Hello everyone! We are the slaves of The Surrey Squeakers, on holiday on the west coast of France. We were very excited to get an e-mail from Algernon telling us that he was travelling to Barcelona and asking if he could visit us on the way. We said we would be delighted to see him. We collected him from La Rochelle and showed him the beautiful old harbour.
We brought Algernon back to La Palmyre and he seemed to approve of the mobile home that he would be staying in.
The first place he wanted to visit was the nearby lighthouse, called Le Phare de la Coubre.
He checked the sign outside and was pleased to see that he was allowed to climb it because he wasn’t elderly or drunk!
He climbed all the 300 steps (totalling 64 metres, which was hard work for a little rat!) and stopped occasionally to rest and to admire the Atlantic coast through the windows.
The next place Algernon wanted to go was La Palmyre Zoo, which is famous throughout France. He was glad that he saw a capybara because he’d heard lots of slaves enthusing about them, and it did look like a giant guinea pig.
Algernon enjoyed seeing the other animals as well.
Algernon told us that he would very much like to see the carrelets, which are a traditional sight along the Atlantic coast. A carrelet is a sort of raised cabin with a fishing net that can be lowered into the sea. We took him to Saint Palais, where there were several of these carrelets.
He thought it was a beautiful place.
Before he continued on his journey, Algernon visited the harbour at La Palmyre to admire the yachts and to say goodbye to France.
Algernon was a pleasure to have with us on holiday!