We decide!

It was grey and overcast again today, and we had a busy Sunday ahead of us. We drove to Tesco at about mid-morning and bought the ingredients for a paella tonight. The supermarket was busy and we couldn't wait to get out! 

Back home, the kitchen was a hive of activity as Keith prepared the chicken and vegetables, I sorted out an early lunch by heating up the leftovers from dinner last night and making porridges, while Sophie pootled about sorting out the lunchboxes. She then ordered herself a new lunch bag and a couple of bento boxes on Amazon. 

We sat down to enjoy lunch and had a window of about half an hour to make a decision on the houses for next June. However, the deposit for the houses was around £1000, more than we had expected to pay eleven months before the holiday! We disregarded a couple of the houses and scrutinised the others a little more, sending messages to the owners with a couple of questions. We weren't taking anything for granted! One gorgeous house was on booking.com, and it looked like you could rent parts of it, which was a bit worrying! We certainly disregarded that one! We wanted the house, the whole house and nothing but the house!

We drove back over to the hospital and parked easily again. We spent another hour with Mum, but again, she looked pale and didn't make a lot of sense, crying about being incarcerated on the ward. It was a most depressing visit.

When we arrived back home, we cleaned the house, and Keith started a shopping list for tomorrow when he will go back to Tesco. By 5pm, we were able to relax, and I had another look at the houses and realised that if we went to the Dordogne, it would make more sense to take the ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo. It was an overnight crossing, but the cabins looked lovely! I put the idea to Sophie, and I could tell she was nervous. It meant we would have fewer miles to drive and save on Airbnbs on the way.

Eventually, after a lot of discussion, we picked a gorgeous house in a tiny village in the Dordogne near Bergerac, and booked a Brittany Ferries route from Portsmouth to Caen, which was a daytime crossing. Sophie just couldn't get over her fear of sleeping on a ferry at night! We have booked cabins both ways so we can relax on the journey. We will have to stop one night on the way down as the ferry docks at 3pm and I won't want to drive all the way in one go!

Sophie cooked a delicious paella with the spices we bought in L'Escala, and it was smoky and earthy. Thankfully, there was enough left for lunch tomorrow.

Our viewing pleasure was The Shadow again, and another episode before it was time for bed. It had been a busy weekend!