I spent most of my late teens and early twenties touring France and Spain until I came to my senses when riding through France I realized what a beautiful country it is and wherever I stopped the French where always very friendly. A friend and I spent seven years at one particular campsite across the estuary from Bordeaux In a town called Blaye where we camped inside an old fortress (citadel). There was a lady who ran the place and every year she would be standing at the gate to greet us when we arrived, yet she was never notified of this as we never knew ourselves, and she always saved us the very same spot to pitch our tents. We then visited one of the small bars in the centre of the town and one morning we walked into one bar which was completely empty. On the wall behind the bar there were several photos of the owner in boxing stances, that was something we noticed from the first meeting as his nose was broken and bent, it turned out that from we understood he was an ex French National boxing champion. There was also the Foreign Legionnaires regalia such as two crossed rifle bayonets and a legionnaires Kepi, the one with the towel to cover the back of the neck plus medals and other bits and pieces. We then sat at the bar and ordered two beers, after our second drink the owner pulled out from under the counter a bottle of Cognac and three glasses, he couldn’t speak a word of English and we couldn’t speak a word of French but he duly poured the cognac into the glasses and offered the two to us, now who in their right mind is going to turn down a glass of Cognac, needless to say we started buying a round each which made short work of the Cognac. After a couple of hours the three of us had polished off the Cognac so my friend and I bought another round of beers each then departed for a mid-day Kip and slept till the early evening and then out for a few more beers.
The following day we returned to this same bar and to be greeted by a still blurry eyed host who was holding his head with one hand and waving his other in the air saying that you English are crazy and that we could only have just the two beers and nothing more. This is what started my move from Brum to France as I had to take early retirement in 2002. The first thing I did was to start researching where I was going to move to then the next step was tosearch for a house, then in January 2005 I moved lock stock and barrel to a village in the Deux Sèvre, and I haven’t looked back since.