At the beginning of our third week, we drove southwest from Les Bordes to our first long stay in Chevanceaux, a small village about 45 minutes north of Bordeaux. This marked the end of vacation, and our first attempt at living “normal life” in a different place. That meant back to work for Eric, back to homeschool for the boys, and starting studying for me (even though my course doesn’t officially start until 5th Oct, I was determined to get an early start, build it into my routine, and try to stay ahead in case of issues later).
It was a cooler drive this time, but we still seem to take about 50% longer than Google maps suggests. This is partly due to stops for food and toilet breaks, and partly due to going slower than the speed limit because we’re towing a trailer. It was warm when we arrived and the kids got straight into the pool.
The house is a converted stone barn, with 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and another bedroom and bathroom downstairs, so we have plenty of space. We have a private garden area too, with a big patio table and a barbecue. The pool is shared with a couple of other houses. It was really hot the first couple of weeks, but the pool was having some issues and getting greener by the day, so we couldn’t use it for a while. Once it was fixed (thanks to the great efforts of the neighbour), the kids spent a lot of time in it while the weather remained in the 30s. And the temperature was never really an issue in the house — those thick stone walls keep it nice and cool!
Chevanceaux is a village right by a motorway, with a couple of bakeries, a small grocery store, a pub/coffee shop and other amenities. Ben has been quite determined to get up every morning and walk into town for bread and croissants or pain au chocolat. (Even on our holiday weeks, he’s been waking up early for this! No teen sleeping in on holidays here!) We have to drive about 15-20 minutes to get to a bigger grocery store though. There are several in different directions, so we get a bit of a tour of the countryside on our way. There are dead sunflowers (it’s the end of the season), cornfields, and vines everywhere you look, so it’s a pretty drive no matter which store we go to.
At the end of our road is a voie verte — a railway grade converted into a bike/walking path. On our first day here we all went on a bike ride up the voie verte, about 15km north to Reignac and back the same way. It was nice not to have to worry about traffic, but it was extremely bumpy in places, with tree roots growing under the path.
