It is Thursday May 5, 2016 and a holiday for most of France, Ascension Day.

Almost all of the hotels are completely booked for tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday.  Since the holiday is today, Thursday, a “bridge day” is planned for tomorrow giving most workers and students a four-day weekend.

We walked to Saint-Servan this morning for the annual vide-grenier / garage sale. It is held in a grassy field in a park connected to a retirement complex.  In 2014 when we attended, it had been a very wet spring and the grass had just been mowed.  The grass bothered Sandy’s allergies and we hadn’t stayed too long that year.

Today, it was again in the grass but it has been fairly dry-so no allergy problems today.  We purchased 5 champagne flutes for 2.50€.  A great price! The lady that wrapped the glasses in bubble wrap for us looked familiar.  She was curious if we were on vacation since we don’t speak French like natives.  Phil explained to her how long we were here and she told us she works in the Hotel de Ville or Mayor’s office.  She is the lady that gives out the yellow recycling drawstring bags that everyone uses here for recycling.

Champagne flute from the garage sale

On our way back to our apartment we walked by the water at the Anse des Sablons.  Someone said “Bonjour” to us. It was our friend Eric, the notaire.  He helped us purchase our apartment back in 2011.  It was good to see him and talk to him.  We plan to see him again.

We stopped by the Hôtel Quic-en-Groigne to speak with Marie Dominique and Michel about our plumbing problem.  Marie Dominique said they had phoned the plumber three times and their faucet is still working sporadically.  They don’t always have hot water for a shower, so we are fortunate.

We left our apartment after lunch to take the bus to Christine’s house for tutoring at 14:30.  However, the buses were running on a holiday-Sunday schedule so we arrived later than usual.  We also had to stop our session 30 minutes sooner than usual in order to return to our apartment.  On our way back to the bus stop at the Parame Mairee, we ran into our friend Claudine.  She was window shopping while waiting on her husband to finish moto racing.  It was an unusual day to see two of our friends while out walking and to meet a new friend at the vide-grenier

When we got back to the Intra-Muros area at the esplanade Saint-Vincent we saw that they were setting up a stage and several marques in preparation for the Forum des Arts festival which is happening this weekend.

Castle with marque and stage in the foreground

Last Sunday we went to a flower show at Parc de la Briantais and had purchased a small black cat door stop.  Here is a picture of it.

Black cat door stop