The Boy and The Dragon

Long time no blip, in fact a week I think since I last blogged about my 'Hellish Day'.

A bunch of us assistant types took a day trip to Niort at the weekend. It's a strange place really. A mix of old and new. Medieval castles, ancient towers and glorious cathedrals rub shoulders with whitewashed hotels, monstrous metal tourist offices and graffitied car parks. We did some of the tourist things that were on offer, which involved a trip to the castle to see the dungeons only to be told there were no dungeons. I have sneaky suspicion they just told us that so we would leave. I SAW THE STAIRS!

We went to sit down buy the river for a bit too. It was a picturesque area, with it's old canals and thin tall houses sat on the islands that split the river in two. The only thing that looked slightly out of place was the old hotel de 'Niorto' that looked like it had been uprooted from the Miami beach side in the 1970s and plonked amongst the sleepy Mallards on the riverbank.

We got back to La Rochelle we caught the last half of the Scotland vs France match at the pub. I was the only one in a tartan scarf dwarfed by the cheers of the victorious French.