September is a very busy month for the SW France region. On Friday 6th we visited the medieval Château de Varaignes where the famous Turkey Festival takes place each 11th November. The château houses a museum of working weaving machines from the 17th century and later and we were treated to demonstrations of these by our guide. Coffee at the communal café preceded our visit which was then followed by an apéritif in the château courtyard and a meeting with the mayor. A journalist (Monsieur LeCoq would you believe?) also attended and has since published a report in the newspaper Sud Ouest. The trip was rounded off by an excellent lunch in the Auberge du Château.
Sunday 13th saw us displaying our cars at the Fête de l’air at Chalais aerodrome. Sadly there was no actual air show as the insurance costs were prohibitive. However, we all made the most of it and either enjoyed a picnic in the shade or partook of the lunch provided by the flying club.
The weekend of the 19th/20th saw 15 crews taking part in the Rallye des Clubs on Saturday with several hundred other cars as part of the annual Angoulême ramparts festival. We cruised at a mostly relaxed but occasionally vigorous pace through the empty roads of the beautiful Charentais countryside, waving and tooting at the locals who had set up their picnic tables and roadside apéros to watch us go by. Of course there was the usual 2-hour break at noon for a beer and a delicious leisurely lunch in Jarnac at the Restaurant du Château, before we set off on the afternoon leg. The rally ended with a splendid display of cars at the Espace Carat in Angoulême and our trusty Jaguars cooled off in the shade, whilst their drivers and passengers “refreshed” themselves in traditional fashion.
On Sunday 27th we have kindly been invited to join the end of season barbecue of our friends at the Interesting Car and Bike Club, with whom we are developing closer ties and organising some joint events. This gives us all a wider variety of car tyres to kick and bonnets to lift and brings us a larger circle of like-minded friends to boot. This rounds off our programme for 2026 and the committee will meet in November to consider next year’s events calendar.
Two thirsty chaps obscuring a very fine Jaguar 340 at Angoulême