Volunteering In France | Interning in France

Despite it being a Saturday morning, Paul still had an early morning as he took Hiroko, Irvin and Hugh to train station; Hiroko was going on a day trip to Saint-Emilion, Irvin would be spending the day at Bordeaux while Hugh would be doing two nights at Biarritz for some awesome surfing. They were lucky to catch the train as the doors had just shut when they arrived, luckily the driver was in a good mood!

LG is famous!

The rest of us headed down to the Spar to pick up today’s news – La Giraudiere! Nearly a whole page in the Charente Libre was dedicated to Paul’s success; now all those who are wondering what the work of LG is you can read about it here, that is if you understand French! Here is the link to the website! http://www.charentelibre.fr/2011/08/27/c-est-l-auberge-espagnole,1051750.php

Later this afternoon our newcomer Marlou from Holland arrived. We all showed her around LG before going to pick up Hiroko and Irvin after their days out. Hiroko had a great day at Saint-Emilion as she went on a wine tasting tour and Irvin picked up some cool French books along with a new haircut! Paul took us to O P’ti En K for dinner where we sat inside this time due to a rather chilly evening. We enjoyed some lovely dinner at a very good price and then headed home after a long but great day.

Putting up the beam

Friday has arrived which means it’s time to say goodbye to our Russian friend Sergey who left this morning for Geneva. The rest of the guys started some work in the old house consisting of putting beams up to fully support the building. The LG ghost can finally be rest assured that his home will be safe forever! We then enjoyed our last lunch from Hiroko – some lovely soup to warm us up on this cold day plus a beautiful salmon dish!

Goodbye Sergey!

Later this evening, newcomer John from England arrived just in time for Irvin’s delicious Chinese dinner. Afterwards, we headed down to shoot some boules down at pétanque but our excitement quickly faded when we arrived to an empty pitch due to the gloomy weather. This just meant we’d have the spend the whole evening at Saint Bernard’s! After over three hours of chatting with the locals over some drinks, we headed back to LG to look forward to what the weekend would bring.

LG help locals

The LG team could feel that today was going to be a busy one as the excitement kicked off to an early start when the guys headed down to the village to help set up for tonight’s antics! Normally the last Thursday in August would be the night of the last concert down by Brossac lake but this year something a bit different was in store!

We set off for Brossac village centre soon after our French lesson as Paul was going to be helping out at the outdoor bar. While he was occupied with that, the rest of us put our names down fo the first part of the evening – pétanque madness. People flocked from all different villages to take part in the boules competiton where an unknown prize was up for grabs! After being defeated too many times, we decided to grab some tasty food cooked by the local butcher and his local helpers!

The flyer about tonight’s antics

The anticipation in Brossac was increasing rapidly as rows of seats quickly filled up waiting for what was next to come. Tonight here in the centre of Brossac, a film was being shown, except not in your average way. A massive outdoor screen was put in place to watch the French film La Gloire De Mon Père and we were grateful that the recent thunder and lightening had put itself on hold so we could enjoy the film without the comfort of our umbrellas! Before the showing of the film, there was some singing, acting and the announcing of the pétanque winners so well done to them! The film was a nice one but for LG we didn’t quite watch the end of it as we headed back after our tiring day. However, it was a spectacular evening and it is so great for such a small town like Brossac to hold such a big success so hats off to all those involved!

Here are few pictures from the evening:

Paul looking comfortable behind the bar

Pétanque competition kicking off

People gather to watch the outdoor film

Preparing for our Japanese feast!

Wednesday morning saw the beginning of the old house being rendered while Irvin made a start on tidying up the wiki pages ready for all of our lovely Brossac fans out there! For Hiroko it’s been a long day. Not only has she been sorting out breakfast, tea break and lunch for us all, it is her turn to cook tonight, which of course is an advantage for us to experience some more amazing Japanese cuisine! For this reason, Paul also invited John-Michel and Indira to eat with us to enjoy some Japanese prawn sauce with rice, mashed potato and salad. Last week Jean-Michel had smelt Hiroko’s delicious chicken nanban and ever since had been dying to taste some of her cooking!

Sidney goes out for a takeaway

Afterwards all of us including Sidney headed down to St. Bernard’s for our dessert, where Sidney thoroughly enjoyed making friends with some of the local cats!

A lovely weed-free garden!

As soon as the sun pierced the sky, the guys already had blood on their hands as they painted part of the floor in Gite 4 while Hiroko has been slaving away with her new role as Mum. Later in the day, backed by American and Russian troops, the English recuperated the lost part of the gardens of La Giraudiere while the food rations were parachuted down by Japanese planes. When the dust died down, everyone sat down together and enjoyed a well deserved English roast to mark their success of the battle against the weeds.