Saturday 16 June 2012

Party time at Chenevaux!

Lunch at Josette's
The Caribbean Beach Bar
Birthdays, yaay, party time!  What shall we do to celebrate?  The vote ( and as it was Mark's birthday he had the deciding vote ) was for lunch at Josette's - actually called the Cafe de la Place, but known locally by the owner's name.  She's quite a character but most importantly cooks the most divine entrecote and chips!  The cafe is at Angles sur l'Anglin, which is a beautiful, quaint, village a couple of miles from us.  You could probably call Josette the Cafe Queen.  Every day at lunchtime and during the busy seasons she is found standing in the doorway of her cafe.  At the first sign of any hungry or thirsty punters she ushers you to the green tables and chairs - her side of the square ( actually its a triangle but you know what I mean ) so that she gets the lions share of the business.  The red chairs and tables belong to another cafe and they don't seem to have come up with a successful counter plan yet!  Anyway the main thing is her food is great.  So, lunch duly consumed we went home for siesta.  
The Guinness apron was a birthday present too!
                                                                              Mark must have known that more plans were afoot as he was told that he could spend as long as he wanted to sleeping off his lunch!  I think the birthday shirt may have given the game away rather as well, especially as Mr Bong was wearing a similar one all day.  Anyway he disappeared for hours ( expect there was some cricket on the TV ).  In the meantime Mr & Mrs Bong vanished into our cafe, aka the old bakery with scrubbing brushes, sticky tape, glasses etc until it was time for the grand opening of the Caribbean Beach Bar! Rum and Bob Marley music, we were transported back to the cricket tour in Barbados!  
Our new friend P A Rot

We invited the gite guests round for a couple of drinks too and there was a real party atmosphere!  Later we had yummy Caribbean food (Mr Bong had brought his Levi Roots cookery book which Mark had also spotted !) followed by red and green jelly, made by Mrs Bong, topped with crushed pineapple as we didn't have any yellow. My nearly only contribution to the festivities was the cake, which was actually made by my Mother but as my cake making is not the best and hers is,  this was a very good thing.  I also found some candles that are a bit like sparklers, and a cake frill. This nearly turned out to be a disaster as while we were talking the candles burnt down and the cake frill caught fire!  Luckily Mark managed to blow it and the candles out with an almighty puff!! Now I think about it did we actually remember to sing happy birthday?