The French Blatting Company

Editorial

The following are articles & letters about The French Blatting Company Limited.

From Alan Brady 8th May 2007

Apologies for not writing to you sooner, but I’d just like to say how much Lyn and I (not to mention Ray and Marion) enjoyed our stay with you. The gites were beautifully fitted out and the showers in particular were amazing. Lyn said to me what I good time she’d had and didn’t even say “…….apart from that bloody car!”.

I make sure I mention the trip when talking to any club members and I’d be happy to add a testimonial to your web-site if you add an online visitors’ book.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have more emails similar to Alan's, above. They're all in a similar vein so we won't bore everyone by repeating the message.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Times Travel Supplement carried an article about us in January 2009. You can read it here

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This appeared in February 2006 editions of Low Flying & Club Lotus News (as edited by the respective editors)

Our French venture started with me getting fed up with what I was doing and then I realised that I was getting on and losing it, becoming a dinosaur is good description.

So I announced last year that I would retire. I was supposed to stay on till Christmas but after 2 weeks at Le Mans, 2 weeks on the Bordeaux Blat then 10 days in Ireland I really didn't fancy doing anymore.

I asked Lynne last year if we could move to France and got no answer. So that's that thought I. About 4 months later she says, completely out-the-blue, that she's thought about it and she's ready to move! So we started to look around (on the net).

Then Richard-in-France announced he was moving back to the UK.

We were on the advance party for this years Le Mans trip and set up camp, on the Tuesday, in record time. On the Wednesday Lynne and I went to Arnage for breakfast before setting off to Richard & Henrietta, about an hours drive away. When we came out the café it started raining. By the time we got to Richards we were soaked to the skin and sitting in puddles in the Tillets. It would have been more comfortable if we had swam!

Fortunately Henrietta found us dry clothing. It stopped raining about 2pm and at about 4pm we set off back to camp. We caught up with the rain just as we got on the motorway from Laval to Le Mans and arrived back at camp as wet as wed been in the morning. The remarkable thing is that Lynne was still talking to me.

We both fell in love with La Foie. However it was about 4 times the price we were thinking of and what were we, both brought up in the East End of London, going to do with 9 acres of land, umpteen barns a pig pen and 50 ducks?

Back at camp, having dried out, had a shower and sat down I started to think I must be mad even to think about this. We were having a drink with Chris (Eccles) who pipes up that he would love to invest in a place in France as his men (he's a builder) often have a few weeks between contracts and as he has to pay them he may as well get them to France doing up "his" place. "Come and talk to Uncle Norman" and a deal was done. I buy the property - he gets it converted.

So, The French Blatting Company was formed. Its aims are to provide holidays for sports car owners, but in particular, members of the club. The main problem of holidaying in a 7, or any sports car for that matter, is space (unless your Angus & Tessa).

We are converting the barns and pigpen into gites. These will have everything you need so all you bring with is clothes and a toothbrush. We will even have washing facilities so if you want to economise on clothes you can. And we will have some toothbrushes in stock. Maybe we should have a competition for who arrives with the least.

The first phase is to convert the long barn into gites and the second phase is to build the swimming pool, 5-a-side football pitch, tennis court and the games room with an ever-expanding Scalectrix. The final phase will be the conversion of the small barn and pigpen.

Of course I'm not retiring completely as the blatting company will take up some time. However, it will be a change, for the first time in my 45-year working life, not to be at the customers beck and call all the time. (Please note).

Are we going to start a Butlins or Pontins? Or am I going to transform into a French John Howe? A bit of all, I hope, as we build a unique holiday centre for seven owners to visit, blat around the countryside, maybe get a track day, a wine tasting, relax by the pool or spend some time on the scalectrix.

Were planning to have 2 gites ready for Easter and 5 for June. The facilities such as pool, football pitch, tennis court etc., will not be ready until later next year/early 2007 but the blatting routes will be done and we will have track days available as well as wine tasting at the Anjou vineyards. And of course I will have a fully equipped workshop to deal with those little problems known as Sevens.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the above article appeared, the plans changed due to circumstances beyond our control. We ended up with 2 gites.