may news and a new job in the vendee

Well, here we are again, back in France and i'm happy to say all is well for both Dom and I and looking promising to be a good next few months. Stoked that things have worked out for us again. France certainly makes me smile a lot more than Ireland did job wise :)

Happy to be back in France

Since last updating the blog, Dom and I have travelled from Ireland (it was good to be back and see old friends, not to mention pick up all our summer clothes we left behind) through to Holyhead in Wales on the ferry to spend some time with my grandparents and leave some of our luggage with them - bit like pass-the-parcel. Next it was time to have some chill out time in the Lake District in the UK (cos our lives are so hard and stessful at the moment! Not!). What an amazing place that was!!! Not really like the uk at all - so much more beautiful than i'd expected (probablly not a very polite thing to say, sorry!). We had an awesome time, chilled out, read some books and got used to caravan/mobile home style living that we would be taking up in a few days on our campsite somewhere in France, though far more luxury than what we have ended up with!

From the lakes we traveled through to France, meeting up with Nick and Jules (from the ski season) in Dorset on the way. Some 12 hours later on the overnight ferry (after trying to sleep on a reclining chair, I wouldn't recommend it!) we arrived back in St Malo, ready to drive to Carnac in Brittany, home of the galette pancake, to work on a campsite and run it for Matthews holidays .
Training went smoothly, though a huge bore, going on for 2 days rather than the 2 hours max that it could have fitted into!!! It was run by Mr Matthews himself who was an interesting character with tight trousers up to his breasts. A priviledge and childishly entertaining. Thankfully it was soon over and the moment we had all been behaving and pretending to pay attention for came about...we were to find out where in south brittany we would be running our site. Turns out luck was with us and we weren't placed in Britanny at all, we were futher down the coast, where we really wanted to be - in the little heard of Vendee region - the Atlantic Coast. Its not known for much historically or landscape wise, nor famous for any delicious foods but it does have exceptional weather, golden sand beaches and heaps of surf. Wicked. Once the cast is off my hand I can't wait get in the water. You gotta love exercise that you don't mind doing!!!

So again, after uncountable amounts of moving and living out of suitcases in the last year and a half, Dom and I have settled into our new home and new job.

Our gypsy caravan - a 'supreme', well it might have been that back in the 80's when it was designed!!

Sun setting on our local beach. We sat out with a few bevvies in hand. Perfect!

The job front is going pretty well so far, though kind of hard core. Dom and I have the fun filled job of cleaning 45 mobile homes that have been locked up for the whole winter with extraordinarilly thin wall to seperate them from the elements. If you are thinking musty and mouldy you are right on track! These things are scoddy!!! Everything is unassembled and we have to put it all back together and clean and scrub it totally before opening it back up to the clients. We have found some pretty delicious things over the last week including year old undies and a tooth as some of our best revolting finds. Nick and Jules are one up on us though having discovered a used nappy at theirs! Ewww!!! What do people do at the end of the season when they are shutting them down, it doesn't appear cleaning is very high on the agenda!

Averaging 3 vans a day, we still have 2 or so weeks more cleaning and then, supposedly, the hard part is over. From there on till the end of summer all we have to do is welcome new guests to the site, clean vans when they leave and act as a tourist information service if they require our services. The rest of the time is ours! Judging by our booking sheets it looks like we'll be having a pretty cruisy time - what we came here for. Plenty of time for the beach and BBQ's. Yey!!! The thought of 'real life' jobs is pretty unappealing at the moment as you can probably well imagine, though a distinct possibility after our next ski season unfortunately. There is only so much fun you can have surviving on a students pay wage when you thought you'd left hard up times behind you...though what fun we've been having! We'll see.

Dom chilling in our stylish lounge

View into the lounge through the skinny kitchen