La Bloggerie

Finally on 1st April Angoulême’s new airport opened up for services between the Charente and London Stansted.

They talk in the press about ‘the Ryanair effect’ and people are getting excited locally that the arrival of cheap flights in the region could boost the value of all our property and make us rich.

I’m not so sure. There is no question that having Ryanair, and one other rumoured airline, will be a good thing, and it should help local businesses. From our very limited perspective, Angoulême’s airport now means that visitors have half an hour less travel time once they have landed in comparison with Bergerac and Bordeaux and that is a positive step.

Flying in from Stansted is, however, only an advantage for us Essex-types. For many people the journey to the airport will be longer than the flight. Even simply crossing London requires patience and a flask.

The Ryamair schedules have placed the Angoulême flights from Stansted in the evenings, meaning it would be possible to do a day’s work, or go and watch a football match for instance, then get on the plane to France in the evening.

However, on the reverse journey, as Liz discovered this week, any delay means you arrive at Stansted well after midnight. Again, not so bad if you’re heading just down the road, but a problem if you still have a couple of hundred miles to go.

But none of Ryanair’s schedules are set in stone and they frequently make adjustments. They won’t keep coming if they don’t make money. For us in the Charente the most important thing is that they don’t just pull the plug at the end of the summer. We want them to be there through the winter, and then to become a daily service.

It’s over-optimistic to think that flights into Angoulême are going to make our fortune, but in the holiday business we need every advantage we can lay our hands on.  Customers are used to having so much choice.  Anything that gives them another option for getting here has to be good.

And when you are looking for your flight on the Stansted website don’t be confused.  They seem to think it is spelt Anglomere.

A couple of big birthdays recently. Liz hit 50 at the end of March and Pete had his 45th at the beginning of April, so we had a party.

We cleared out one of the gites and turned it into a bar with about 60 friends and family joining us. Ben and Katie even flew over for the evening, and Liz’s cousin Ian was coincidentally visiting at the time. (Ian took most of the photos below)

The trio that Alan, Sharron and I have formed played our second ever gig, and there was a lot of bopping and boozing going on. Liz did a big spread with the help of Janet, Janice, Debbie, Ian and Graham.

Many people said what a good night they had had, so it has got us thinking we might try to get some more work for the trio, which has been named Les Crèmes Anglaises.

It is now nearly two years since I last kept La Tannerie Blog (La Bloggerie) up to date and a great deal has changed.  We have three new additions – two puppies and Graham. 

Since the puppies are better-looking than Graham there will doubtless be many photographs of them to come. They are not yet quite six months old but bear absolutely no resemblance to the ugly guinea pig-like creatures that we first saw back in October. We’ve worked hard at getting them to behave well with strangers because they will meet many new people as the season progresses.

Graham is now a fully-fledged member of the Management and has brought a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to La Tannerie.  As soon as we work out ‘quoi’ we’ll mention it here. He has experience of the hotel trade in the southern hemisphere and has been running a B&B in the Dordogne for the past two years.

Since last summer we have been gradually increasing the number of ‘restaurant’ sessions here. We now do regular Sunday lunches, the occasional Quiz Night and last night, for the first time, we hosted a small dinner party of 11 guests for a silver wedding celebration. Liz’s cooking is going down a storm and we are getting loads of positive feedback.

The Monday morning Tea Room has kept going right through the winter this year, thanks to a growing number of regular customers. It has meant moving furniture each time to create a bigger space but the effort has been well worthwhile.

Peter continues to spend a great deal of time on his artwork and if all goes well we should be displaying a selection of his work at his favourite local restaurant as from Friday, his birthday. He also now has his own website at www.peterpowis.com

The weather has been exceptionally wet for the past few weeks. Graham spent two months back home in Australia where it rained constantly and has therefore not seen any dry weather since last autumn.  However, that’s all set to change this week, and with a big party planned for Saturday we really need the sun to dry the grounds out.