We are normally in France by Easter every year. In fact, even when we had the little holiday home in the village we spent every Easter there. It was the first chance every year for a break away from work. Even way before that, ever since Nick and I first met in 1993, we have spent every Easter in France on holiday, one way or another. Last Easter we were stuck, like everyone else, at home, wishing things were different and wondering how it would pan out. We never dreamed that one year later we would be spending another Easter still in the UK and not in France.
This means I have to go back two years to find pictures I took in France at Easter time. These pictures are of a shopping trip we made in 2019, wine shopping to a couple of our favourite producers. Having just arrived in France for the next few months we needed to stock up and on the way we stopped at St Aignan to give Hugo a walk along by the river.
We stayed in the Grand Hotel many years ago, in Spring, probably in about 1995.
That year we were on our motorcycles and treated ourselves to a few days in a nice hotel. The holiday was most memorable for the weather, which was terrible, and the hotel dining room. It was really old fashioned, serving a very traditional French menu (which we liked) and it was the first place I watched a waitress serve the cheese using two knives. Balancing the cheese plate on the palm of one hand she deftly cut slices of cheese with the other using two knives. We were in awe!! The cheese was delicious (the local goats cheeses are fabulous) and we had the cheese course every evening just so we could watch the two-knife spectacle.
The weather was pretty nippy at Easter in 2019, judging by Nick's thick coat.
Hugo enjoyed his walk by the river, which looks quite full and very grey, reflecting the cold grey sky. Hugo himself is quite grey now. I sometimes forget how totally densely black his fur was when he was little more than a puppy.
A double row of tilleuls - pollarded linden trees along the Cher river bank.
They're a frequent sight in France, waiting for the change in the weather that brings them into bud and then magnificently into full leaf providing so much important shade from the sun.
I hope you get a bit of sun wherever you are this Easter.
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