Thursday 7 June

Today we returned to Marc and Jacqueline's with the main task being to test the internet connection at the town hall in Saint-Martin-des-Champs (see also the municipal website) in readiness for the wedding.


But we first had to have lunch and Christopher wanted a special lunch of barbeque sardines (which we purchased in Toucy the day before).  Christopher wanted to demonstrate his cooking skills using a recipe he learnt whilst in Portugal.

Christopher showing us his culinary skills bbqing tomatoes, capsicums & chilly.

Jacqueline and Maria cleaning the Sardines, where is Christopher?

Maria enjoying herself at Christopher's expense, something wasn't working right with the cooking

Christopher showing his usual enthusiasm!!

The BBQed sardines did not turn out the way Christopher wanted, but we could not tell the difference, it was still a very good lunch.  We headed off to Saint-Martin-des-Champs and found a very quaint village.  We met the secretary for the Mayor and she helped us with our preparations, without her we would have had a lot of difficulties.

Fortunately Cameron and Wesley were at home to test the internet connection and transmission to our home in Lilydale.  We planned to use USTERAM which is supposed to be better than Skype for multiple people logging on to look at the broadcast.  The video quality is subject to the speed of the internet and Saint-Martin-des-Champs does not have a very fast internet connection.  Our testing proved that it would work work even though the video quality wasn't great.  So now we just hoped that it would work on Saturday, I planned to get to the council office at least 30 minutes before the ceremony to set it all up and check again.

Meeting room of the municipal office where the ceremony will be held

Public notice still up to announce the wedding

Maria checking the notice board and the wedding announcement

Some pictures from Saint-Martin-des-Champs

The Church of Saint Martin dominates the village and is a very impressive building.  The history of the building dates way back and is dedicated to St. Martin, this church has a triple nave. Its story is the most eventful, since the tower was burned three times (1774, 1798 and 1942). The tenacity of Saint-Martin allowed each time for it to be rebuilt.

Statue de Saint Martin

Interesting structure for the roof

Hand operated water pump in the village centre

Municipal building where ceremony will be held

Christopher and I had to pick up the beer for the celebrations from a local micro brewery.  Quentin (pronounced as 'kontar') took us as we had to check out the beer before we purchased it (taste test).  Brasserie Artisanale de Puisaye is a brewery, owned and operated by Kate Hallet operating as "La Grenouillette".  Kate and her husband operate a farm on La Plauderie not far from Ludivine's home in Blandy.  We taste tested all of their beers, picture below and settled for the 'Blonde' and 'Ambree' for the celebrations.

Discussing things in French!

Kate's logo cut into the table top

Logo mounted on the wall

This is the brewery on the farm

We returned to Jacqueline and Marc's home for dinner Quentin and his family joined us and we had another late night getting back to our hotel room well after mid-night, but we all had a very good time.

Map of all the important locations for Saturday


The map below shows where Ludivine lives in Blandy (blue dot top left hand corner); wedding ceremony in Saint-Martin-des-Champs; Hotel Les Grands Chênes (just below Saint-Fargeau); and the location of the celebrations in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.  Not a great distance between them all.