A May and June round-up

It might not look like it - but an awful lot happened in May and June! Which explains why this blog has been so quiet lately.

Not all of it was fun - but today, I'm just going to look back over some of the nicer things that happened.

I love Star Wars - and couldn't resist the opportunity to visit the Star Wars Identities exhibition at the O2 in London.

I was also lucky enough to the be invited to M&Co's AW17 event. Such lovely people and equally lovely clothes! Definitely looking forward to Autumn even more now.

The beginning of June was my birthday, so what better way to spend it than down in Devon? One of the highlights was a visit to Knightshayes Court.

I relived my childhood at the Fairground Heritage Centre

Even managed to popped over the Isle of Wight for a quick break and saw snails in Southampton

Looking back, I'm sure I've missed something - if the rest of the year is like this, it will be Christmas before you know it (yes - I mentioned the C word...)

Thanks for reading

Cathy
xx

Booking a little French cottage - our experience

Hello there,

It's that time of year when the all the adverts are full of sunny holidays and exotic destinations. Beach, activity, cultural, city breaks, you name it, it's on offer. So where to start?

About this time last year, we decided we wanted to stay in a cottage in Normandy, France - easy we thought. Nope, not quite as easy to start with as we thought.

First up, we're awkward. We wanted a Tuesday to Tuesday booking. So many places we looked at only offered a Saturday to Saturday option. Plus we wanted small, really small. There was only 2 of us and we didn't want to rattle around a cottage during a potentially chilly time of year (we wanted to go mid-October). We wanted small, cosy, petite - you get the idea.

Unrealistic? Maybe...

So on a rainy afternoon, I settled down with a cuppa and ploughed through an awful lot of holiday and booking websites (btw - this isn't a sponsored post - I just wanted to share our booking experience). I found the website French Country Cottages which offered small cottages with midweek arrival dates - brilliant! So we chose a cottage, paid a deposit, gave our details and we were booked.

It looked lovely.

And then what? We'd never booked a cottage before in France. Where do we get the keys from? When will we get the address? What do we need to bring?

We needn't have worried, the booking confirmation gave us all the details plus the option of booking a bedding and towel package (definitely a good idea - less to pack!). A week or so before we arrived, we would be given contact details to phone the key holder to arrange an arrival time/key handover.

(That bit was scary. My French is basic at best and the thought of a phone call in French bought me out in a hot sweat! Thank goodness the key holder spoke some English and had a lot of patience!)

So what was it like? I can honestly say - much better than expected. The pictures we saw online were accurate and it was the perfect size for 2 people.

We were in Cerisy-la-Forêt and staying here felt like we were staying in a real French community. It's a beautiful village with a corner shop just a few mins walk away. Locals walked past and peered in through the windows (slightly unnerving, but you got used to it), the neighbours rooster woke me at an ungodly hour each day and the house creaked like something from a Hitchcock movie.

Would we do it again? Well we've just booked again for a repeat visit so the answer is definitely yes!

Thanks for reading

Cathy
xx