Blogs from Midi-Pyrénées, France, Europe - page 45

A picture is worth a thousand words.... read more

Busy times this week again. Because the weather’s been intermittently awful (locally, floods closed roads and houses were inundated) we’ve kept busy at home, rushing out in a deluge one lunchtime to the bar up the hill which recently opened a restaurant. We had low expectations, but had a tasty and hugely filling meal in the congenial atmosphere we’ve come to expect. This weekend there’s been a festival a bit like the Heritage Weekends in September back in the UK. Here at Laroque, they’ve had an exhibition about all the shops that have vanished from the town, so our house featured, since it used to be a butcher’s, together with the memories of one local, who remembered whole dead animals hanging outside the shop in all weathers, together with the accompanying stench. Yesterday, with poor old ... read more

I arrived in Paris on June 2nd. I didn´t have any plans other than making my way to the coast. I spent the day crusing the streets of Paris. Saw the Eifel Tower, Le Louvre and Notre Dame all in about 2 hours. Check, now for some adventure. At Charles De Gaulle Airport, I bought a map of all of Europe. Biarritz, France seemed like a good town visit, so I made my way down there on an overnight train. I spent a few days in Biarritz shopping around for a board, hanging out at the beach, eating lots of bread and cheese. I managed to find myself a nice used 9´8, tuflite longboard. As you can imagine it´s been dificult riding the train and buses with such a huge plank. The people of France have ... read more

As part of a wonderful 10 day festival, Journées Nature de Midi-Pyrenees, held throughout the region, we went on a great nature ramble about 10 miles from our house. The course leaders were all earnest PhD type students with dreadlocks and endless enthusiasm. They hadn't done the course in facilitation skills. No 'Thanks for coming, my name is Simone and today we'd like to show you....'. They simply hung around the rendezvous place for about a quarter of an hour chatting among themselves, and then suddenly headed off into the countryside. When you could corner them, they were endlessly interesting and informative, but holding the group together wasn't quite their thing. But we're not complaining. These pictures tell their own story... read more

I just wanted to show you a few photos that we took more than a fortnight ago - before we had a week in England, before our last visitors came, because we had such fun. Tarascon is about half an hour from us, in the Pyrennees proper, and for 4 days in early May, they had their annual show. Think Harrogate Show, but with the animals held in the Valley Gardens, and winning troupes of sheep being paraded down Cambridge Street to the centre of the precinct, with bands playing and people sitting round outside the food tents eating hearty dishes of local lamb, croustade and wine... read more