Southern Exposure

It took me by surprise, when Anna, my wife, announced we were spending a weekend away in the south. She'd booked an Airbnb and we were off for a romantic weekend; rekindling the flame. We've visited some wonderful places in southern France, Villefranche, Nice, Cannes...no, no, my wife interrupted, not the south of the country, the south of the Deux-Sèvres.

Well, that threw the cat amongst the pigeons. Trying to hide my disappointment, I was given three guesses...after, about 40 minutes, she told me. I'm going to be honest, this was not in my top-ten places to visit before I die. Where (I hear you ask), was this holiday destination? Have a guess, dear reader...no,...no,...nooo...okay, I'll give you a clue, it begins with an 'R'...no,...no...it begins with an 'R' and ends in with a 'uffec'. RUFFEC! We were going to spend 24 hours in Ruffec! That was my reaction too. 

A few years ago Anna fell asleep at the wheel, drove into a ditch, hit a tree, wrote-off our Dacia Duster and ended up in Ruffec hospital; where I had to go and collect her (neck brace and all), on a wet and windy night. So I had been there before.

This time the weather was fine, the cat's carousel had been filled, the chickens' water topped up...we were off on our adventure!

We couldn't get into our Airbnb until three o'clock, so thought we'd explore the town first. Well, I must say Ruffec is very attractive, but after twenty minutes, we were wondering how we'd kill the next couple of hours. 

We decided to check out the selection of eating establishments, for our Saturday night nosh-up, but, everywhere seemed shut. I thought there must be some religious holiday that was observed only in Ruffec. On Google's advice we walked twenty minutes to a rather seedy part of town to inspect The Royal Taj Mahal. It was a shop front with one table and two chairs in the window, I could feel my lower intestine rumbling; almost warning me to stay away, similar to Dick Whittington and the bells.

Back in central town the only place that was open, on a Saturday night, other than McDonald's seemed to be an eatery next to the market. Well, that's where we'll eat (Ruffec is a bit like Lidl...not much choice). 

Time seemed to go quite slowly in Ruffec, so we decided to visit the town of Confolens, which wasn't far; Anna had seen it on A Place in the Sun and said it looked really nice...and she was right, it was very attractive. We wandered round town trying to find something open; meandering across the beautiful medieval bridge, admiring all the closed buildings on the north side of the river, back over the bridge to enjoy the closed buildings on the south side. Well, it was getting close to 3 o'clock, so back to Ruffec.

The Airbnb was in the centre of town, so very quiet and from the outside looked nice. When we mastered the lockbox and got into the little entrance hall Anna informed me this wasn't the entrance hall, it was the living room (I wondered why they had a hob in the hall). To say it was basic would be an understatement; there was no coffee making facilities or even a bottle opener,... what did this woman have against beverages? Luckily, Anna carries a bottle opener in her car for just such emergencies...panic over. 

After a snooze it was back into central Ruffec for an aperitif. The only bar open was the tabac and it didn't serve red wine, so we enjoyed a few glasses of Pineau (which had a remarkable similarity to cough mixture) in the evening sun.

The evening meal was very nice; it was basically what hadn't been shifted at the lunchtime buffet, given a stir and served as dinner...but very enjoyable all the same. Anna became rather confrontational when a very tired looking fruit salad (the only pudding offered), was plopped down in front of her; it didn't even have a 'wee dodi' of cream. Anna is a very easy going, good natured being, but if you start messing about with her puddings, she can turn. She kept going on about it, 'that lady over there isn't eating fruit salad, she's got cream, I'm gonna say something!' I thought there was going to be a scuffle, but I distracted her with an after dinner mint. Being Scottish, she does suffer from the odd moment of rage, it was a combination of her William Wallace genes and the three glasses of pineau she had earlier (you may remember the famous quote from the film Braveheart 'They may take our lives, but they’ll never take…OUR PUDDING!').

We staggered back to our airbnb for an evening of cards, a bottle of Les Ormes and a bag of dry roasted peanuts (don't tell me I don't know how to show a girl a good time),...then bed. 

It sounds as though we didn't have an enjoyable trip. Au contraire, we had a hoot; a right laf! We haven't rebooked for next year as of yet, but as I said to Anna as we turned into our drive and stopped the car 'we'll always have Ruffec'.