Spike interviewed by Martin Bashir

Spike interviewed by Martin Bashir

Originally uploaded by Le Patron

No surprise, Spike was the star of the show when the London and Northern Mottrams met up at Le Petit Marais. He worked the crowd brilliantly especially with his Lady Di eyes – captured here.

CSI St Julien

Whilst Zanna Hurst’s party was at Le Petit Marais some local jeunes invaded the house via the window in the pool room nearest the steps and proceeded to bang about whilst the girls cowered, in a brave way, barricaded in the drawing room. In order to improve their conversational French they called the Gendarmes to the rescue – hopefully they have spoken to the Maire who will have put the word out. There was some doubt as to how the youths had got in but the photograph below clearly shows mud from a trainer on the suspect window cill.

Only a few days later Guy turned up to mow the parc to find the the front door wide open and the keys to the house missing. Merde! New complicated secure access to keys and new locks are a pain in the neck. Le Patron is not a happy Lapin.

All this may be just part of a general St Julien crimewave – see the excerpt from Entre Nie et Boutonne warning communards to take care,

Valentin’s Day

Le Petit Marais’ youngest guest, Valentin visits with his mother Stephanie and proud dad Pascal.

Premier Reunion

Premier Reunion

For the third time the Premier Board met up at Le Petit Marais. On the two previous occasions we ate at Chantegasse with Hildegarde cooking magret de canard over an open fire in the dining room – a beautiful location with wonderful cooking. Chantegasse has changed hands and Hildegarde has died so this year we were at Le Scorlion. I met the chef on the Saturday before our reunion and gave him a jar of Chivers OEM, a packet of Cadbury Fingers, half a pound of leaf Typhoo and disconcertingly a packet of Smash and asked him to incorporate them into a menu decouverte. He did and the menu was fantastic. Le Scorlion did me proud as did St. Jean with amazing Xmas lights. Proud to be Angerien secondaire.

Le Patron

Derek & John worry about Smash..

LPM at night

LPM at night

Originally uploaded by Le Patron

My solar lights and Alan’s jeep lower the tone of this night shot on the wedding day.

Steps

Steps, originally uploaded by Le Patron.

This is an excellent steps photo of the Hunter clan at the croft. The Canadian Hunters won’t know what they missed unless they log on to www.petitmarais.co.uk. The front door is quite blue.
Le Patron

Gormless Guest

Gormless Guest, originally uploaded by Le Patron.

There are always loads of candidates for this accolade and I’m up there with the front runners having just mislaid key 84 which has served us faithfully since 1991.
Pride of place must go to Hazel Deeley of Troon and Manchester who decided to commemorate her visit to LPM by scratching her name in the Roman stone at the top of the steps. Words fail me.

Andy’s House

Andy’s House, originally uploaded by Le Patron.

Andy partners a Morris Minor Traveller and Glyn Cowie – Pauls mum.
He has bought a house just down the road ( 17 minutes if you leg it ) from Le Petit Marais, in St Savinien. Just up from the river on the western edge of town it is easy to find. It’s the only house with a moggie parked outside.

Paul’s House

From our earliest visits in the 90’s Paul Cowie has made it quite clear that the derelict level crossing keeper’s cottage on the back road to St. Jean was his. Without so much as a by your leave  cowboys  have cleared the jungle , cleared the inside, reroofed it and fenced it off. Outrageous.

Le Petit Marais et ses batiments

Le Petit Marais et ses batiments, originally uploaded by Le Patron.

This is a fisheye picture of LPM taken with my old Olympus 8mm Fisheye attached to the Epson RD1-s with an m mount from Stephen Gandy. It is here as a test post from Flickr ’cause I think I have used up my free space on Word Press.