260. Off season

30th October. Fascinating fact for when it goes quiet in the snug.. For those of you who, like me, grew up on such stirring stories as "The Battle of the River Plate", it will come as something of a shock to learn - as I just have - that, for decades, we've been getting it all wrong. In Spanish, the river is known as the "Rio de la Plata". Us Anglophones - in our wisdom - called it the River Plate. That film should have been called "The Battle of the Silver River". (That should ensure a few more minutes of silence!)

Preliminary work has been going on for some time now preparing the local road systems in readiness for the launch of the new Tram'bus service (as they're calling it) that is coming to Bayonne.

Tram'bus is a battery-powered articulated bus (no overhead wires required) that is planned to enter service on the first of two routes on the Basque coast next year.

Five minutes walk from Pipérade Towers brings me to Allées Paulmy - an attractive boulevard in central Bayonne that's also a busy traffic artery. It's lined with many mature trees and some substantial houses (left) in the Basque style. There is clearly some Tram'bus-related work programmed to take place here as many of the trunks of the trees have been wrapped in coils of 3" plastic tubing and have been further protected by substantial wooden planks that have been lashed vertically around the trunks over the tubing. This is an occasion when a single picture would have saved me a lot of blah blah! The road visible at lower right in the photo above is a service road that runs parallel to Allées Paulmy - the dual carriageway just out of shot to the right. I believe the Tram'bus will be routed via this service road - no doubt amid howls of complaint from those who currently use it to park!

This is the proposed new tram'bus:

Bayonne is a very green town with many parks, gardens and some magnificent trees - take a look here at these pictures taken around the historic ramparts on the fringe of the town centre.

28th October. It was c-o-l-d down at the beach this morning with a stiff breeze coming off the sea.. a cold 9°C. The average winter temps here bottom out at 8°C - a fact for which I'm forever grateful! OK, it's not in the same ballpark as Winnipeg or Wisconsin - but nonetheless.. There were quite a few surfers (a good 20+) out there in the uninviting waves too. I was glad of my scarf!

Living, as we do, in town now, our ears are no longer assailed by sporadic gunfire as weekend hunters attempt to blast four-legged and feathered game into next Christmas. These sounds were a regular part of our soundtrack when we first arrived here as we lived further inland in a rural location. One spin-off from all the sound and the fury of the hunt at this time of the year is that many local restaurants (such Oppoca at Ainhoa) start featuring game on their Autumn menus - wild boar, venison, wood pigeon, hare etc. Say no more! (I've mentioned this before - those without very long memories can re-read it here)

Don't misunderstand me - I'm always on the side of the hunted. This (above) looks like a fair fight to me. I've always viewed hunting with a rifle or a shotgun as an unfair contest - but if game has been killed, then I do enjoy eating it. 

27th October. One from 1977 and sounding as fresh as ever:

26th October. At last, the voice of reason - and coming from a surprising quarter too - the German Parliament. I wouldn't argue with a word of Dr Weidel's speech. However, she's a member of the AfD Party - founded in 2013 and now the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. Its policies have tapped into some understandable resentment against the EU - and what it's brought Germany. Unfortunately, so far the anti-EU rhetoric has only emerged from the far Right - there seems to be no cross party support for its policies in the way that UKIP managed in the UK a couple of years ago. And the far Right in Germany includes some strange bedfellows with their demands reminiscent of darker days.. Still, with this speech to the Bundestag, I think she nailed it:
Just had a surprise visit from a large, leather-jacketed policeman while Madame was out at the shops. And no, he wasn't selling calendars! He was a friendly individual and his visit was in connection with my ongoing request for French citizenship.. I think it was in the nature of a 'belt and braces' confirmation that - despite the myriad documents and photocopies I've submitted that certify chapter and verse that I am who I say I am, and that I actually exist as described - that yes, Pipérade is alive and well and living in Bayonne. He asked me to confirm a few basic points - all in French - and then he went off quite happy. (I think!)

Been busy painting garage doors, pruning trees and preparing the garden for winter - quite a few trips to the déchetterie (tip) with sacks of rubbish - as well as covering up the table, & cleaning the plancha and lugging it to the garage.

In recent years, there seems to have been some kind of annual competition for being the first presenter in the televised media to sport a Remembrance Day poppy.. an "I'm more virtuous than you are" thing. I saw the first poppy of 2018 yesterday on Sky TV. This race to be the first signifies what? Remembrance Day should not be an occasion for mindless presenters to display their political correctness. To a simple soul like me, the day for wearing a poppy - and meaning it - is 11th November. Not before and not after. It appears that the poppy has been 'politicised' - at least, according to the BBC (who else) in its guide to the humble poppy..

19th October. I mentioned Shawn James here a few weeks ago - he's a resourceful character who built his own log cabin out in the Canadian wilderness - and I thought I'd put up a couple of his videos that are, to me at least, compulsive viewing. He summed up his philosophy of life on his website thus:

“The problem is you think you have time. The hours have a way of turning into days, the days into weeks, the weeks into years and the years into a lifetime. How different would your life and your memories be today, ten years later, if you had done that?!”

There's also a quote from Mark Twain there as well:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mine could be summed up as:

 ".. the more we put into our lives, the better we feel." 

I've long been of the opinion that our "stuff" expands to fit the space available - and then some! The reality is that we don't need more than a fraction of all our accumulated possessions to live a happy and contented life. And watching these videos puts all the hot air and tension of Brussels into perspective. He has an enviable lifestyle.. (and I like his dog!)

  

18th October. For those Brits whose stomachs churn (and knees jerk) at the financial excesses of the EU - knowing that UK taxpayers contribute 12½% of the EU budget - I wouldn't recommend that you click on this link. The unchallenged corruption that seems to be endemic in the EU goes straight to the heart of why so many voted to Leave.

17th October. I've been following Adrian Holovaty's YouTube channel for some time. He's a gifted player and he's transcribed many great songs for guitar. See what you think:

16th October. There's been some massive flooding in the Aude (at the other end of the Pyrenees) where 18cm (7 inches) of rain - equivalent to 3 months rainfall - fell in the early hours of Monday morning - one village was flooded to a depth of over 6 metres (20 feet) and some unfortunate people were drowned in their own homes. It doesn't bear thinking about. Altogether there have been 11 confirmed deaths with possibly more to follow.

I've tried to keep this blog as free as possible (as much as I'm able) from discussions on the merits or otherwise of Brexit and the associated negotiations but the events of the last few days have brought the EU's negotiating strategy into sharp focus.

From the outset, they selected the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as the schwerpunkt for making the exit talks with the UK as unhelpful and obstructive as possible (while I'm being polite here, part of me wants to reach for a baseball bat!). I think it's fairly obvious why they're doing so - it's pour décourager les autres and also to ensure that whatever outcome emerges from the exit talks, it will not be in any way advantageous for the UK in comparison to its present position as an EU member state. Depending upon your point of view, you may or may not think that they're being reasonable.

Here's an extract from a think-piece by Dr Sheila Lawlor that neatly encapsulates the situation:

To anyone reflecting on the many thousands of miles of borders between the EU and 19 third countries, the fact that the Irish border has prompted so much political frenzy may seem bizarre: other EU borders are with a variety of third countries, including a motley  collection of states – dictatorships and lands racked by armed struggles, or used as transit points for mass immigration, or for smuggling and the slave trade. By contrast, the Irish border divides two peaceful, democratic neighbours, sharing a common law tradition and the closest ties of culture, history and economy, living in harmony and mutual self-interest and with the Belfast Agreement a matter of practical cooperation – an agreement it should be noted to which the EU was not a signatory.

You can read another paper by Dr Lawlor - "Ruling the Ruler - Parliament, the People and Britain's Political Identity" here.

I think the only winners out of Brexit are those endless political talk shows and commentators who get paid small fortunes to speculate about the speculation. I've had to become very selective about who I listen to these days - otherwise my knuckles would be white all day!

 

13th October. I don't think I've mentioned this before but, for finishing off a meal on a warm evening, it doesn't get much better than pouring a splash of limoncello over some lemon sorbet. You'll thank me for this! We'll explore the delights of a Sgroppino in another post.

10th October. More info for expats potentially affected by Brexit here.

Every now and again, when listening to a conversation in French, I'll pick up an unexpected combination of words that makes me realise that I've just heard a new idiom. So it was when we bumped into a friend in town yesterday and we stopped off in a café for a chat. In the midst of some rapid fire French, our friend said: ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard.. I thought whoa there! I've got to find out what that means. 

I asked what it meant literally and what the meaning was. The literal meaning is: that doesn't break three feet of a duck. I was still none the wiser - so I asked what the meaning was. Apparently it means that whatever the subject of the phrase was - it was nothing special. The thinking behind it being that as ducks have only two feet, it would take someone or something truly exceptional to break three. Another mystery solved! ☺

9th October. Looking at the blog hit counter, I see that we're fast approaching 75,000 hits. I remember the early days when getting those first 100 seemed like an impossible achievement! Many thanks to all those of you (OK, both of you!) who have stayed the course!

We'll be making a trip up into the Vallée des Aldudes (here) before too long to see the spectacular autumn colours. The valley extends into Navarre like a blunt finger. Might just stop off at the Auberge Hotel Restaurant Saint Sylvestre while we're up there.

This will give you an idea of what's in store:

 Merci à Mariano pour ce diaporama magnifiquement réalisé

In the absence of any real news, the chattering classes often try to occupy themselves, and distract us, by urging us to adopt the latest 'de-stressing' lifestyles. Their latest attempt is based on yet another fad that's emerged from Scandinavia - we've had koselig from Norway, hygge from Denmark - to which (according to these under-worked journalists) the Swedes responded with lagom - and now it seems we're supposed to copy the Finns and get completely kalsarikänni - or 'pantsdrunk' - at home. Apparently we have to "find our most comfortable underwear – the really holey ones where we’ve forgotten their original colour. Perhaps invest in some wool socks, too. Pantsdrunk is not about getting wasted". This drivel is what you end up being paid to write if you read Media Studies at Uni.

Rest easy - you'll be pleased to know that I won't be illustrating these pages with graphic examples of your correspondent in the Pays Basque getting pantsdrunk! (not that I do that these days) 

8th October. This song - Vivere - is one I often heard while I was working in Italy in the mid-90s. The singers are Andrea Bocelli and Gerardina Trovato:

7th October. The weather is definitely autumnal now - down at the beach this morning, the sea was slate grey and the first hundred metres or so were covered in foam as a blustery onshore wind whipped up the surface. Out to sea, the horizon was dark with showers and so I curtailed the dog's usual walk. Here's a live web cam that shows what Biarritz looks like right now (ignore the annoying advert - it doesn't last long).

We spent the rest of the day lurking indoors as rain lashed down intermittently..

Well, it looks like I (and other British expats in France) won't have to fear the squeal of brakes as a Citroën Traction Avant pulls up outside the house at 3am in the near future. Nathalie Loiseau - France's high flying and impressively qualified Europe Minister (and mother of 4!) - put forward a bill last Wednesday that will unilaterally guarantee the rights of British citizens living in France, who would otherwise immediately become illegal migrants in the event of a no-deal Brexit when their EU citizenship is revoked on 29 March 2019. Personally, I always found that particular 'Project Fear' scenario highly unlikely - but, as I've mentioned here previously, I decided a good while ago that a "belt and braces" approach (applying for dual nationality) would be a wise move if EU expats were ever to be used as political pawns following a breakdown in relations between the EU and the UK.

From the noises coming out of Brussels during the last day or two, it's starting to sound as though someone is paving the way for a soon-to-be-announced rapprochement with the UK over the Brexit negotiations. I think the onward march of the calendar plus the prospect that the UK's £39bn might evaporate from the EU's balance sheets (if there's 'no deal') has started to focus a few minds on the political and economic realities. I hope so, at any rate. The Irish border question has always been nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by the EU to put a stick in the UK's spokes. Meanwhile:

5th October. We had some English friends over today from L'Isle-Jourdain in the Gers where they have a second home. They were staying here at Hotel Ur Hegian (right on the Franco-Spanish border) and so I thought I'd take them for lunch via a spectacular route up and up into the high country via some steeply winding single track lanes. We ended up at Venta Burkaitz (here - find it and win a prize!). We found a shady spot outside as it was 29° and blue, blue skies. We all had the same menu - river trout, followed by suckling pig, and then various desserts and coffee.. As we were just inside Spain, it seemed only right that we handed out some gratuitous punishment to a bottle of Rioja. Thus primed, we then set about solving the more pressing political problems of the day. No problem too challenging!

4th October. I was up in the loft earlier fitting a new filter to a dehumidifier gizmo we have up there that pumps dry air into the house - it's one of those fiddly jobs that you just don't have enough hands for. Anyway, between me cursing under my breath as I tried to tighten some screws in the dark while trying to hold on to a ladder at the same time, this memorable scene from "Manhattan" came to mind. I think it's Zubin Mehta and the lush strings of the NY Philharmonic.

2nd October. Out on my ebike this afternoon - along the banks of the Adour until we hit the coast - then a left turn on to the Boulevard des Plages to parallel the coast all the way down to Biarritz where I stopped off at Kostaldea (right) for a cappuccino and to take in the uninterrupted view of the sea. I've been driving past this place for several years now but this was the first time I had occasion to stop there. It won't be the last.

It's usually packed during the season, but today - now that we're in October - there were just a few tables occupied. The way down there is mainly via cycle tracks - which suits me fine - and it was a real pleasure to be out and about in perfect weather - temps in the low 20s (I'm guessing) and low humidity - under the maritime pines with the heat of the sun releasing the smell of the needles.

We were saddened yesterday to hear of the passing of Charles Aznavour - at the ripe old age of 94. There was a time when he appeared regularly on British TV screens and and it was fashionable among the chatterati to mock him. This at a time when he had no competition in the UK (unless you count the late Matt Munro or the dire and equally late Max Bygraves).

Aznavour was an authentic performer, he loved singing to an audience and he'd just returned from giving a concert in Japan. He left school aged 9 and subsequently taught himself at least 5 languages and he could sing in 9. He reportedly wrote over 1200 songs and recorded 91 albums. What a work ethic..! Here's a favourite I remember hearing back in the sixties..

Out of all his songs, this was the one that did it for me - I wouldn't change a word: