Last week, the husband drove us six hours west to Saint-Paul-la-Roche, near Limoges, in France. He had returned that morning from a stag do in Budapest, so earns bonus points for being designated driver across many hours of soporific autoroute.

We listened to the new Daft Punk album on the way, which I enjoyed some of, but didn’t adore. Then I felt guilty for not ‘getting it.’ I think it had been bigged up too much. I wish people wouldn’t tell me about good shit, because it always ends up being less good than expected. And I’m inevitably disappointed: disappointed in the (not) good shit, and disappointed in myself for not liking it. It’s a complex course, this cultural appreciation malarky. We also listened to the Great Gatsby soundtrack, in a complex game in which we listened to a track at a time and then paused the cd to discuss why we disliked each track. That shit deserves its own post. I’m not as much of a miserable bitch as this is making me sound. Probably.

“Another 15th Century French Chateau to Visit? BORED NOW”

Anyway, we finally got to the farmhouse and met up with a group of friends from university. It was really great to see them, but I’m going to have to keep referring to them in an amorphous anonymous heap because apparently it’s not cool to put photos of other people on the internet without their permission. So you’ll just have to take my word for it. The house was set in what can only be described as hardcore French countryside, and there was an adorable collie called Millie who was very happy to see us, despite never having met us before.

Le Woof

It was a lovely week full of catching up with old friends, very cheap but not half bad French wine and beer, and lots of communal throw-it-together style cooking. We had brief windows of sun on our first and last days, but aside from that it rained pretty constantly.

We played a lot of board games, and luckily the house also had a games room, with ping pong (easily convertible into beer pong) and snooker tables, as well as a darts board (no thanks) and a mini gym. There was a swimming pool too, but it wasn’t heated (First World Problems I know) and a tennis court, but it was mostly too rainy to use these, so we settled for Monopoly, Articulate, Scattergories and some made-up drinking games that helped to pass the time just fine. I also turned 29 and sustained a cracked rib, but those stories are for another time….