Greenside house just after sunset (our room is where you see the skylights)
As I write this we have settled in as temporary locals in Mark Greenside's house in Port Launay, in the Brittany region of France. This is our first time in this part of France. I highly recommend you read Mark's book, I Will Never Be French about how he fell in love with this area and his adventures buying a house and living here part-time. It is available at Amazon (Kindle too).
We arrived the first of September with our friends the Kettwigs in tow. The house had been closed up for several weeks so we set about getting supplies and cleaning out the spider webs, etc. Then it really began to feel like home. It is an old house with 3 floors, Annie and I are in the old attic which has been converted into a bedroom and bathroom. "Watch your head and don't fall down the stairs as you walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night," Annie would say to me as I climbed into to bed every night for the first week.
The house is on a wide lot with houses on either side, but you don't really see them. The house to the right says it was built in 1897 and is occupied by an older couple. I exchange bounjours with the gentleman almost every day. Especially when we are both out checking on the minute sheep herd that inhabits the park across the street beside the Aulne river.
We are situated by the last, or first, lock on the Brest-Nantes canal, depending on which direction you are going. It reminds us of our barge trip on the Garone Canal several years back. We've seen several recreational boats and a couple of old sailing boats go through the lock. The lock, I'm guessing, is more than 30 km from the sea and yet, we experience the tidal surges twice a day. Some days the tide actually rises above the dam next to the lock and, other times of the day, down stream is just a small creek hardly deep enough for a canoe to travel.
Port Launay
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