TCGI -Turner Contact Group Ireland

A few adult members of our group took a trip to France in August and it proved a great success. They met up with a few girls from the Turner Support Group in England as well as quite a large group from France. They went on trips in the Brittany area and the Irish contingent headed to Paris for a few days. It was great meeting up with the other groups and was an enjoyable trip for all. The following is Christine's account of the trip.

As is now tradition, last year we went away together to Kilkenny.  Someone suggested that for this year’s trip we take a house in France, great idea.  So we sent an email to the French Turner group telling them what we were planning with the English group and maybe we could all join up.  Before we knew it they had found a house in North Brittany for 20 people !!!!

So, on the 16th August, Niamh, Paula and myself set off, destination Port Blanc, a small village just north of Lannion.  We left Dublin Airport for Stansted where we joined our three UK friends. From there we flew on to Dinard. On arrival in Dinard we hired a 7 seater car.  Wow, a big, big black one with blacked out windows!!  Every gadget and Gismo available.  Even a button which made the pedals longer.  Don’t worry I wasn’t driving, Niamh was our brilliant driver for the week.  I was just navigator, a job made very easy as we even had Sat. Nav.   So once we worked out what all the gadgets were for, we set off for Port Blanc, I had been told less than 2 hrs drive!!!  Why didn’t I start the Sat Nav then!? Anyway by the time we got North of Lannion it was already getting dark and we drove around all the lovely country roads before we found the house at 11pm. So much for my navigational skills.  The next day I made sure to get the Sat Nav working.

Anyway, our French friends were waiting for us, all 14 of them.  I suddenly thought was this a good idea, 6 of us 14 of them all chattering away in French and we were there for a full week.  What we didn’t know beforehand was that 5 of them were were teenagers, ‘les minipus’ (aged between 12 and 15).   Any Irish teenagers for French penpals? Anyway they all wanted to have one room together to hang out and the two leaders of the French group very ably kept an eye on them!!  They certainly seemed very happy and at ease in each others company.

We had a lovely time with them all.  Sampled French and Breton cuisine.  One evening  “Les Minipus” did the cooking for everyone.  Another night we did the cooking, on the menu was “Irish Franglais stew”. Well we couldn’t not marinate the meat in some nice red wine, I mean we were in France after all.  Of course we finished up with Irish Coffees, well the adults, we resisted the pleas from the teenagers!!!

Apart from that we spent the week cruising around in our big car and saw all the local sites. We went horse riding, visited the Ile de Brehat.  Sometimes in a convoy of 3 cars when we all went.  And to be fair the others got lost too.  The signposting on these small roads is just about as good as the signposting in some parts of the west of Ireland!

It was a great week, and we said our goodbyes hoping we’ll all meet up in Copenhagen next August.  It was great to see the teenagers having a chance to hang out together and no-one seemed left out of the gang.  I think even us adults felt that which is what its all about.  Oh and three cheers for our driver.

Christine.