stayed like this for most of our stay there

Despite having seen a photo of the Chateau on the website we were blown away when we arrived to see the building itself, our magnificent bedroom on the 1^st floor, the grounds and forest around it and the amazing pool and pool house where we spent much of the 3 days we were there with our other 21 fellow guests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The whole property which was about 25 hectares in total, including 18 ha in forest had a very well preserved wall about 3 metres high surrounding it.

A small river flowed through part of the grounds. There was a large set of gates near the building itself which swung open with an electronic garage opener control and another large gate by the gate house building at the back of the pool complex.  

The Chateau itself was built between 1610 and 1620 in a style we saw elsewhere, and had had 2 other additions in later years. Downstairs on each side of the main door there was a dining room and a sitting room and you could walk right through from one end to the other.

 There was a modern kitchen, with great table that was used for breakfasts plus a professional catering kitchen in the basement.

Upstairs there was a long corridor along the front with bedrooms opening off it, there were also bedrooms in the additions and in the former chapel across the courtyard. All modern plumbing and 3 wifi networks, one for house, one for garden and one for the pool area.

Bats also flying around the pool late in the evening after sunset and Carsten found a dead bat in the basement.   

  

There were 23 people at the chateau by Saturday (22 adults and 1 child), about 15 of whom had been there most of the week. We knew only 2, our hostesses Sabine and Ulrike, prior to our arrival on Friday but didn’t take too long to get talking to the others, as most people spoke English very well.  

Friday evening dinner was at the pool house, with the piece de resistance being a 4.5 kg whole salmon being tied up in wet newspaper and cooked over a charcoal BBQ.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday morning and early afternoon was spent in the pool or preparing for the afternoon’s celebration which was actually deferred to 6 pm in evening as so hot outside, 39 degrees !!

Started with everyone dressed in their best gear gathering in one of the dining rooms in the building, then gathering outside for group photos then precession up garden to shady area under trees where various friend and relatives spoke and champagne tower successfully filled.

 

 

 Then on to dinner at pool house, oysters, prawns, roast beef and then helium balloons were liberated into the night sky.  

 

 

 

Re swimming pool , Lynds and I have refined our synchronised diving skills, first established in the swimming pool at Gays house in Limiuel in France in 2000, expanded further off a pier into the Adriatic sea in Croatia in 2009 and are now close to perfection! There will be proof published here,

Sunday morning Lynds and I ventured outside the walls and walked about 2.5 km to the end of the walled forest area and had a bit of an exploration of a ruined cottage. Fortunately it seems that French nettles are less fierce than their English counterparts.

 

 

 

There was a further expansion of water sports into water polo with a particularly vigorous game on Sunday afternoon involving lots of cheating from Carsten and Sabine, before the 11 remaining guests had Sunday night dinner at the pool again of all leftovers.

On Monday morning after a latish start and getting cars packed up we spent some time with the owner of the property inspecting his new project which is to convert the old millhouse across the road from the Chateau into an Auberge and restaurant as well as his own quarters, very interesting time walking right through this building and lots of talk about returning in 2014 when this is completed.

Pierre Antoine with Sabine and Ulrike

 

 

 

 

Helen in pig stye!

 

 

After another swim we set off by car for Cologne about 3 pm, stopped at the “Pig”, a rest area and gas station with huge statue of a wild pig, for picnic meal at sunset and having traversed ½ of France and across Belgium we arrived in Cologne at about midnight.