What a Blogging Party

On Wednesday, we were fortunate participants at a great bloggers gathering.  Many of my followers will have already read about this on other blogs, but for those of you who have not, here is "our version"!   The idea for the event came about when Martine, from Wishing I were in France contacted Susan from Days on the Claise; Martine said that she would be in the region for a short time on holiday, and if possible, she would love to meet up with a few of the bloggers in the area.   Susan generously offered to host a party, and with Simon's help, the result was amazing.  There were 16 adults and one child there, and what a great time we all had!   It is amazing that few of us had had much previous contact, but it felt as if we had all known each other for years and there was just masses to catch up with.  My personal regret was, that because there were so many of us, I did not get long enough to talk to everyone for long enough!

This is the 'official' group photograph, skilfully taken by Simon on timer, so he was in the photo as well.

We were a very international group and starting from the back row, left to right are Mats (Sweden), Simon (Anglo/Australian), Charles-Henri (France), Martine (Belgium), Gaynor (Wales), Antoinette (Dutch/American), Ken (USA), directly in front of Ken, Caroline (Belgium), Niall (Scotland), Nigel (England), Diane (Rhodesia/South Africa/UK), Florence and Alexander (Belgium) with the front row (seated/kneeling) Tim (England), Susan our host (Australia), Walt (USA), Vera (Sweden).

Susan kindly offered us a bed overnight, as we had the longest distance to travel; this was fantastic as it meant we could enjoy the company, have a drink and relax without worrying that we had more than a 2 hour drive home afterwards.   The food was wonderful and everyone supplied a dish, so it meant that the culinary effort was spread.

I should have stood a bit further back - there was a large joint of beef off to the right and two yummy chickens on the left. For the full panorama, take a look at the photo on Ken's blog!

Martine and Ken catching up with some news.

Antoinette, Niall, Martine and Walt.

I have no idea what Walt was up to with his glass of wine here that caused all the laughter.

Wow, just look at those desserts, yum yum.  I might add that I ate far too much, but how could you not try a bit of everything?

Simon, Charles-Henri, Martine and Susan.

We really had a fantastic day and it was thrilling to meet so many bloggers, all on the same day.  Thanks Martine for the suggestion, and a big thanks to Susan and Simon for arranging it all, and of course for having us to stay overnight

For those who would like to read some of the other blogs that I have not linked to above, here they are :-

Antoinette and Niall, Walt, Gaynor, Caroline.

Susan and Simon run a tourism business, which provides stylish guided tours of the Loire region; see their business site HERE.


For 'My Life before Charente' see HERE  updated 8 June 2012