After taking the scenic route from Provence to the Dordogne, and arriving in a hillside village in the dark, and having to drive up impossibly narrow roads to drop off our suitcases, we decided on the more sensible approach of leaving just before dawn, and driving straight to our destination on motorways. Hence we arrived in la Moinerie in Brittany late in the afternoon.
We are staying in a converted pair of fisherman’s cottages on the banks of the River Rance. The two original cottages, the middle two in the main building above with white dormer windows, would have been mirror images of each other originally. A doorway has been opened between them. The top floor has two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, the middle floor a kitchen/living area and a lounge-room, and the bottom floor two more bedrooms. There are two wonderful spiral wooden staircases between the different levels. We are about 10 km north of the historic town of Dinan, and 10 km south of another historic town, Dinand. The difference in the French pronunciation of the two is very subtle.
It is quite easy to tell the difference between an original building and a modern copy. The modern is all beautifully square and level, and the original never is. In the cottages we have stayed in the walls often bowed a little in all directions, the rooms were best described as quadrilateralish rather than rectangular, and for obvious reasons none of the furniture has coasters on legs. No-one is silly enough to use lovely rectangular tiles in bathrooms and laundries.
There is a nice garden area between our cottage and the old fishing harbour wall. There is a pontoon beside the slipway into the river, and a few yachts moored beside that. In the morning the sun rises so woderfully in the east over the river. The nights have been almost totally still, and the water of the river so smooth that you can clearly see the reflections of the rigging of the yachts. It is all so truly beautiful.
One of the first things we always do after unpacking in a new cottage is read through comments book for thoughts and hints from earlier visitors. A lot of the previous visitors to la Moinerie had been back a number of times, and a common theme in the book were along the lines “Met Flo Rance on the pontoon again. She is looking great”, or “Heard that Flo had been back, but sadly missed her this time”. Or “Mary saw Flo Rance near the bridge. We all hope to see her again next year”. Well I must confess that all this stirred my interest, and I looked for Flo everywhere. I imagined her to be an elegant French lady, probably an artist or poet. I saw her looking a bit like Margaret Olley, a famous Australian artist who died recently, wandering down to the shore, and gazing wistfully over the river. I saw her dressed in a broad-brimmed straw had, and long floral skirt flecked with paint from her last master work, gracefully gliding along the bank. She had just recovered from a harrowing illness, or loss of love. I was falling in love with Flo.
Then on Friday Ted told me that the three of them had seen Flo frolicking down near the pontoon. What? My Flo frolic? She is much too elegant and sensitive to frolic. Then they told me all. Flo Rance is a great big seal. Somehow she has become stranded above the hydroelectric tidal dam over the River Rance , and spends all her days eating fish, and sunbathing on the various jetties and piers along the river.
We all met Flo again later on Friday. She was moonbathing on the wharf at Mordreuc when we all went out for a meal. She just rolled over and scratched her ear, and went back to sleep.
Chris
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