This trip to France was to be our last excursion out of the UK before the second date slated for Brexit. What will happen in the future is a bit of an unknown, but needless to say that our longer term plans for use of our house in France will likely be impacted. We are not impressed.

Our long weekend started by travelling to Southend on Sea in Essex on the Wednesday evening, where we spent the night at the Park Inn overlooking the famous pier. It was dark when we arrived on the Wednesday evening, and it was dark when we left the hotel on Thursday morning to head to the airport so even though we had sea (or estuary) views from the room we couldn't actually see the water!

Our flight from London Southend to Rennes was on board an ATR72 aircraft operated by Stobart Air, a franchise service as Flybe BE6022. The short hop took around an hour and we landed around 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. Once through passport control we collected a hire car and headed to Malestroit arriving an hour or so later. Being as it was a Thursday there was the chance to visit the weekly market and pick up a rotisserie chicken and a box of potato and onions cooked in rotisserie juices . . . . . . it is a favourite and also very very tasty.

We had had the builders in at the house raising the kitchen ceiling so we had plenty to tidy up before we could really enjoy the short break at the house. We also had a small issue with having no electricity following the installation of a new electric meter. Heather did brilliantly on the telephone to ENEDIS (French electric company) . . . . . even if they couldn't eventually help us as they said there was no issue with our supply. After a bit more fiddling we did get the power switched back on thank goodness so we could concentrate on cleaning and moving all the furniture back into the living room and kitchen.

Our first evening in Malestroit saw us visit 'Le Pont 9' restaurant which has recently been taken over by a new couple. The food was very good and typically French and we hope they do well with their new venture.

On Friday morning we were up early as it was time for the annual boiler service at 08.30. Normally the company have been very punctual, but it was about 09.15 by the time the engineer arrived - he was a man of few words, even in French, but at least that keeps us legal for another twelve months!

We met up with friends Geoff & Liz for coffee at 'Le Hangar' in Ploermel after the boiler service and found that they had sold their house and would be moving back to the UK before the end of the year. We will have to catch up with them in Aberdare the next time we see them sometime in 2020.

More household tasks were undertaken in the afternoon with us fitting in washing and drying of bedding/towels around having lunch at the creperie in Serent. It normally works quite well and allows us to have a main course during the washing cycle and then a dessert/coffee followed by a walk around the village during the drying cycle. It kills two birds with one stone as they say!

After another lovely evening in Malestroit dining at 'Le Piazza' we were looking forward to a free day on Saturday to explore somewhere new.

On Saturday morning we headed firstly to St Cado. This was somewhere I had seen on Instagram (via the local tourism office feeds) and we arrived pretty much at high tide which was perfect. St Cado has a small causeway leading to the island village with a church and some nice houses, but it also has a rather famous building located out in the bay area which was a former oyster guards house. Following visiting St Cado we headed to Etel for lunch - the town itself was very quiet for a Saturday - before driving out to the Barre d'Etel. The Barre d'Etel is the entrance from the Atlantic Ocean into the harbour area of Etel and onto St Cado and is a treacherous bit of sea with a constantly shifting sand bar at the harbour entrance. It would be great to return here on a stormy day in the future to see the power of the sea.

Heading back to Malestroit we had our final evening enjoying a drink at the local bar on the main square before having dinner at the Mael Trech creperie and grill. The food is always consistently good here and it was a nice way to spend our final evening in Malestroit.

Heading back to the UK on the Sunday saw us needing to drive to Nantes Atlantique Airport for our easyJet flight (EZY2012) back to London Luton at 1520. Gaining the hour back for the time zone change we were on the ground at 1545 and then made a quick coach transfer to the railway station for our train back to Derby.

We are already looking forward to our next trip to Malestroit on Boxing Day!