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THE INVASION OF BRITTANY BY MEMBERS OF THE
GLOUCESTERSHIRE MG OWNERS CLUB - SEPTEMBER 2008

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The weather looked promising when we set off for Portsmouth on the Friday 19th September for our overnight crossing to St Malo.  For once embarkation was in advance of itself so we did not all meet up until on board where we spent a very sociable few hours in the bar before retiring to bed.

As we loaded at different times on the Friday evening it was some time before the nine cars (one car the Mazda was already in Brittany where it had spent a week with the Morgan Club!) were ready to go off en masse to Mont St Michel, only to find that the gates were closed.  John was dispatched to find a man to let us out.  It took a little while to escape St Malo Port as the bridge was open to let various sailing vessels through!
Onward then to Mont St Michel, on the way we lost tail end Charlie (Tony C) as we dived up a side street which he missed.   We stopped and had a well needed cup of coffee at a lovely little port on the way to Mont St Michel, unfortunately the bar had only just opened so service was a little slow, I don’t think they are used to vast numbers of English wanting coffee early in the morning! 

From Mont St Michel we made our way to the Gite in smaller groups, some with sat nav/tomtoms, which proved very useful in some cases.  Some of our group managed to do more miles than the rest of us and this proved to set a precedence for the rest of the week.

We had a very warm welcome from Joyce the owner of the Gite and were allocated our rooms by picking the room number out of a pot which seemed to be the fairest way with so many guests.

Adrian (Mazda Man) had organized a trip to an Oyster Farm at Le Moustoir  for the Sunday which proved to be a wonderful day.  We had a very informative meeting with Michel who farms the oysters and we were able to try them, some of us had more than one not to mention any names Paul.

The whole village turned out to look at the cars and we were  treated to snacks and wine before being taken into a large village square where BBQs  had been set up.  We did not really need our picnic lunch as there was plenty of food and wine provided by the villagers.   It was an exceptionally good start to our week in Brittany and the villagers were so welcoming, it really was a party day.  It was a shame that we had to leave but we had a meal booked at the Gite.

Janet and John, although with us for the week, invited us to their property in the same locality for a BBQ on the Monday evening.  John proved to be an excellent BBQ man catering for 20 of us.  It was Brian and Teresa’s wedding anniversary so not only did we have wine, but also Champers and Cake.  A truly super evening.

The exceptional weather stayed with us all week, so we were able to travel ‘topless’ much of the time, whilst we visited Auray, Port Louis, Concarneau and Pont Aven to mention a few.  A certain three-some, mentioning no names Chairman, liked Pont Aven so much that they visited it twice in one day! 

Adrian entertained us with his mind reading skills with a pack of cards, only once did he get it wrong, but I think that was probably down to his assistant Rita, who was not picking up on his train of thought. Adrian also challenged Tony to a game of table tennis, but did not realize that Tony was such an experienced player and lost hands down.

Apart from Janet and John, who were spending a few more days in Brittany at their house and Janet and Keith who are traveling in France for a couple of weeks, the rest left on the Saturday morning to depart from either St Malo or Caen, John, Mo, Paul and Pat were taking in a further bit of culture and catching the overnight ferry from Caen.
   

3rd October 2008 – Sue Panter