96. Distant snow

11th November 2010. Now that the monsoon of the last 3-4 days appears to have blown itself out, we decided to nip across the border to Irun this morning for some shopping.. On the return journey, I was looking across at the Pyrenees and through a gap in the nearest hills I could see through to some more distant ones. To my surprise, the sun was shining like a spotlight through a break in the cloud onto a snow-covered peak..   

Question du Jour: What's Velcro^® known as in French..? (Answer at foot of post) (and no - it's not Velcreau..!)

Cheese - good or bad for you? An article in the New York Times sparked off this report from a US TV channel that attempts to link excessive cheese consumption with obesity and to score a political point in so doing. According to these figures (below), Greece is the top of the heap with France second. Yet strangely enough, contrary to the conclusion that might be drawn from the US report, neither Greece nor France are awash with wobbling blimps. In fact, it's a very rare event to see anyone overweight - let alone obese - waddling through the streets here in France. And - this will get me into trouble but it's true - those I have seen have usually had English accents.

I think obesity is less to do with 'excessive' cheese consumption and everything to do with a sedentary 'couch-potato' lifestyle, over-sized portions, snacking between meals and an excessive intake of processed foods high in additives such as sugars and salt - but then I'm not a doctor.

And so to Woody Allen - here he is with his thoughts on what makes life worth living (from "Manhattan")..

I like the moment in this scene (at 02:23) when the penny finally drops with him.. (been there..)

What would be on your list? Your answers welcomed.

12th November 2010. I found this clip on YouTube of the sea at Biarritz today..

13th November 2010. Last Saturday morning, the river was the lowest I've ever seen it and we had rain showers - just to stop us getting bored..! I usually row on Saturday mornings and Tuesday & Thursday evenings. Last Tuesday, the Pays Basque was being lashed by continuous rain and Thursday was a national holiday (Armistice Day) so today was my first outing for a week. It was the opposite of last Saturday.. it was warm - I'm guessing 16°C - under a burning blue cloudless sky, the river was full to the brim and static - it must have been high tide. We did 13km in a coxless quad sculler. (running total = 321km)

To St Jean de Luz this afternoon - the car was registering 23.5°C (74°F) and it was like a summer's day down there - people on the beach, swimmers, surfers, people messing about in boats, queues for ice creams (!)..

I've been thinking about the Woody Allen question and one item that would definitely make my list of things that make life worth living (apart from my dearly beloved, natch!) is a Vacherin Mont d'Or cheese.. Known as Vacherin Mont d'Or in Switzerland or Mont d'Or in France, it's a seasonal cheese normally only available in the winter months.

A Mont d'Or cheese (the French version)

 

Baked Vacherin

There are also many recipes for baked Vacherin (I've not tried it baked).. and this one looks interesting.. What to drink with it..? This cheese can take a big wine and, personally, I'd earmark my best bottle of red for this cheese. (Something like a Pessac-Léognan or a Saint-Julien (this is a great red - but it would benefit from being laid down for a few years), or, if your taste leans more towards the Rhônes, a Gigondas or a Côte Rôtie) (It's once a year so don't worry about the price - you're a long time dead..) If Madame asks you what you'd like for Christmas, now you know! That is - if you haven't got one of these handy doo-hickeys on the right!

Highlight of the weekend? No question.. England vs Australia at Twickenham..

What a try by Ashton and what a terrific team performance! Roll on the Six Nations..

Answer: Scratch.

95. T'was a dark and stormy night..

9th November 2010. It's been wet & windy for the last few days - and according to the forecast we're due more of the same today and tomorrow.

There was a tragic accident at St Jean de Luz on Sunday - a young kite surfer was lifted up and carried away off the beach by an exceptionally strong gust of wind up to the top of a 7 storey apartment block from where he fell to his death. 

I was just flicking through YouTube looking for clips of storms at Saint-Jean-de-Luz when I came across this one.. It's not Saint-Jean-de-Luz though. Life has clearly lost its thrill for these two.. (ignore the first 28 seconds) 

The sea front was covered with dense foam banks:

Well, after that review of a damp few days down here in the Pays Basque, what else could I offer you but:

There are a few places I mean to visit in the coming months: the fromagerie Iraty at Mendive, the écomusée de Marquèze at Sabres and the chocolaterie Puyodebat at Cambo.

Regular readers (you can be helped..) will have guessed by now that I'm a Woody Allen fan. Here's one of the more memorable scenes from "Manhattan" - in less than a minute he wraps up the key elements in his personality: his eternal romanticism, his love of New York and the great American standards - in this case, the lush strings of the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta with George Gershwin's 1926 classic "Someone to watch over me":

I must be getting old.. I find I can listen to Ol' Blue Eyes nowadays without wanting to reach for the 'off' button.. which is something of a 'first' for me..

Also - by the standards of any era - Ava Gardner was/is stunningly beautiful. 

Note to self: why has it taken me so long to realise this?

53. Hemingway & the Pays Basque

30th March 2010. The Hemingway persona/myth continues to fascinate as each succeeding generation discovers the man and his work anew. One of the preoccupations of youth has always been the conspicuous consumption of alcohol and in picking Hemingway as a role model, they're never in any danger of being disappointed on that score. That he carried on his youthful heavy drinking all through his adult life during which he drove ambulances on the Italian front in WW1, skied in the Alps, shot big game in Africa, fished the Gulf Stream, followed bullfights, served as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and WWII, became a serial husband and, to pay the bills, worked as a journalist and, in his novels, produced some of the greatest writing of the 20th century - only serves to lend credence to, and perhaps legitimise, his legendary love affair with the one mistress he stayed faithful to all his life - alcohol.

In the course of a colourful life lived to the full, he left an indelible imprint in several locations scattered around the fringes of the western world. It could be argued that he rode the first wave of global tourism. There must be as many blue plaques in bars around the world indicating that Ernest Hemingway ate or drank here (usually the latter) as there are inns in the UK claiming that Mary, Queen of Scots, slept there. I must admit I envy him for having been able to experience Italy, France, Spain, East Africa, Key West and Cuba before tourism marked them irreparably. Yes, he's a flawed figure and one who's easy to mock or parody - but there's no denying the fact that he wrote much beautiful prose and despite living a hunting, shooting, fishing, drinking, womanising life with a tendency to self-aggrandisement, he remains a fascinatingly charismatic figure. Paris continues to attract young Americans who go there hoping to write the great American novel. Hemingway put down markers that seem impossibly out of reach.

The Pays Basque and Spain frequently figured in EH's body of work as well as in his personal life. He left America in the early 1920s to take up residence in Paris, from where he travelled to Pamplona via the Pays Basque for the now-legendary running of the bulls during the feast of San Fermin. This must have been a fairly obscure event in a dusty corner of Europe at the time when Hemingway visited it.

   

Nowadays, the running of the bulls has morphed into an international rite of passage for thousands of young men from many nations and also for more than a few older ones who are seeking to re-capture their lost youth. For Hemingway though, this was a life-changing experience and he immortalised it in his first best-selling novel The Sun Also Rises. It describes how the relationships within a group of expat Americans and Brits change during the alcohol-fuelled week of the San Fermin festival against a background of bull fighting. Jake is the narrator and clearly speaks with Hemingway's voice. After a memorable week, Jake finishes up in Madrid having lunch with Lady Brett - where Hemingway has Jake polishing off 5 bottles of Rioja (as you do!).

Hemingway arrived in Bayonne by train from Paris to catch his first sight of the Pays Basque. Arriving in Bayonne on a summer's night after a long hot train journey from Paris, I would think his first priority after crossing the bridge over the Adour to find a hotel in the old centre of Bayonne would have been to find the nearest bar - of which there is no shortage - for a cold beer or two. Having grown up (in Prohibition America) in the leafy suburbs of staid Oak Park, a wealthy suburb of Chicago, he must have been excited at the thought of what lay ahead.

He travelled on through the Basque country to Pamplona but always returned to the coast - San Sebastian, Hendaye, St Jean de Luz or Biarritz. Much later in life (in 1959) he was commissioned to write one last time about a summer of bullfighting in Spain. He recruited a young American woman as his secretary and she wrote that:

"On the trips we took to France Hemingway carried the manuscript of the novel with him. In late August we went to Dax to see Antonio fight. We stayed at the Chantaco Hotel in St. Jean de Luz and ate at the Bar Basque."

The  Hotel Chantaco (just outside St Jean de Luz) remains the same fine & grand establishment that it surely was 50 years ago:

Hotel de Chantaco

I suspect that EH would have been far more at home in the unpretentious Bar Basque in the Boulevard Thiers, Saint-Jean-de Luz. Well situated in a leafy boulevard, the Bar Basque is a 'clean, well-lighted place' and somewhere that's very pleasant indeed to sit with a late drink (or 3) under the platanes on a summer's evening and watch the world go by.

Bar Basque

This week's freebie - Papa's grand-daughter Mariel playing opposite Woody Allen in the great closing scene of "Manhattan", with Gershwin pulling it all together. I like the moment when the penny drops for Woody at 02:23.. (we've all been there..)

Finally, still on the Hemingway theme of this week's post, here's Paolo Conte with his "Hemingway":

I cut and pasted the Italian lyrics into Babelfish and this popped out the other end! I'm none the wiser..

Beyond the dolcezze dell Harrys Bar

And the tendernesses of Zanzibar wax questra road

Beyond the illusions of Timbuctoo

And the long legs of Babal wax this road

Quetsa road zitta that it flies via like a butterfly,

Nostalgia, nostalgia to the taste of curaçao

Perhaps a day better me spiegher

Et alors, Monsieur Hemingway, to it goes?

Et alors, Monsieur Hemingway, to it goes mieux?

Well I hope that's answered any questions you may have had!

Wish I'd said this:  "Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."

One for the road:

"Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you?"                                                  

                                         Ernest Hemingway

39. Back at the ranch

16th January 2010. That sound you can hear is the last of the dust settling following Christmas and New Year.. We’re now back to our old routine.. no more champagne to drink, no more foie gras or galettes to eat. The trouble was that we stayed with 4 sets of friends in 9 days in and around Paris and each time we arrived at a new temporary 'home', the fatted calf would be killed anew and more bottles would be opened, with the result that when we finally returned home on New Years Day we were both feeling just that little bit jaded and desperately wanting to eat lightly for a few days.

That resolution lasted only 5 minutes once we got home.. because it was 5 minutes after opening the front door that I thought to check our mail box. The facteur (postman) has a master key to it and this explains how a fully formed Christmas Pudding (a kind thought from a friend in England) was found to be lurking in there.. along with all the other mail. Yes, a Christmas pudding - the one thing I hadn’t eaten over Christmas! So it was on the following Sunday that we nobly sacrificed ourselves to appease Ye Olde English Christmas Pudding Gods. The pudding was heated, hot brandy poured over it (“we have ignition..!”) and all conversation ceased for a few glorious minutes.. As always, the French have an apt expression for this moment: "Un ange passe". All was well with the world again. We retired early with snoring high on the agenda..

I could have done with this diagram on Christmas Eve - not having worn a tie for months!

Looking back over the holidays, I remember feeling 'hard done by' on Christmas Day.. With it being France, we had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve with O - Madame's brother - and F - his wife - and their family.. and it was excellent indeed. O knows his wine too and he offered us a wonderful Bordeaux.. The following day at 3pm, we sat down to a light lunch as we were going to be eating for Queen & Country later in the evening. This is where the mind can play terrible tricks.. I remember thinking that, at that very moment, upwards of 10 million sizzling golden brown roast turkeys were sliding out of ovens all over Britain. The fact that we’d dined like kings the night before was temporarily forgotten. As I said, it was just a passing thought born out of years of conditioning. What was it that Hemingway said about Christmas? - that "you don't know what Christmas is until you lose it in some foreign land". There is some truth in that. Although we'd eaten royally (or should that be republicanly if there is such a word?) on Christmas Eve, I did feel a sense of seasonal deprivation on Christmas Day in the Vittles Department, if only for a few moments.

Earlier on Christmas Day, we'd gone with F to the outdoor market in nearby Saint-Germain-en-Laye which to my complete surprise was open and busy. Quite a few shops were open as well. This is a manicured little town (now effectively an outer suburb of Paris) that is clearly a very desirable place to hang one's chapeau.

On Boxing Day, we’d been invited to F's sister in the afternoon. They live in the 9th arrondissement in Paris in one of those old apartment blocks that always look so inviting. Entering Paris from the north (Porte de la Chapelle) and driving through an ‘ethnic’ part of Paris, you could have been forgiven for thinking that we were in downtown Baghdad. We fought our way through the traffic and arrived at the address (just north of Pigalle). It was such a stylish flat with its polished parquet floors with decorative moulding on the walls and ceilings. Following hard on the heels of another outbreak of handshakes and cheek kissing all round on arrival, there was the unmistakeable sound of champagne corks being popped.. (again!)

More delights followed in the form of those little multi-coloured ‘macarons’ and other chocolatey nibbles. We had to leave fairly soon afterwards as we were expected at A’s, our second ‘home’ for the next couple of days in La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, on the south east edge of Paris on the banks of the River Marne. 

I thought I’d trust the GPS to guide us through Paris – big mistake! We ended up stuck in heavy traffic before emerging to graze Boulevard Haussmann just at the point where the major department stores Galeries Lafayette and Printemps (left) are located. Fortunately, the chosen route led us away around La Madeleine (right) and then from there, an unexpected bonus, along the expressway along the banks of the Seine with its stunning views across to the Left Bank. It lifted our spirits to see again the city we love, the city that's full of memories for us. And, in the slanting late afternoon light, it really did look like what it is - the most beautiful city in the world. (OK, who's the comedian who said "After Birkenhead.."?)

With A, we walked along the banks of the Marne, lined with trophy houses, including the one where Charles Trénet’s mother lived. If you don’t know Charles Trénet (shame on you!), he wrote & recorded “La Mer” in 1946 - well before Bobby Darin’s English version came out in 1960. (Wait for it... "Who's Bobby Darin..?")

We walked down to A’s local market and I must say that I’ve not seen a better one. Food markets in the Pays Basque are very regional & very Basque with few, if any, outside influences. In genteel St-Maur, with it being Paris, all tastes and regions of France were represented and catered for and the meat, poultry, cheese and fish stands were a real treat for the eyes. A’s 2 sons were visiting – the elder being Madame’s godson – and we enjoyed catching up with them.

After a couple of days with A, we moved back into central Paris to stay with N – Madame’s copine of old – and A, who live in the 11th in a chic top floor flat with a terrace, not far from the Place de la Bastille. This is a lively area, full of arty workshops and designers who’ve been allowed by the Ville de Paris to establish themselves in the curved spaces beneath a long viaduct. We walked along this fascinating row of avant-garde ateliers (workshops), studios and galleries heading for the Place Bastille and then to the Place des Vosges (above & right) in the Marais. We walked around the square in the cover of the galleries before stopping for a hot wine to keep the cold at bay. We sat outside a café under a heater and gradually warmed up. This is one of our favourite places in Paris for many reasons and we always find ourselves homing in on this particular spot. Chekhov said it best: "The golden moments pass, and leave no trace."

I make no apologies for this next one - one of the greatest songs ever written:

 

The next day, we had a tasty lunch at a local Chinese restaurant in the 11th before leaving Chibby (our golden cocker spaniel) with N & A (as dogs aren’t allowed in the Métro) while we went off for a walk up the Champs Elysées. Privately we were already starting to miss the sea air of the Pays Basque and the sea side. 

When I first set foot in the Champs Elysées in the mid-sixties, it - and Milan - were undeniably the style capitals of the world and the ne plus ultra of luxury shopping in western Europe. The broad pavements were also the territory of some spectacularly beautiful nanas, either cruising or stepping hither and thither from one luxury shop to the next. 

Over the years, the general malaise in the standards of western society saw a decline in the fortunes of these emporia for the excessively wealthy as street fashion now largely dominates the pavements. When we were there, it seemed that every man and his dog was out there walking up and down – and many of them were in baggy jeans and back-to-front (ooh trendy) baseball caps. And to crown it all, white painted Christmas market stalls selling imported tat had been set up lower down the grand Avenue. I never thought I'd live to see it. I'd've thought anywhere but here. We walked past the Drugstore (above left) at the top of the Champs Elysées. This is the Drugstore in its current incarnation (right) – OK for the fairground at Southend perhaps but at the top end of the Champs Elysées..? I'd call it council-sponsored vandalism. In Paris, the lunatics are now officially running the asylum. We decided we'd escape the madding crowd and so we circumnavigated the Arc de Triomphe and it was with a great sense of relief we headed off down into the tranquillity of the Avenue Victor Hugo in the 16th. This was a different world.

At one point I spotted a stylish restaurant across the road and I realised I was looking at Prunier – the classic seafood restaurant of Paris that dates waay back. I think it’s fair to say that its heyday was probably in the Golden Age but I’d still give my right arm to have lunch there.

I found myself standing outside a shop for gents like wot I am and, looking in the window, I saw quite a few things I liked. Stepping inside, Madame said I was looking for a jacket. After a single practised look at me, the owner reached into a rail of jackets, selected one and held it open for me to try. It fitted as though made for me. I don’t think we spent more than 10 minutes inside the shop. My kind of shopping!

We went into a few shops looking for things for Madame but without much luck.

This area of Paris is almost like a village – only a few minutes walk from the Arc de Triomphe but a haven of peace and calm. I shudder to think what an apartment there would cost.. As the old saying has it: if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. And with that, with night fast approaching, we headed back to N & A’s.

You’ll have to look elsewhere to find out how Johnny (Halliday) is doing.. he’s been headline news for weeks now in France with a near-death experience in Los Angeles due to medical complications arising from an 'op' he'd had in Paris. And then there was the Euro-tunnel fiasco with trains marooned for hours. I didn’t see an English newspaper but I’m sure that more than one of the tabloids would have been unable to resist that old headline: “Tunnel shut-down; Continent isolated..”

To round off our stay in Paris, here’s the incomparable Yves Montand singing Les Feuilles Mortes.. (Autumn leaves in the English version). Enjoy..

  

Places to go? An ideal day would start with an 'apero' (aka attitude adjuster, bracer, snifter, heart starter..) at Au Franc Pinot on the Ile St-Louis before walking to the Taverne Henri IV (13 Place du Pont Neuf) for a light lunch. Try their rillettes de canard (right) with some crusty bread and a glass (or two) of Madiran. In the afternoon, head across to the Place des Vosges area for a mooch around the galleries, cafes and shops various before dinner at Bofinger, just off Place de la Bastille. This is the oldest brasserie in Paris and you may need to book. Tip: ask (demand!) to be seated downstairs under the dome. Try their excellent fixed price 3 course menu - which used to include wine. (It was the equivalent of £18 for years - menus here) After that, stroll down to the Latin Quarter for a rhum or two at the Rhumerie. There's always the Slow Club to finish off with..

Aide memoire!
Start: Au Franc Pinot. 1, Quai de Bourbon. (A while since I was last here - heard it had closed - now believed to have re-opened. Might be worth one visit)

Lunch (or a long afternoon!): Taverne Henri IV.
Dinner: Bofinger.
Drinks after: Rhumerie.
Finish: Slow Club. You're on your own now..!

It occurred to me the other day that Woody Allen nailed the essence of New York with the opening credits of his film "Manhattan" - the marriage of images and music (courtesy of George Gershwin) has never been bettered. Has something similar ever been done for Paris? And if not, why not? Here's a reminder:

Edited to add: Woody Allen put together some great images of Paris to open his 2011 film 'Midnight in Paris'. Well worth enjoying if you haven't seen it.   

Three down, one to go..! Our final stop before returning home was at Tours but we thought we’d go via the cemetery at Chartres – to pay our respects to Madame’s father & mother. The family grave is well situated in a beautifully maintained cemetery with a splendid view of the great cathedral which soars up to dominate the landscape for many miles around. It’s not a sad place - it’s not overgrown with moss or ivy – and as a final resting place it’s hard to think of one better.

We had a problem when it came to leave Chartres in that it seemed to be in a ‘black hole’ as far as the GPS was concerned! Unable to get a signal, we battled our way around the tangled inner parts of the town which were already starting to clog up with the early evening traffic. I think it took us a good 30 minutes to leave Chartres behind and get established on the road for Tours where fortunately the GPS kicked in once again. The temperature was just above freezing and as we approached Tours I could see a classic “line squall” developing fast out to the west. One half of the sky was black as pitch while the other was a benign early evening blue. Suddenly, there was a deluge of rain and gusts of wind - the noise in the car was deafening and all road markings disappeared. The sheer volume of water that came down was astonishing but gradually it tailed off and we breathed a sigh of relief.

At Tours, we stayed with our good friends J-M and M. Two years earlier we’d broken our journey with them overnight on the way south when we moved down from England. It was lovely to see them again and on New Year’s Eve, we took a walk along the Loire on a bright but bitterly cold afternoon. He’d bought his boys a Wii thing, a Beatles program with a couple of ‘modded’ guitars but he was suspiciously well practised at playing along with the Beatles..!! All too soon it was New Year’s day and time to leave again and head south.

The wintry weather we’d had in Paris extended as far south as Tours and we were both feeling the cold. As we drove south towards the Pays Basque though, we saw the first breaks in the cloud and before long we were under a cloudless sky and the temperatures started to rise.

And when we finally turned off the autoroute at Bayonne and crossed the familiar bridge over the Adour, it seemed like we hadn’t been away. Beautiful, grand and invigorating though Paris is, we were glad to be back home in the south west, in the Pays Basque.

It struck me in the wee small hours this morning that I haven’t really said much about the ‘gastronomique’ specialities of the Pays Basque. In my view, it’s a significant part of what makes this corner of France so special.

Speaking of which:

1. Moving to the Pays Basque - the countdown

Tuesday, 1st September 2009. I realised this morning that it's two years to the day since Madame and I finally moved to the Basque country. However, before you start scrolling down the page in a frenzy of excitement, I think I should start off by telling you a little about us. We met in the sixties when the French Ministry of Education dispatched Madame to the North of England (to a city not generally associated with a fine English accent) as a French 'assistante' for a year to improve her English as part of her English degree course – thus proving that they do have a surreal sense of humour. Madame's father had his roots in the Pays Basque and it was an area we'd always been keen to visit together. We had our first holiday there shortly after we married and the place fitted us like an old pair of shoes.

We took to the region so much that we started planning our next visit in the car at the very moment we left it to return to England. It sounds hard to believe but it truly is difficult to think of any one thing about the Pays Basque that we dislike. And each year when we would pull into 'our' village for the first time after that long drive from the north, it was like coming home. But don't just take my word for it - here's Orson Welles in a 6 part travelogue he made in 1955:

After taking early retirement from the military in the late 90s, we moved to a village in bosky Herefordshire where Madame and I shared a black and white cottage with two cocker spaniels (or was it the other way around!). For the final sprint to the finish - the last eight years – Madame taught in a local school while I worked as a defence consultant. My work was enlivened by regular trips to Stockholm – cool in summer, dark and arctic in winter - which convinced me more than ever that the Pays Basque was the answer. While we both greatly enjoyed this penultimate chapter very much, the clock was definitely ticking and the time was fast approaching when we could finally retire and live out our dream of living in south west France.

I kept a diary for the first few months after we'd moved here and what follows is a more or less chronological account - interspersed with the occasional rant..!

After leaving our cottage in Herefordshire for the last time in late August 2007, we drove down to Hythe, just outside Folkestone, for an overnight stop in a Bed & Breakfast. This was a fairly depressing experience. A quote from Woody Allen springs to mind - he was winding up an after dinner speech somewhere when he said that he always liked to end on a positive message but in this instance he found it difficult. He asked his audience if they’d accept two negative messages instead? So here goes:

If you’ve ever read (and laughed till you had to look away from the page) Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island, then you’ll understand perfectly if I said that our B&B in Hythe appeared to be run by a close relative of his fabled Mrs Smegma, Bill's landlady in Dover. It was a perfect 1950s time warp - and our landlady provided food with a lavishness that suggested that she thought rationing had just been re-imposed.

Looking around, you could be forgiven for thinking that Hythe was 50 miles inland rather than sat squarely on the English Channel coast. There were no seafood restaurants, cafes or terraces overlooking the Channel and most of the town had all the concrete charms of a NCP car park. Or so it seemed. And walking along the sea-front in the evening, I couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast between the bleak English interpretation of sea-side as portrayed in Hythe compared to the exuberance of votre actuel French version that lay just a few miles away across the pewter-grey cold waters of the English Channel...

And with these two cheerful thoughts neatly counter-balancing our excitement at finally being on the move, we called it a night.

We'd rented a gîte on a rolling contract which would serve as a base until we found our home. We left England via the Channel Tunnel in a hired Transit van containing all the things we’d need for a prolonged stay in the gîte – clothes for all seasons, bottles, a computer and a multi-function printer/copier/scanner/fax machine (later to be worth its weight in gold), various food items, a handful of CDs and a tie. Everything else had gone into storage (including, by mistake, the camera). Chibby, our golden cocker, had ceased caring at this point as his tranquillisers took effect. This was to be a long trip for him and he lay on the front seat between us looking as mournful as only a spaniel can.

It felt unreal and strange to be finally on our way after thinking about it for so long. We felt like a couple of gypsies with a van-load of possessions on our back and, the real kicker, without a home in France to call our own or to return to in England in the event that it all turned to worms.

We had no idea how long it would take us to find our house in the Pays Basque - or if we could find one at all. Madame thought that we should prepare ourselves for up to 12 months in the gîte. I wish I’d known then that we were to be very pleasantly surprised.

Remember those WW2 POWs who escaped from Colditz..? Once in England, they would send a postcard back to the castle announcing their ‘Home Run’. Think of this as a very long “Home Run” post card!