Early Days

Late September, the air is cool and heavy with moisture. It’s either just stopped raining, it’s just about to start raining or it is raining. Take your pick.

Life with Neil (our Nomad) is a little more condensed than expected as the combination of weather and location doesn’t allow our living space to spill outside, yet the childish excitement of being in our four-wheeled home is galvanising. From the ferry at St Malo we head South toward Saint Gilles Croix de Vie on the Atlantic coast of Vendée guided through the torrential rains by the soothing presence of Emily our GPS companion. We arrived mid-afternoon as the weather broke and a small clean swell nuzzled the town beach. Wetsuits negotiated we both went in, to wash the road-miles away as much as anything else. Although the waves were small the angle of the beach had them breaking right on the shoreline and Sofie snapped a fin and got out before breaking something less replaceable, but the few waves I rode soothed the soul and gave me the energy to drive on to the deer-farm, our home for the night courtesy of the France Passion scheme. Waking to the smelly bleat of an over-furred goat and the realisation that we were parked in someone’s back garden, we breakfasted, packed and headed off, the cool damp air driving us southwards down the Atlantic coast to the Gironde.