France II – Île de Ré to Arcachon

Thursday August 28, 2025

My late mother-in-law, of whom I was very fond, was very excited when the new Luas (tram service) arrived in Dublin. Despite having a commuter rail service which went to her house, she would often try to develop plans which involved getting the Luas to Sandyford which was the nearest point to her house to which the Luas went but, you know, not very near and not at all as convenient as the existing rail service. Whenever an arrangement is overly complex we describe it as being like the Luas to Sandyford. In a Luas to Sandyford type arrangement we decided that we would charge the car at the Lidl outside St Martin de Ré. Mr. Waffle brought the car to the Lidl and made his own way home; then he and I both cycled to St Martin and had breakfast; then I cycled home while Mr. Waffle drove home (I get home first proving, yet again, the superiority of the bicycle); then we both drove back to Lidl; then Mr. Waffle cycled home and I drove home. Are you with me? On the way home google maps indicated to me that it would be 2 minutes faster to cut off the main road. I did. Google maps is not really set up for European arrangements, I think. It sent me along an unpaved dirt road along the side of a field and then up a sandy trail near the house where I thought I would get stuck. Google maps loves that sandy wooded incline as it had sent us there by bike earlier in the week. It is not suitable for bikes or cars and happily I did not get stuck but, seriously, look at this picture from inside the car.

Compare this to the comfort of travel by bike on the island. The house even came with bespoke bike parking inside the front door which compared well with the car parking around the corner.

In the afternoon, herself arrived! The island is really near the airport so we had her picked up and whisked to the house in no time. We went for dinner out to celebrate. Hurrah.

Friday August 29, 2025

I went out with herself in the morning for a bit of an adventure and to show her the island. We did some mild shopping. Such was the excellence of the whole bike riding situation on the island that even herself who is not normally a bike fan (possibly in part due to my slightly rabid advocacy) said that she enjoyed cycling.

In the afternoon my beloved middle child arrived having survived exam season, an uncle in residence and the painter. I have to say it was very nice to have all my chickadees together.

Poor Mr. Waffle was a bit under the weather but still took a bus to the Lidl car park (“this is where I live now, apparently”) to pick up the car which he was charging in anticipation of our drive south the following day.

Saturday August 30, 2025

We were up with the lark. “To improve their service” to me, our Airbnb hosts had given us the opportunity to hire our sheets and bedlinen. I was not delighted and honestly think that bedlinen could have been included in the cost, I would gladly have paid a bit extra to have the beds made and not to have created a loclinge account. I had to predict the two hour window when laundry should be collected. Check out from the house was at 10 so I felt laundry should be collected before we left. So I selected the 8-10 window. This meant we had to be up and showered by 8. Were people enthusiastic? They were not. Did loclinge even turn up before we checked out? Non.

We dropped herself to the station to get the train down to Arcachon as the car was a bit small and we felt it would not be conducive to good relations to put all the children in the back. The roads were quite busy on the way down but we stopped for a long lunch in a service station (as glamorous as you might imagine) to – you guessed it – charge the wretched car. Mr. Waffle was thrilled by the fast charger and he said gleefully (after an initial disappointment when all the charging stations were full, but mercifully someone left) “It’s like the early days of motoring.” Honestly, could do without it.

Herself arrived in Arcachon first and after some tension over which I will draw a veil, we managed to find the station, collect her and drive to the house. I really liked the house. The living quarters were upstairs and it felt like living in a tree house.

There was a nice heated pool out the front and I took myself for a swim while Mr. Waffle and herself went to the supermarket to lay in supplies. One of the features of the car was that it sometimes didn’t start for us; to be fair, I think this is a feature of automatic cars more generally that they won’t start if you don’t have your foot on the brake when you turn on the engine? Anyhow, Mr. Waffle and herself were stopped at the exit from the car park and, of course, couldn’t start the car engine. Almost immediately the woman from behind beeped them. When there was no progress she hopped out of her car and shouted at them “Il faut avancer!”. While they knew that they had to advance, they couldn’t seem to persuade the car to do so. “How long will this take?” huffed the irate French woman. “About 3 minutes,” said herself with a confidence born of nothing. Their progress was possibly further impeded by both of them becoming mildly hysterical with laughter something which I suspect did nothing to calm down Madame. Anyhow, they made it home safely.

We had take away pizza for dinner and recovered from our day of excitement.

Sunday August 31, 2025

Arcachon is a small place but we were a bit of a step from the centre in quite a suburban area. We walked to what we thought was a cafe but it turned out to just be a boulangerie and, I regret to say, not a very good one at that.

We continued on to 11.30 mass. We were quite early so made meandering progress stopping at a corner shop and a newsagent and dutifully admiring the local architecture (much more of which anon). Still, despite our efforts, at 11.20 we ended up sitting on a bench across the road from the v ugly church considering our entertainment options for the next 10 minutes. I double checked my phone and realised that mass was at 11. We galloped across the road. There was no mass. On the back of an envelope pinned to the church door there was a notice saying “No mass at 11; mass at 7 this evening instead”. Not a great system if you ask me. Michael, who had stayed in bed for the whole adventure was amused but the rest of us were less than entirely delighted.

Mr. Waffle and I drove to the centre of Arcachon and did some mild supermarket shopping; it was hard to find an open supermarket and while I really welcome this at a theoretical level, on a practical level, it has some drawbacks. It was absolutely lashing rain but I said that since we were in town we should have a poke around. Rain soaked; a real end of season feeling.

But there were signs that the weather may have been nicer in the past and that the people of Arcachon would prefer if you didn’t parade around the town in your swimsuit. It seemed a very improbable concern on that particular day.

Michael resolutely refused to go out in the driving rain but the other two were curious and we went into town for a look around.

Mr. Waffle didn’t come “I’m going to the Lidl car park – my new home in France,” said he. He managed to leave the car charging in Aldi overnight and got the bus back to the house. I’m not sure that we were experiencing all of the advantages of having a hired car. Herself observed that the electric car was like the B plot to the holiday.

Since the weather for the next day was scheduled to be dreadful again, we decided that we would drive into Bordeaux. We spent the evening hunting online for a car park in Bordeaux with a compatible charging station for our car. Fun times.

More excitement to follow. Stay tuned.