Volunteering In France | Interning in France

Derrick, Hugh and John working hard

Once again Tuesday has quickly come round and it’s back to work! Today, it was newcomer Emilie’s day off yet she still helped out a bit with mum as Emily was showing Gayle the ropes. It’s Marlou’s last day on emails and blogs for now as she’s been helping Hugh, John and Derrick out in the yard while Mark has continued with fixing some shutters.

After work we headed back to the lake. The weather was warmish but as we found out the hard way, not warm enough to swim in the lake! Instead, we sat on the beach and shared various jokes in different languages. The cold water didn’t quite stop the guys from having a couple of quick gos on the rope swing before returning to LG as John would be making a yummy carbonara! He insisted he could make it in 10 minutes, it took him half an hour, he claims it was due to cutting his finger!

In the evening, we settled down to watch French film L’Auberge Espagnole; we were inspired after last Saturday’s article. We all enjoyed the film loads and thought that parts of the film did represent LG as people from all over were living in place except this film was about Erasmus as opposed to voluntary work; it definitely did make us all want to experience the Erasmus Experience after watching it!

[Continue joke]…because there was a spider in John’s room. Englishman – John, Irishman – Hugh, Chinaman – Irvin. Sorry, not funny.

Monday morning was pretty standard, we all headed off to Chalais market! Well, not quite all of us, many LGers were still very tired the next morning so chose the option of staying in bed, so it was just Mark, Gayle, Derrick, Marlou and Emily who headed off there. We headed up to the castle to have a coffee but to our dismay it appears to no longer be open on a Monday. Instead Mark, Marlou and Emily headed off to Fernando’s while Gayle and Derrick made their way to Aubeterre for the day.

Daring Irvin goes upside down on the rope swing

After lunch, Paul, Mark and Emily went off to do the weekly shop while the others went off to the lake to enjoy a dive from the rope swing at the lake. Although Marlou was a bit scared at first, she did manage to save the women’s reputation by swinging into the water without hurting herself. Irvin however was not scared at all and even swung upside down and dove in the lake like a fish would jump in to the water. Their time also consisted of crazy golf, bouncy castles, trampolines and swings!

For dinner we were going to be enjoying another lovely dinner cooked by Mark. This week it was a vegetable casserole plus his very own home made garlic bread. New arrival Emily from England (this could get confusing…) came just in time to enjoy the meal with us which she was very glad about after having travelled all day long!

Raymond and Emily aka Emilie at pétanque

After dinner we all headed down to pétanque – this time it would be Galye, Derrick and Emily’s first time playing it and they were great! Emily (who will now be known as Emilie in this blog to make things easier!) teamed up with Emily and Hugh who beat John, Irvin and Marlou while Paul and Gayle beat Mark and Derrick. Afterwards was a competitve game with the locals, John, Hugh and Emily were doing so well but in the end sadly got defeated by Paul, Gayle and Monique. At least there’s always Friday!

Hugh and Irvin at the monolithic church

Well with yesterday’s lazy day we definitely made up for it this Sunday! In the morning, Marlou stayed in while Paul took the rest of us to Aubeterre sur Dronne – voted one of the prettiest villages in France! We first headed to the monolithic church which was just amazing. It’s a beautiful big church but not like any ordinary one, this church is built into a cave. You’d never notice it if you hadn’t heard about it! After going there, we met Paul by the market and wandered about before heading to our next destination. If you’d like to read more about Aubeterre then you can go to this link http://www.lagiraudiere.com/aubeterre_sur_dronne.html written by Ann, a past LGer from 2008.

Preparing for our 7 course meal!

So our next stop? Bardenac. And the reason why we went there? For a delicious 7 course meal! For our first three courses of soup, melon and fish, we sat outside enjoying the sun when the sudden downpour of rain caused us to eat the remainder of our lunch inside. For 20 euros, we got the food mentioned above followed by chicken with roast potatoes, mushroom and eggs, then afterwards salad, cheese and a tasty dessert, plus coffee, water and wine – an amazing deal!

Some great defending from the Brossac team!

To burn off such a great and filling lunch, Paul, Hugh, Emily and Sidney headed off to watch Brossac play football – surely watching people play football consists of just as much exercise as doing it does, right? Well it was a great victory for Brossac as we won 4-1 therefore go through to the next game- bien joué!

The band at Barbezieux foire

As we arrived back to LG, we noticed a strange car parked up – it was only our new arrivals Gayle and Derrick all the way from Canada! After making them tea and showing them a little round the place, we headed off to Barbezieux for the last day of the annual foire exposition. We enjoyed some good food, some great wine and some fun music while watching the happy people warming themselves up by line dancing in front of the live music. As it was such a chilly evening, we headed back to our beds for a well deserved sleep after a fantastic day!

– By Marlou

When we woke up some of us had the idea to go to the lake, but when we looked outside we immediately changed our minds. The weather was bad and there even was rain. So no lake visit for us today.

That is why we decided to watch a movie together in git 1 and just chill out inside of the house. We started of by watching 28 days later, but we al disliked this movie so much that we decided to watch another movie called “Anchorman” this one we did liked and was very funny as well. So if you are bored yourself, you now now what to do!

At night we got some dinner at Saint-Bernard and we all tried very hard to finish the whole pizza we had ordered. The guys did not have any trouble doing this, but Emily and me were not able to complete this entangled mission. That is why I donated my leftovers to John, as he was ofcourse still hungry. We stayed here until the whole restaurant was empty and then we decided to leave to get some sleep.

– By Marlou

Friday, the last day of my first working week!

The guys relocated the computer room to get some sunlight in the computer room and make the internet connection available in al gites. Also today was the day to plant the grass seeds in the garden. Now we just have to wait for some rain to make the seeds grow well.

Today I was mum and prepared dinner in the evening. It was quite a lot of work to prepare so much food, but luckily I love to cook so I did not mind at all. We ate some chickpea salad with some spicy chorizo and cheese bread. Although Paul was in doubt about the chickpea salad and he looked a bit weird at it, he still ate a lot of it and so did the others. So I guess it was “pretty” good!

And of course we would never want to miss out on our pétanque night so we all squeezed together into the car on our way to the playground in Brossac. We had a lot of fun playing pétanque and had a nice chat with our Brossac friends. Nevertheless the dinner was not a very healthy one and we were in need of some exercise 😉