New friends

What a busy day. I woke up at 8am feeling reasonably OK after my jetlag but no-one else was up so I decided to take some photos and then go back to bed for a while. Suddenly it was 10am and time for breakfast with Pascal, his son Axel and his daughter Rebecca who was with a girlfriend. We drove to another village to drop off Rebecca's friend. The countryside is just gorgeous and the villages with their stone houses are equally so. I love the French architecture - medieval but beautiful, strong and very functional but always in harmony with the scenery.

Pascal and I visited Rennes. The largest city in Brittany. Once again, I fell in love with the older buildings, the shops and municipal buildings. There was a civil marriage at the Town Hall and many markets and buskers. We visited some jeweller friends of Pascal where I explained my father had been a manufacturing jeweller. It was great to be back in such a workshop. It reminded me of the times I visited my father's workshop because I could recognise a lot of the equipment-some things don't change much. After a coffee we walked through Rennes for a bit before collecting Axel from the birthday party he was attending. He seems to greatly enjoy the toy Kiwi I gave him. It goes everywhere with him and seems to inspire a great deal of imagination.

Tonight Pascal will create a BBQ for some friends. It will be interesting to see if I can manage enough French to cope with a French social event. I know it will be difficult to manage with a room full of native French speakers, especially with my reduced hearing lol. Perhaps I'll go to bed a wee bit earlier tonight in preparation for transferring to Plelauff tomorrow.

Each day I'm here I feel I am living in the present because everything is fresh and genial. There is no baggage, only new experiences and good people.