It has been raining and blowing for four straight days and I haven’t been outside in all that time. I don’t mind rain but, add the wind, and I choose to stay inside. I have many photos of warmer, sunnier, blue skied days so, until I get outside which should be today as there is no rain today (!!), here’s all I’ve got:

There’s a cute little street in our village where Maurice’s doctor has her office and this is one of the sweet little cottages there with blooming roses over the door.

Almost all of the homes here have names on them. I liked this one.

A cottage called My Dream with a glass awning over the door.

Many places have this lace like trim along the roof with this house having lace in the window too.

And a corner boulangerie advertising all the types of bread you can find inside.

PS-I fixed the problem with the comments all by myself just by chance so feel free to leave one!

I am back in cold, gray Paris and I miss the sunlight and our view. The day before we left, I spent a few hours in the beautiful city of La Rochelle.

One of two towers on the entrance to the harbor there.

I love this freshly cleaned building and that shell over the door.

“A canelé is a small French pastry with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust. The dessert, which is in the shape of small, striated cylinder approximately two inches in height, is a specialty of the Bordeaux region of France but can often be found in Parisian pâtisseries as well. Made from egg, sugar, milk and flour flavored with rum and vanilla, the custard batter is baked in a mold, giving the canelé a caramelized crust and custard-like inside.”

I had one of these. They are very good. I liked these sitting in the window of a patisserie.

I went into a church there and found a chapel devoted to ships. As with many cities by the sea, there were ship wrecks. This chapel had paintings, along with this stained glass window, of ships that had been saved by praying to Mary.

We had our first company and, wouldn’t you know it, a cold front arrived with him. It’s one of those cold fronts from Siberia and there is also wind so it is miserable out there. We had hoped that he would get to see kite surfers and other activity on the beach but all we have seen are some bundled up people walking their dogs. We did get out for a quick trip to the market and then went to a town called Fouras, a short way away, with a view of Ile de Aix and Fort Boyard and just about froze to death.

The first strawberries which look fabulous, don’t they? Maurice, as always, says they won’t have any taste being from green houses in Spain. We always wait for the French strawberries from the fields of France.

On the shore of Fouras were these little shacks for fishing with big nets. I’m looking forward to seeing them in action come summer. The doors to them are locked so I guess they are private.

Another little shack out in the water with either duck or geese flying by. I could only stand to be out there for a few minutes and then ran back to the shelter of our car.

As you might imagine, I have all sorts of photos from walks on the beach or just from our apartment window. I haven’t done anything that exciting as far as exploring, unless you count roaming the huge Carrefour grocery store near us. Anyway, a few photos for this Friday morning.

It’s sort of exciting to see horses on the beach and I bet it’s fun pounding down the beach on a horse. I was wondering, when I saw this group, where the stables were as I couldn’t remember ever seeing any but, on a walk this same day, I saw a huge horse trailer. They bring them in from somewhere.

I like this weather vane seen in town on a cute little cottage.

A sweet little sand castle.

With a cute turtle.

A more dramatic sunset with the clouds.

As you can see, dogs aren’t allowed on the beach starting June 1st. I love dogs and I love seeing them play on the beach running after sticks, chasing birds or, even, running into the water. They seem so happy to be there. I don’t enjoy having to look for dog poo as I walk. I’m betting that there will still be dogs on the beach come June, especially on early mornings.

I’m having a hard time coming up with titles of posts here at the beach. We spend about 90% of each week either walking on or along the beach or sitting in our place just looking at it. It’s like looking at a fire, mesmerizing with repeating patterns and also a great place to watch people. On the week-end they pour onto the beach and there are all sorts of activities going on.

I take photos of every sunrise and sunset. Of course, each day they are different, like snowflakes. This is a sunset, all pinks and blues. So far, there haven’t been any blazing red or orange sunsets like I saw in Arizona but I’ll have to wait until summer and see if this is the norm. There’s usually a bank of fog on the horizon which blocks the light of the setting sun right now. I liked the repeating patterns of the water, sort of like a bolt of cloth.

Same sunset but with a person on the water. He’s doing something I’ve just started to see lately, a sort of surf board that you stand on and then row standing up. The water is usually pretty calm here so I think they do this quite a bit. It’s one of the few activities on the beach that I see, besides kite flying, that I might be able to do. I’m pretty sure kite boarding is not in my future.

A bit more dynamic sunset. I’m not getting many photos of the sand these days as there hasn’t been any rain or wind to smooth out the sand so it’s covered with footprints.

Patterns on the water’s edge untouched by humans, fresh after every high tide.

Comments still not working. Elliot, my cat, seems to be doing well. He’s eating a lot more and still seems energetic and bright eyed to me. He may be sleeping more-hard to tell with a cat-but that may be due to his new medication for his kidneys. As someone said, with older animals, it’s maintenance, usually expensive. I’m just happy that he’s not suffering.

Maurice and I got out the other day with gorgeous weather-blue skies, no wind or clouds, just perfect. We went to Ile d’OLeron, the second largest island in France, Corsica being the largest. At night we can see the lights of this island across the water but it’s about an hour drive to get there from our apartment as you have to head south for a bit to get to the bridge that takes you to the southern part. I didn’t enjoy the island as much as I did Ile de Re to the north of us but it was still a great day.

We stopped at a small town, la Cotiniere, for lunch. It had a small harbor and there were fishermen mending their colorful nets.

We found a nice little restaurant, le Cateloupe, and had this punch maison which had fruit juice, pineau, cognac and grenadine. It arrived at our table looking so pretty and it was delicious too.

We had mussels and French fries and it was so good. The sun was pouring in the window and we even got hot.

There was a lighthouse of course, this one being black and white to distinguish it from a white one nearby.

The building out in the water is Fort Boyard. It was built to protect entrance into the Charente River, was once a prison and was abandoned until it was used for a wildly popular show called Fort Boyard where French celebrities are put into teams to do activities sort of like what you would see on Survivors. You can get a boat that will take you around the Fort but it isn’t open for visits although I was told that they are planning visits in the future.

You can see what a beautiful day we had from this shot of a beach.