It's not all work,work, work over here. As the 3 day week has been wearing us out a bit, we have had a few days out lately.
Last month, we had a day out at the races, in Limoges, with our friends Jane and Pete. The course is quite small, with one sand, and it only costs 6 Euros to get in. We followed the French, and stood in the middle of the course, where there was a temporary bar, a food tent and the PMU bookmakers hut. A lot of people had their dogs with them, something you are not allowed to do in the UK, so Jane and Pete could have brought Archie their Border terrier, which would have provided entertainment between races, as he picked a fight with the biggest French dog he could find.
The racing was a mixture of flat racing and trotting ( with the jockey sitting on a buggy). The races all started late, in the French style, and you could tell when each race was getting ready to start when the stewards got on their cherry picker, and were sent skywards.
It took a while to work out the betting, as we thought that you could only do forecasts, but we found that you could also do wins and places as well. I actually had 3 winners in the end, so I was up on the day, even allowing for beer money and sausage and chips.
We left with 3 races still to go, as by this stage the races were 30 minutes late, so at that rate the meeting wouldn't finish until about 9 o'clock at night. They only have two meetings a year at Limoges, but we will definitely go back again.
We've also been to the Cinema for the first time in ages. We went up to Poitiers, where one of the Cinemas was showing the new Spiderman in English (Version Originale) . Strangely, we were the only English people there, but maybe some people prefer to hear the proper voices, rather than the same voice being dubbed over. It's an hour and a half each way to Poitiers, so it's another good excuse for a day off.
A few weeks later friends John and Sue were over with their kids for half term, and we ended up having a couple of late nights, with the girls keeping us up, playing cards all night, so we ended up having days of the next day to recover.
This week was Tina's birthday, so on Thursday we drove down to Bordeaux to watch the latest Pirates of the Caribbean. Its 2 and a bit hours each way to Bordeaux from our house, so it was yet another day off.
We parked up in the centre of town, as it happens quite close to La Tupina. This is a restaurant that was featured on Rick Steins French Oddessy, and has been voted one of the top 50 restaurants in the world . We went along for a look, and it although it was a bit smart and intimidating on the outside, we gave it a go.
It was excellent. We had the menu du jour, which was a cheese salad starter. followed by beef carpacio as a main course, and coffee and petit four to finish, all for 16 euros a head ( Just over a tenner) . The food is all cooked on an open fire, which you pass as you walk in, and Rick Stein waxed lyrical about the chips, which are cooked above the fire, in a bowl of duck fat. Yum. My brother went to Padstow last year, and it turns out that take away fish and chips from Rick Steins chippy cost about the same as our sit down meal in La Tupina. Go figure.
Check out the web link, as it has a good tour, and some menus. They have a 3 course menus for 33 euros, which includes 3 glasses of wine. We will be up for that next time we are in town.
We were a bit late getting to the cinema after our unplanned lunch and missed the start of the film, but luckily we knew a bit about the plot (Johnny Depp is a pirate etc etc ) so it didn't matter to much.
The next day, Tina's birthday, we went to Limoges to her some presents. Limoges was packed out, as there was some sort of parade on. It took ages to find a parking space, then our favorite restaurant was all reserved. We ended up in the restaurant next door, which was nice, but not in the same class as the one next door. It did though, serve up comedy deserts in a gallon brandy glass, with a ladle. Luckily they don't make you eat it all, as a gallon of chocolate mouse could probably kill you.
Shopping and birthday are over now, so it's back to the grindstone.
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