A nice town, a nice port and some very nice oysters....

AVRANCHES

This is one of those proper French towns. Not special, no cathedral, no chateu although a bit of castle. But it has the proper Hotel de Ville, a proper marche, some parks, a bit of history and a lot of pride. It honours General Patton who broke through to free it in June 1944. What was left of it rejoiced. Then they set about re-building it as it was before the war. So now it is too new, too right but also just right and charming.

It is girt by hypermarkerts as usual but somehow the centre seems well off, richly endowed with bakers and butchers and epiciers and all that. The local health situation may however be open to doubt as I have never seen quite so many pharmacies.

I should add that our visits to hypermarkets has reminded us that while we in the UK may have made some mistakes by allowing the growth of the supermarket to become ludicrously extensive we did at least restrict the process. Here, every hypermarket includes a street of other shops, all robbing the local town centre of its usual trade. Yet along these 'streets' there is just one of each trader - no free competition here. Oh no.

FRIENDS

We have our friends Graham and Jane here at the moment. They are on their way back to the UK after 8 months touring mostly Spain in a very fine motor home. We may yet see them again on our way across Spain - they are so brown and they cannot bear to stay more than a a few weeks in Britain! They are newly retired and lapping it up.

CANCARLE

This little fishing port is in the great bay of St Michel but across the border from Normandy into Brittany – just. It is charming and entirely overwhelmed by its huge oyster and mussel fishing industry. The harbour is open and at this time of year empty, but for a few of those strange oyster landing craft – all flat bag-bed with but a single place for the pilot. We wander the strand checking the prices of the innumerable and well patronised restaurants. I am sure they are all the same really, varying only slightly in price and ambition. Vast and unreasonable plateu de fruit de mere in some, more sensible and better priced versions in others.

We choose, we sit with a harbour view, we eat joyously of oysters (mois), mussels (two plats), crevette (one), a splendid breton omelette (one), a fine fish soup, a panache of fish (underdone to our taste), some excellent and cheap Muscadet (what else), some crème caramel and Breton flans and coffe. We started out thinking French prices had gone barmy but four people, three courses, ample wine, coffees and less than 80 euroes. Cannot be bad really.

THIS SITE

Camping Mont St Michel is a classic French site, with Normandy finishings. We are placed in little evocations of the Normandy bocage which so foxed the Americans for a while after D-Day. Small fields, with hedges and trees. Plenty of cover for the enemy they found. Rather less for us but a nice touch. It has been dull and a bit wet, starkly different from the Pas de Calais where we enjoyed such unseasonal warmth and sun.

The trees are beginning to bud and the birds are singing. Of course it is for us a bit early each morning – effectively we are two hours ahead of GMT and it can feel it. But the evenings are suddenly longer. If only the sun were on duty.

Half the site is the usual array of statics but in this case they are rather charming pretend clapboard units, with proper gtiled roofs and real windows. They look rather sweet here, where normally they are a mess. They can be rented for £235 euroes a week out of season. But bthey are still not a huge amount bigger than our carfavan and awning compined for which the charge is about 90 euroes a week. Ok we carry our own water and wste but that's wuite a margin.

Today (Friuday) we should have been driving to Chartres but a package of medicines for Janet are awaited. Kate kindly bought and sent them by air mail last Monday. We hoped they would be here yesterday; now it will be Monday at best. We shall head for Chartres tomorrow and drive back via Rennes - seen but not enjoyed so it will make the trip worthwhile.