Long awaited

Not only have you had to wait a long time for this blog but the long-awaited opening of our campsite is finally here. I try to keep it short but since it's two blogs in one, it's a bit longer this time.

I say "finally", but it didn't feel like that at all. Since the moment we arrived at the campsite in September 2023, opening day has been raging. Every time we sat watching me leave, we always laughed that those people had to do all sorts of things at the very last minute, well it was no different here.

Last Friday, the campsite officially opened. Guests were already trickling in from noon while we were still putting the finishing touches to the terrace. The last table had just been screwed together when people showed up for the restaurant.

Everything was in the house but nothing was prepared yet, I hadn't had time for that. I hadn't even turned on the appliances in the kitchen once. Well that was a huge baptism of fire. 3 tables occupied and all had a starter, main and dessert. It went beyond expectations and the guests were super satisfied.

It was a bizarre transition, from months of odd jobs to suddenly running a campsite with a restaurant. And that was only the first night. The official opening, or "inauguration" as they call it here, was Saturday. We organised an "apero" for everyone we have met over the past seven months and guests of the campsite.

It was truly a great evening. There were over 100 guests including 80% French. Heartwarming how we were so included in the Gers in such a short time. And even more heartwarming that so many friends and family had taken the trouble to be there.

Our parents and children worked super hard that evening with help from some locals. That was very nice because it allowed me and Randy to mainly occupy ourselves with talking to our guests. Important because we also had high level visitors. David Taupiac the député du Gers had also come to the opening and is now going to help us get a liquor licence. Nice touch is that our wine supplier is a good friend of his and since he benefits from us getting a liquor licence we are hopeful that things will work out now.

After the opening party, we took it easy for a while. We have to get back to work because we need to finish the second toilet block before it gets busier on the campsite and we found out that we want to lay a different floor in the safari tents. The current floor is nice but hard to keep clean. New electricity cabinets also need to be connected and an emptying point for chemical toilets.

It is quite difficult to get up the courage to continue with chores outside the day-to-day things we have to do as campsite owners. But we will find a mode in that too.

In the Netherlands, we always enjoyed organising fun events immensely. We can totally indulge in that here. Last night we had our first moules-frites (mussels with fries) evening. The intention was for our camping guests, but in the morning we had a meeting at the "Office du Tourisme" to which we had invited two gîte owners. They have a gîte (holiday home they rent out) close to the campsite and then it is of course very nice if they send their guests to our restaurant. They ended up coming with six people. Then I decided to call some neighbours as well. In the end, we had 32 guests coming to dinner and we still had to arrange mussels. We love those spontaneous things, of course it is not always possible and we will plan such an evening a bit further ahead next time but it was a great success. All the guests asked when the next evening would be organised.

Now that the campsite is open I will still keep up the blog but it will be once every fortnight from now on. And if there are fun things to tell in between we will post it on our socials so be sure to keep an eye on those too.

By the way, there is still room in our luxury tents, chalets and mobile homes for the May holidays. So if you want to see the campsite in real life, please contact us for the last-minute offer.