I decided to create a new blog for my holidays this year to keep things separate from my main blog. I'm going to try an post regularly while on holiday but it will depend on when I can get a wifi connection on my iPad. I'm going to be using my Kodak Playsport to take the pics and then do some basic processing on the Camera+ app. I've found that I'm not able to edit the blog using the normal editor for Blogger within Safari (it crashes when I try to publish) to I'm going to use BlogPress instead. One thing I need to edit after the initial posting is the photo size as it creates them at the small size by default and I prefer them a bit bigger.

After a bit more testing I've abandoned Camera+ because it keeps crashing when I try to save my edited photos so now I'm using PhotoForge2 which seems a lot better and has a lot more editing options. I've also found that when I add photos to the post in BlogPress that I can resize them within the editor so that makes things a lot simpler.

Posting the photos separately as the slow connection is causing BlogPress to time out I think.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Day 5 - Niort to the Gite

We have wifi at the Gite so that's good. When we were having breakfast at the hotel three bikers from London turned up for a cup of coffee. The hotel owner gave them espresso but they wanted a proper drink so Lynne had to step in to say they wanted cafe grande. It makes a change for us to know more French that someone else so Lynne was very proud of herself. While we were having breakfast there was thunder and lightening coming from the big black clouds to the North but to the South it was still sunny and bright.

After breakfast we got our stuff together and checked out. It was very strange in the car park because we were putting the roof down and covering ourselves with sun tan lotion and the bikers were getting into their waterproofs as they were heading North. We had a laugh, wished them Bon voyage and set off to get onto the A10 towards Bordeaux. We thought it was a hot journey yesterday but today was even hotter.

We made good time again but weren't supposed to arrive at the gite until after 4pm so when we left the motorway we looked for somewhere for a drink, cool down and spend some time looking at the scenery. I suggested one of the little villages on the way to Libourne which is a town where the river Isle meets the Dordogne. It was deserted so we continued to Libourne and parked next to the river junction.


We had a drink at a riverside tapas bar and then went for a walk around the town but we were getting hot again even though we were staying in the shadows. It was quite a nice town with a big central square with arcades around and a paved way to a big circular area with lots of restaurants. We weren't hungry so didn't stop for anything. We went back to the car and sit by the river in the shade to read for a while before continuing on to the gite.

We arrived at the gite and it is wonderful and quiet, in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods, fields and vineyards. The owners have a house with a barn attached which has been converted into two gites. In the gardens are two ponds and some trees with lots of lawn area. The pool is behind the gites and there is a French couple in the other gite. The owners have a big fluffy puppy and a cat which are both quite friendly.

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