Cheeky weekend

What a fabulous little cheeky weekend away that was. Debrah flew down to La Rochelle on Friday and I drove up there from here in Carcassonne. We stayed with the lovely Anna and Aib and family at their summer house rental on the Ile d'Oleron and the equally lovely Tim and Sam had his yacht moored in the harbour.

It was cheeky because it was all sort of last minute and I had guests arriving here so had to make other arrangements for them and it was exciting because I hadn't expected to see Debrah for another week.

Best friends, beautiful location, lovely weather, sailing, beaches, barbeques, and Debrah - it doesn't really get any better.

We didn't arrive until 8ish on Friday night after the 300 odd mile drive, collecting Debrah from the airport at La Rochelle and then queuing with everyone else to get across the viaduct onto the island - but our hosts had dinner on the go and a glass of wine to hand so we soon relaxed into a rather long drunken evening barbeque.

All of which didn't really prepare us for the early start needed to get the yacht out of the harbour on the tide at 9am the following morning - but we all made it down to the harbour in time and bought lunch on the way. To be honest a few of the band were a little dubious about spending all day out on the yacht - we couldn't get back into harbour until after 5pm on the next tide - such is the way of the sea it appears.

It turned out to be a wonderful day out - the weather got better as the day went on and a couple of stomach settling/hair of the dog cold beers at 11am cheered everyone up. When we anchored we swam in the Atlantic (can't remember the last time I did that) and then had a fabulous buffet lunch and swung the kids out over the side on the bosun's chair before heading back to port across the bay.

Today we sat on the beach at St Denis while the kids played/moaned about being bored, before having a beachside lunch at the cafe. It all reminded me so much of many beach holidays when I was young boy many many years ago - in North Wales and Devon and my first ever overseas trip to Portugal when I was about 10 years old.

Sadly I had to leave the party this afternoon and return here. Debrah is staying on for one more night before going back to London and happily we will see each other again next weekend after a busy week for us both.

Fabulous weekend though with top chums - and just a few weeks until I see them all again for my 50th birthday in August here in Carcassonne - excellent.