Le Marmite Creole

I am currently sitting in Le Marmite Creole, a lovely little cafe/restaurant with rather delicious food. Not nearly as rich or creamy as the French usually try to feed me, which my stomach is happy about. Seriously, France could turn me vegan, I'm so sick of cream!

Anyway, as you may observe from the pictures, I have made it back to Dinard, the lovely little resort town in Brittany. The weather is not so stunning as last time, but somehow it feels like it suits it here, a bit moody and temperamental. I took a walk yesterday, rather unintentional, it was just that all the shops were still closed from the siesta, and I wanted to know what was up the hill from the town square. Upon further investigation I discovered that the hill offered a lovely view towards St Malo (the port where ferries go to Jersey, Guernsey and England). I was thus compelled to pull out my camera and take too many photographs (oh the joy of digital cameras!).

A lovely maiden overlooking the port, I think she is supposed to be sheltering from a storm. It has an inscription, but it's in French, and I forgot my dictionary.

Al lonely little boat in the water. It was amazing how all the boats were just sitting on the mud flats at low tide, I can't figure out how you're supposed to get on/off your boat. Obviously you can only get the boat there when it is high tide, but then how do you get from the boat to dry land? Just wait for the tide to go out and walk on the mud flats? It was pretty impressive to see how many boats there were, hundreds of them all lined up, sitting in the mud.

A nice spot to sit and take it all in.

Great weather for flying the coolest kite I have ever seen! What a sweet family really, they were all flying it together, it took them a while to get it in the air again, but it was worth the wait! It makes me thing of Peter Pan...

The tides are rather extreme here, because of being in the English Channel apparently. This isn't even the lowest ebb, the day before there was a full sand bar to see, which you could wade onto.

Market day in Dinard! They do have three each week, but still, it was nice, the atmosphere is lovely. I had to stop for coffee after a while though, which was an experience. The French have this interesting approach to milky coffees, they make an espresso, and give you a jug of steamed milk with it. Now, in principle I have no objection to this. However, the issue arises with the size of the cup- you can see it is about as tall as the width of my hand. Inside it contains a double espresso, which takes up about 3/4 of the space, leaving very little room for milk. My current technique involves taking a few sips, and quickly topping it up with more milk. After the third or fourth repetition the coffee starts to be diluted enough to drink, and it turned out that this was particularly delicious coffee! However at this point it was still in phase one, hence the rather strained smile.

I have a couple more days in Dinard, but I will be working. Then back to the castle for a couple of days, then Paris, and finally back to London. Then I can embark on the adventures planned for my holiday in September. Yay holiday!