Given that March ’19 will see the #willofthepeople satiated at last, with our borders tightly closed and the beauteous ‘garden county’ of Kent turned into the globe’s largest parking lot, now is surely as good a time as any to venture (for perhaps the final time) into la belle France, to sup on French whatsits and gaze upon French thingamajigs.

Venturing dangerously from the well-trodden path, however, The Old Man, on this occasion, opted for Brittany not Burgundy as our destination française. Why, one does not know. ‘Tis not for the likes of us to delve into the dark recesses of that cavernous, inexplicable mind. Either way, ’twas towards Nantes, not Dijon, that I flew to out of Dublin on the Lundi – the third separate flight I’d managed to book out of that fair city, but that’s a story for another time…

The weekend past had been a pretty fruity one – a three-day wedding binge over in South Dublin and picturesque Enniskerry – so a fella was feeling ever-so-slightly fragile as mon avion touched down at Nantes and I breezed through some pleasantly lackadaisical Gallic security. I felt a wee bit more chipper, however, when I met the Old Man, Si-Moan de Beauvoir and Cousin Abercrombie, who were waiting for me just outside the arrivals gate, cheering my name and waving homemade placards.

This warm feeling of familial bonhomie was short-lived, however, as once we’d shoved the Mansfield bag into the boot of The Old Man’s Audi and once three-quarters of our party had successfully gotten into said deutsche car, The Old Man promptly ran over Si-Moan de Beauvoir’s foot.

This, as can readily be imagined, did not go down well at all – neither did his decision, in the midst of the understandable yelling and caterwauling which had ensued, to neither move the motor forwards nor backwards, but simply to leave the dratted vehicle parked square upon Si-Moan’s big toe.

Eventually I forced him bodily to ‘Reverse the bloody thing, you sheep-faced fugitive from hell!’ and a shocked, irate sister was able to limp into the car (uttering various Chaucerian swearwords in the direction of her weak-witted father as she did so).

Once we’d all concluded that, while liquefied, the toe would probably not require amputation, we managed to escape the labyrinthine Nantes parking lot and make our way to the beautiful town of Vannes for dinner, en route back to Lorient, where we would be laying our heads this trip. We ate at a popular, colourful joint called ‘Le Coq & Folks’, which leant itself easily to jests and served up very tasty fare indeed: I thoroughly enjoyed some salmon ceviche, followed by some very fine cod and some good local cheeses; Cousin Abercrombie opted to eat his entire body weight in moules, which, curiously, he shelled to a man woman and mussel using the carcass of one of their number as organic ‘pincers’ before devouring the whole lot en masse by the fistful. Eye-opening stuff, truly.

My benefice knowing no bounds, I stood us a round of post-meal glaces from a nearby ice-cream slinger, and we wandered around the adjacent quay (well, three of us wandered, one of us limped and cursed) before heading back to the car, getting pleasantly lost along various cobbled streets. After gingerly hopping into the automobile – ensuring that The Old Man was a good five yards from the driver’s seat before we did so – we all cruised back to our rented homestead in Lorient. Being a trifle wrecked, I marched straight to my apportioned quarters and, despite the close, pressing heat of the evening, fell straight into a dreamless slumber.

*

Mardi matin proved to be a leisurely one, beginning with croissants the size of a baby’s head for breakfast and including a thorough explore of the idiosyncratic mansion in which we now resided. Clearly a dwelling for Bretons of an older vintage in the very recent past, the furniture, legion as it was, was chiefly of a very high quality; the artwork which adorned the walls, however, was frankly bizarre – ancient oil paintings of diabolic wee kiddies, black and white photographs of random, severe nuns, ceramic ducks, odd self-portraits and many an assorted charity shop-style knockoff abounded. Much of the meat of the house, as it were, was taken up by an over-sized, sweeping staircase, polished to within an inch of its life, and the bathrooms couldn’t have been more seventies if they had been fitted by ABBA themselves. The kitchen and garden, however, were top-notch, and it was here that we spent the majority of our time, getting outside good bread and cheese, and drinking those moreish little lager beers they are so partial to out here.

In an attempt to be somewhat productive, I began writing up a selection of belated Shanghai blogs from earlier in the year, before knocking that lark on the head sharpish and accompanying the others on a jaunt out to a Chesil Beach-style headland for some sand and sun (The Old Man, inveterate twitcher that he is, went bird-watching instead). After a sunny age, during which Cousin Abercrombie, Si-Moan and I had invented two sports: competitive rock stacking and quick-fire pebble pétanque, The Old Man returned and we shuffled along to the very end of the spit, where we wandered around the small village of Gâvres and sunk a beer at the imaginatively named ‘La Taverne’.

Back at HQ, Cousin Abercrombie and I cooked up a veritable steak storm, to be eaten al fresco with some rather good wines. Si-Moan, showing rare good sense, had left her veganism back in Suffolk for a few days, and while she could not be tempted by the fillet, did rustle up some very fine potato salads and other vegetarian side dishes to accompany the fine flesh.

During the cooking process, however, I smelt burning:

‘Akk, what’s burning?’ asked I.

‘Your hand’s on fire,’ noted Cousin Abercrombie.

‘No time for silliness, squire, something’s getting charred!’

‘No, seriously, you’ve set fire to your oven glove.’

‘Nonsense, I…wait a tick, my hand’s on fire!’

‘Nothing gets past you mate…’

‘I should probably run screaming to the sink, eh?’

‘Certainly couldn’t hurt.’

Flames eventually doused, comestibles thoroughly ‘comested’ and our tissues thus restored, we all played a few rounds of ‘Cards Against Humanity’ – The Old Man, to our shock and delight, played an absolutely filthy game of CAH, but I still managed to secure a famous victory; Si-Moan de Beauvoir crying foul at every juncture, but to no avail.

*

The Old Man, as is his wont when en vacances, was up with the Mercredi lark to go ‘birding’, en route to picking up Moan of Arc from Nantes Airport. The remaining trio got down to various toils and schemes at the house, Cousin Abercrombie, for example, having various ,voracious English students roaring at him from all corners of the internet for his Anglophone wisdom and instruction.

Once Moan arrived – and after she had provided us with an extended, accurate critique of how ‘weird as’ our holiday home was – we all enjoyed a sunny afternoon together at said madcap pile. Cousin Abercrombie and I, much to our sorrow, managed to break our ball upon the rose-thorns, but following this tragedy I finally finished and published the aforementioned long-overdue selection of Shanghai/Borneo blogs – and, as they say, one cannot make an omelette without breaking a few plastic yellow footballs from the local supermarché.

But where, my friends, to dinner? Answer: Le Vivier in Lomner, down past Ploemeur and right by the seafront, where we all guzzled a fabulous, fishy dinner by the bay. My choices (that is to say, the correct choices) were the tuna tartare first up, then the lobster & apple tartin, and then grilled brill with miniature clams (puddings and/or desserts, I feel, in these kind of set-ups, being solely for suckers – especially when there are multiple starters to be had). Some kind of crab/melon melange and a cheeky selection of petit-fours rounded off a seriously fine feed indeed – fancy, aye, but delicious all the same.

*

Another morning, another fine breakfast. While breaking said fast the idea of a Jeudi trip to a nearby island was mooted as we pored over a map of the area, seeking out ‘the craic’. However, this idea was then discarded, after it turned out that there is simply ‘tap all’ to do out there most weekdays and that the ferry servicing it was slower than a recalcitrant sloth with three gammy legs.

Instead, we cooked up a lovely lunch à maison of eggs, sausages, bread and various salads, then headed off to Fort Bloque (pronounced, by me at least, as Fort Bloke) and Guidel-Plages for some sunbathing, bird-watching and other beach-based jollities. The Old Man found himself a likely looking nature reserve and was lost to the world for a prolonged spell, during which Cousin Abercrombie and I attempted some ‘bouldering’ on the beach’s cliffs, to very little avail, as said cliffs were made not of stone but earth, and routinely threw us back onto the course sands, large portions of seemingly ‘safe’ handholds still held tight in our fists.

Once The Old Man eventually returned to sender, we dusted the sand from our collective feet and grabbed a round or two of drinks, crepes and ice creams at Les Pieds dans l’Eau over in Guidel (though not before The Old Man had taught the French a thing or two in ‘parking like a fourteen year old Dutch girl).

We then sourced a massive amount of cheese and bread at a local supermarket and beat it back to the mansion, where said fromage et pain was dispatched with great prejudice and where further hands of cards were played (by all) and lost (chiefly by me). The Old Man, toning down the filth by at most 10%, put together a untouchable run of CAH, leaving Moan of Arc blushing like a nymph startled while bathing; Si-Moan de Beauvoir, however – usually cursed with exclusively poor luck at the card table – proved nigh-on bulletproof at whist, though once the 3.80 EUR bottles of Alsatian wine began to take their toll normal service began to be resumed. Safe to say, many a beer et beaucoup de verre de vin met their end that night.

*

I rise a wee bit earlier than might be considered typical and help The Old Man pick up the Vendredi pastries and drop off the impressive collection of empties we’d accrued over the past few days. Just as we returned to the homestead and to the refreshed and rising troops, it began to tip down with rain with serious gusto. In response, I start typing up my latest French blog post – the blog post, in fact, wot you are currently reading, me old mucker – and spend some time watching The Old Man refuse to be beaten by the elements: sheltering under a sodden parasol, reading a moistened book and drinking a rain-diluted lager, he displayed all the symptoms, one must admit, of mild-to-middling derangement.

Outdoor excursions therefore put on hold for a spell, we opt to use up the rest of the edibles and throw together a varied, mishmash luncheon, washed down with the final bottle of wine – described by various parties as ‘dusty’, ‘heavy’, ‘corked not corking’, and ‘shite’.

Eventually, the weather remaining stubbornly ‘pants’, we set out regardless into the midst of the maelstrom, back to charming Vannes for an evening’s soggy festivities. We start things off in a very drippy Le Gambetta, dodging water droplets the size of quail eggs and feeling particularly sorry for a large, depressed looking wolfhound which seemed to act as an uncanny magnet for every leak and drip going spare. Next was ‘Daily Gourmond’ across the quay, where we had a swift half and a fabulous baked camembert, but which we had to leave as they offered n’a pas des moules, if you’ll excuse the française risible, and Moan of Arc, you see, wanted her some mussels.

Lastly then, and despite them technically offering a lassie no moules neither, we had our main bit of grub and a bottle of curious white wine at L’Atlantique. Moan and I both ordered the seafood marinade – which, praise be, did include the odd mussel or two – and a selection of high-level ices to finish rounded things off nicely.

[A point of note, I’d managed, somehow, to navigate this entire crawl without slipping the Mansfield hand once into the Mansfield pocket – nothing short of a miracle, considering the famous parsimony of my splendid sisters. I began, however, to sniff a rat. Tomorrow – that is to say, Saturday 28th July, 2018 – would see us all driving back eastwards… and the French are famously capitalistic when it comes to their best highways… In short, ‘thar be tolls in them thar hills’ – and the smart money, given the Friday evening’s record and what I know of my nearest and dearest, would be on ol’ Tom payin’ them all.]

Back then, through the weakening rain, to HQ for a final tidy, a final glass of dodgy vin rouge, and a final type-up of all and sundry wot’s been occurin’ over the last handful of Brittany days. I hope you’ve appreciated reading it all as much as we’ve appreciated…er…experiencing it all. Who knows – say ‘Brexit’ doesn’t go as phenomenally poorly as it probably will; say Mrs May finds a little courage and common-sense deep in her knicker drawer; say Johnson, Rees-Mogg et al perish in a happy conflagration  – perhaps…perhaps then, dear reader, there might be future French trips and future blogs française for us all to enjoy. But until then, my friends, this is sadly not au revoir; this is, and it breaks my heart to say it, goodbye!