Wined, dined and rested.

I may be expecting too much. I may be turning in to my parents and wondering why the world has changed so much. But really, is breakfast in France so much to ask?

Let me give you the context; on a flying visit to France, we crawl off the overnight ferry at Caen having woken up at what our bodies think is 4.45am and having spent an hour in a queue for a sleepy French policeman to pretend to be a Victorian and use a metal device to stamp ink onto our paper passports (our chip-embedded, biometric passports)… well, we wanted breakfast.

On previous visits we have managed to find a boulangerie and a decent grand crème in both Falaise and Argentan on our route but we wanted to explore some more so decided to try some other towns and villages along the way south. The result? NO boulangeries open and NO cafés open…. So many little towns in Normandy have lost their shops and cafés it is depressing – our disappearing high street in the UK pales into insignificance compared to the situation in Normandy. The last straw was finding nowhere to have breakfast even in Alençon ……until we did. And that is what today’s blog is celebrating!

Alençon is a delightful town that I know well, but gradually it is losing its shops, cafés and hotels. Ever more despondent we drove round the town twice, finding only one possibility but it was somewhere that you couldn’t park.  Stomachs grumbling – and frankly, the two of us grumbling loudly too – we gave up and headed back towards the motorway.

And then, looming out among the blotchy grey sky, cracked grey road, depressed grey buildings there was…… an abandoned petrol station. Woop-de-do. But wait – could it be?  Is it?  Oh gosh….

As if in a 1950s Hollywood version of a bible story, the clouds began to clear and there it was!

What a fantastic use of an old building – AND in a country where cars seem to be banned everywhere, they EVEN have the old forecourt for parking. Well, we did a Starsky and Hutch screech onto the battered concrete, leaped out of the car and elbowed each other out of the way as we charged into the petrol station, sorry the Artisan Boulanger Patissier.

Oh golly gosh. What an amazing place. They weren’t kidding about the “artisan” stuff, the range of breads and pastries on offer is astonishing. And every single thing is made here.

Look at that variety and excitement!  The glorious, life-affirming cherry on the cake is that they also do a very decent cup of coffee and have chairs and tables for you to sit and and savour this manna from heaven. Sigh.

Their pastries, sweet and savoury are as impressive as their breads…..

Croissant nutella!! Oh my…

What. A. Find. And after so much ranting and depression about the lack of cafés in northern France (or maybe it’s everywhere…. What a horrible thought.).

(Two slices of that Tartiflette clearly had our names on them for our picnic lunch.)

So in the midst of despair there is always hope. This boulangerie would have been superb even in the days when there was one on every corner, and I’d like to think that it heralds a new era of independent artisans breaking out into the crumbling grey towns .

There is hope, people, there ARE beacons of artisanal bread and pastries, we just have to find them. I accept the challenge. Watch this space.