Chief Flying Instructor James Evans spent many hours organising the club trip to Bagnoles and regulars from previous trips were looking forward to dinner by the lake. 

We were therefore a bit despondent when we looked at the weather and phoned the Met Office, where the forecaster confirmed that the cloud over Northern France was not budging for the time being.  At lunchtime James made the decision to cancel – and gratefully aided by Jon Gready's French he quickly re-routed the trip to Granville where the weather was better.

We arrived at the popular fishing port in the late afternoon and enjoyed a few beers in the sun before heading to the hastily-booked hotel.  Annette and John Quayle joined us for the evening and decided to stay the night in the hotel.  Jennifer Bridge’s children Max and Maia were delighted that the Quayles brought their daughters as they had some playmates for the weekend.

Everyone enjoyed the meal – finished off with a complimentary glass of Calvados that encouraged the purchase of a couple more!  Jon Gready thanked everyone for making the effort to get to Granville, and also the hotel staff for taking us on at such short notice, and James gave a speech in reply followed by a joke or two from Mike Collett.

After breakfast James and John ferried some to the hypermarket while others walked into town.  After checking the weather we all made our way back to Jersey.

This article is an extract from  Memories of Granville 2007 (2.56 MB)