A bit of nostalgia

This morning we were of course tempted by a Sunday Market at Issigeac, not far away. And it was a great find - the old mediaeval streets full of stalls and lots of people wandering about. A very different market from the previous day, but quite as fascinating. So, I had lots of photos from this with some fine ancient buildings in the background. 

However, our real adventure today was meeting these two guys and if you want to know why . . . read on.

When our children were young and we had not got much money, we used to spend two weeks every summer in a gîte, somewhere in France. It was a chance for us to have time together as a family and get to know the real France and did not cost that much. In 1987 we were in the Dordogne, near Eymet, which is where we are at the moment. We stayed in an old house by a rambling farm. It was an 'interesting' place and the girls loved it - they roamed around the buildings and were able to use the pool that the farmer had put in - quite a novelty at the time. We liked it so much that we returned the following year 1988, to the same house. 

So, as we were returning from the market this morning and we saw the sign for Fonroque which is where the house was, we thought, we had to try to find the house didn't we. (It wasn't entirely a surprise that we saw the sign as we had found the place on the map.) We really did not think we had a hope of finding the house, as so many of them had been totally refurbished or even replaced - 30 years is a long time. 

But we did find it. We knew it as soon as we saw it (see extra). It had hardly changed at all. Gordon parked up and I took photos. There did not seem to be anyone around at all. Then the young man on the right of the picture appeared and he was interested in what I was doing. I explained and showed him the copies of some old photos (see extra for one) that I had with me. It turned out that the farm was in the same family and he was the son - he would have been a boy when we were there. He was so interested and kept laughing and pointing to things. Then his father arrived in the car and was soon put in the picture. They were so excited by the whole thing, examining the pictures (he has them in his hand in the photo), talking about the chimney that had fallen down, the tree that had grown too big, the seat that was still the same. They insisted that we went inside to see the house - it was hardly changed inside either. What memories came flooding back. Then the son disappeared and returned with a bag of flour - hand-milled in their own mill. A lovely gift. As the older guy went with us as we returned to our car, he was very impressed that we had a Peugeot. 

What a wonderful encounter. And all because we followed a sign and a map and had some pictures.