Merci, M. Boursot

It’s our 29th wedding anniversary and so we went out for dinner. We left home at 5am on Saturday to catch Le Shuttle to France and spend the night at the Chateau des Tourelles in Le Wast, about 30 minutes south of Calais.

We had booked a meal, wine pairing and talk, hosted by Guy Boursot of Boursot’s Wine Collection based in Ardres. We discovered Boursot’s last year and, my goodness, he sells some lovely wines at very reasonable prices. We had signed up to the newsletter and fate was telling us to be adventurous when the October event fell on our wedding anniversary.

We arrived mid morning and took our time driving to Le Wast. We usually head for a motorway and a distant destination. This was our first experience of the fabulous coast road from Calais to Boulogne and it is beautiful and very reminiscent of Devon and Cornwall.

Our first stop was Wimereux, we admired interesting architecture and braved a bracing walk along the esplanade. The town was an important medical centre in World War I and Colonel John McCrae, famous for the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ served and died there – we aim to educate!

Obligatory Supermarket stop was next, closely followed by a detour into Wimille. It is home to the Column of the Grand Armee, a 53m high column with a statue of Napoleon perched on top. The column was intended to celebrate Napoleon’s successful invasion of England, sadly for Napoleon he was a little over ambitious and instead it now celebrates the first award of Imperial Legion d’honneur medals.

On to our dinner, we were a little apprehensive wondering what sort of people attend a four course dinner with wine pairings. We are not wine buffs and John is rather particular about food. He was seriously alarmed at a starter of Langoustines followed by duck cooked properly rather than his preferred burned to a crisp. We needn’t have worried, everyone was so friendly and, quite frankly, by the middle of the evening fairly drunk or asleep at the table.

We ate too much, drank too much and were relieved to get to bed about midnight.

Today was a leisurely drive home, but first a chance to explore Ardres on our bikes. The lakes on the outskirts of town provided some lovely scenery and a stop for a cuppa. our route back to Calais retraced our coastal drive where there was a brief stop to admire the statue of Hubert Latham, he was the first person to attempt to cross the channel in an aeroplane.