Showing posts with label fireworks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fireworks. Show all posts

Monday 26 July 2010

73. Calm before the storm..

24th July 2010. Beautiful day here today - cloudless blue sky and it looks like being a perfect day on the river. I'm just getting ready to leave for my Saturday morning row up the Nive.

While I'm away, here's something to keep you occupied for a minute or two. I don't normally do online tests (compatability, intelligence, personality etc) but the other day I came across this intriguing Personality Test. On completing the questions, I found the result described me remarkably accurately. It's aimed at people who are in the job market but it's none the worse for that. Try it and prepare yourself to be astonished.

Here are three for listening to late at night - Chet Baker with My Funny Valentine, Thelonius Monk and 'Round Midnight and, to finish up with, the great Charlie Parker with Summertime:
  



Feel like a dreamlike flight over Paris..? The fifteen minute video that you'll find at the link below has Madame (une vraie Parisienne) transfixed.. she's watched it at least half a dozen times - if not double figures - to my knowledge.. I had wondered out loud at Post #39 if a film tribute to Paris had ever been made along the lines of Woody Allen's opening credits for Manhattan. Stunning photography coupled with some highly nostalgic music (by some of the greats - inc. Piaf & Brel) are combined here to produce a memorable fifteen minutes. Step right this way - and be prepared for something special..

26th July 2010. Walked to the post office in town this afternoon and the final preparations for the Fêtes de Bayonne are in full swing.. Heavy lorries loaded up with fairground rides are parked in key locations. Fast food shacks are springing up everywhere.. The usual wandering souls (and their dogs), who appear (as if by magic) when crowds are expected, are here too - looking for a pay day. The park benches had some late risers stretched out on them this afternoon. I think the population of the town has already doubled in size with many more to come.
The start is less than 48 hours away now - at 2200hrs (French time) on Wednesday night. You can watch the scene outside the Town Hall live on a webcam - check the website for the Fêtes. Following the opening ceremony, there's the Mother Of All Firework displays at 2210hrs right in the centre of town... watch the clip below at 0:40 - it's as noisy as the opening 15 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" - and again at 5:30. In the Pays Basque, fireworks come in just the one flavour - deafeningly LOUD!!

Tuesday 22 September 2009

23. Spring - Fêtes de Bayonne 2008

I think we'd been in the house for 2 months and we had just about got ourselves straight when our first visitors arrived.. By the end of September 2008, five months later, we'd had 21 visitors - and with Madame's health problems, this is something we won't be repeating - except for very special cases. She only knows one way to entertain and that is to push le bateau out.. She is a truly wonderful cook but for days after each set of visitors had departed, she would be absolutely worn out.. It was too much for her. So as much as we’d like to invite friends down here, I think for Madame’s sake, we’ll have to say come down by all means but we won’t be able to put you up. Which is a great pity but there we are.

We'd heard a lot about the famous Fêtes de Bayonne from various people.. This is the annual fiesta that takes over the town for 5 days & nights every year at the end of July/beginning of August. Last year, it was calculated that 1.3 million people came and this year was no different. Normally, Bayonne has a population of around 40,000 so you can imagine with well over a million extra visitors that the town was well & truly swamped. Many visitors come from the hinterland of the Basque region itself as the Fêtes are a celebration of their Basque identity but they also come from further afield. If parking can be problematic at normal times, then during the Fêtes, it's a complete nightmare. In our avenue, people normally park on one side only and there’s usually always a space free.. However, during the Fêtes, cars were 'creatively' parked on both sides up on the pavement as only the French (and the Neapolitans) can do. This meant that we couldn't go out in the car because if we did, we'd have two chances of finding a space upon our return: fat chance and no chance. It would be no use us putting the car in our garage as some eejit could always be relied on to block the access to it.
 
The Fêtes started off at 10pm in the main square in front of the Town Hall.. Fortunately we’d arrived there early and we’d found a shop doorway to stand in (which kept us out of the crush). After a few words from the Mayor there was the mother of all firework displays – made up largely of explosive detonations that painfully rattled your chest.. Everyone was in white and red - white trousers, white shirts with a red bandana, and a red sash round the waist. Don’t ask why – it’s just how they do it here. Everyone – but everyone – was dressed the same – they all joined together in a display of pride in their separateness, their Basque identity, their distinctive Basque culture, their Basque music, their Basque dancing and their unique Basque language. Language specialists have no idea where or what the origins of the Basque language are – it’s like no other language in Europe or anywhere else. Here’s an example so you can see how different it is: Zuek egunkariak erosten dizkidazue. This means: “you buy the newspapers for me”. Knowledge of any other European language won't help in decoding this.

The Fêtes really were a spectacle.. Despite the bars being allowed to serve alcohol till 3am and stay open till 5am.. we didn’t see many drunks.. Many slept in their cars.. and cars were parked everywhere.. The town was full of little bars that people set up, each street seemed to have their own band and it was complete bedlam! The narrow streets were full of Basque marching bands beating out old rhythms with their drums, accompanied by the reedy shrieking of an instrument that sounds like a duck call..

One evening our local butcher (supposedly the best butcher in Bayonne) at the bottom of our avenue organized a dinner in the street.. We had to sign up and pay in advance then just turn up on the night. They’d put tables out in the middle of the road to seat about 100 of us.. (only in France!) The price included the menu, the wine and there was music provided by a small band.. It was supposed to start at 9.30pm but of course it didn’t start until 10pm.. The main course was boned leg of lamb – which was delicieux! Fortunately they came round again with seconds! I think we left about 1am..

They had a pop concert one night at the bull ring (which is about 200 yards away) – which was extremely loud.. They'd spent all afternoon doing imaginative sound checks ("Un, deux.. un, deux..") but as the concert finished about midnight it wasn’t too bad.

We’ve been continuing to tackle all the outstanding jobs – some big, some small – one by one. As the dining room shutters were a bit rotten at the top, we had to have some new ones made by Eric. He’s very, very good and not expensive. He’s got the Basque work ethic too..

He appeared one afternoon at about 1.30 with a stack of planks and by 6.30pm he’d finished. He’d taken all the metal fittings off the old shutters and re-used them where he could. Next day, I had the ladder out and I put on 2 coats of the Basque red that we’re supposed to use. All the woodwork of the houses in the Basque country is painted either blood red, dark blue or dark green. Now and again you’ll see a brown one.

So you can see that life here is all one mad round of fun, washing wine stains out the curtains, putting clean straw down, trips to the bottle bank and re-seeding the lawns after the starlings have been at it – AGAIN!

And now I'm just off to buy the newspapers in Basque.. or maybe not.