259. That's it, then.

29th September. Seems like Gary Larson was right on the money with this cartoon! (click on it to enlarge)

26th September. I heard this morning that the raft of plastic waste in the north Pacific - known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - is twice the size of France.. (don't worry, we're not being left behind - there's a North Atlantic Garbage Patch as well.)

This is a problem that's not going to go away and we can't ignore it. How to contact your elected politician? In the UK? In the US? In France? Please take the time to write to ask what action he/she is taking to address this global problem..

The Bellevue casino
as it was..

..and as it is today

We went to the Bellevue, the former casino of Biarritz, at midday to see the "Biarritz 1918 - 2018" exhibition - that was billed as featuring work by Picasso, among others. Look here for a glimpse of Biarritz in all its former splendour.

We both thought this exhibition was grossly overhyped - yes, there was his small - 12" x 9" - painting "Les baigneuses" (below) - but I'm afraid that was the only thing worth seeing. There were letters to Picasso and much (as in practically everything else!) that fell into "the Emperor's new clothes" category - but very little from the great man himself. For an alternative viewpoint, there's a review of the exhibition here. (translation in English)

Disappointed, we headed off to have lunch at Bar Jean.. a long-time favourite of ours next to the covered market - but it was their day for closing.. 

Not our day - so it was a day for pot luck.. We walked down to the Place Sainte-Eugenie and eased into Le Capri.. Madame had moules marinière followed by sardines while I had a pizza.  

25th September. We've been enjoying some wonderful September weather here for the last few weeks - blue skies, temperatures in the mid-twenties, lower humidity - but the clear skies have brought with them cooler evenings. So - this afternoon I stopped off to pick up some logs for the wood-burner we put in a couple of years ago. To be honest, I'm quite looking forward to the first time we light it this autumn.. it gives a real cosy atmosphere. It doesn't get much better than contemplating the flickering flames, suitably encouraged by a glass of you-know-what (above)! (I think this is known as hygge in Denmark)     

23rd September. There's been an exhibition running in Biarritz since 7th July (it finishes on 30th September) entitled "Biarritz 1918 2018" that we've been meaning to get to.. There's this Picasso "Les baigneuses' (right) and many others on display apparently. We thought we'd try today but on arrival in Biarritz earlier this afternoon we discovered that there was a braderie in progress.. This is when the shops have a clear out of all their 'old' stock.. with the pavements cluttered with clothes rails and whole areas of town are closed off. Of course, old stock to them means this season's.. I don't think I have anything that new! I'm proud to own many items of vintage clothing.. such as two Lacoste polo shirts I bought in the US in the mid-1980s! (now 30+ years old!) I like my old favourites and I have to say that shopping is waay down there on my list of things I like to do. So you can see that old and new depends on your perspective!

I've been busy with our annual Comète weekend which was last weekend - it involved a lot of unseen preparation work, then the long weekend itself, and then afterwards tying up all the loose ends. I'll post a few photos in a day or two.

Meanwhile, the mosquitoes have been busy here.. and it appears that they're very partial to a spot of rosbif! (namely me!) We've not been bothered much - if at all - by mossies in previous years but with the more or less continuous rain we had here for the first 5-6 months of the year, followed by bakingly hot temperatures and high humidity in July and August, it's been all the encouragement the little bleeders oops, blighters needed to breed in large numbers. From my knees down I've been trying hard to avoid scratching the maddeningly itchy bites - but every now and again, my resolve has weakened and I've been scratching myself like a demented chimp! My hands and arms are just as bad - and then there's my ears and neck. I've been spraying mossie repellent all over me, setting up anti-mossie plugs at night (right) but all to no avail. 

To more cheery subjects, this morning I was down at the beach with the dawg - and if you ever plan to visit the Pays Basque, this is the month for it. While May and June are relatively tourist-free, the sea is still cold and hence the weather can't be relied upon. July and August are best avoided if you can (just too many people) - but September is virtually guaranteed to be the ideal month to visit. The majority of families with children have returned home, the sea is warm and the weather is stable with temps usually in the mid 20s.

This was the beach at Anglet this morning - Biarritz is just the other side of the headland with the lighthouse, with the mountains of Spain in the distance:

Tempting - or what?

13th September. This is the first video in a series that describes how someone out in the Canadian wilderness built himself a log cabin.. It promises to be addictive! Let me know what you think of it.

He has all his videos listed here - so plenty more to choose from.

Our annual Comète weekend starts this evening.. Sadly it only comes around once a year.

Here's a song that speaks to me - especially the first couple of verses:

10th September. For those of us of a certain age, fifty years ago we'd all have been watching transfixed at the remarkable television coverage - often live - of NASA's Saturn V rockets, each just shy of 3000 tons, blasting off from Cape Canaveral as they headed for the moon on incandescent tongues of flame. The sheer scale and power of these rockets was hard to comprehend. Little did I think then that years later I would be lucky enough to visit Florida and see one of these giants (40-odd feet taller than Big Ben) close up. From JFK promising - in September 1962 -  in that unforgettable spine-tingling speech ("We choose to go to the Moon") where he announced America's intention to land an American on the moon by the end of the decade, this was a stupendously ambitious project and it was all conducted in the unforgiving spotlight of global media attention. The Apollo programme was surely the most remarkable engineering achievement in the history of Man - and it all worked perfectly.

8th September. I took Nutty to the "Naughty Boys Club" (aka Obedience class) this morning and he did so well, he's been upgraded to the next class up for slightly older dogs. The secret behind this sudden change of fortune was that I didn't give him his breakfast before we left. That ensured that he gave all the exercises his full attention (especially those that came with an edible reward!) - and he romped through them all in a near-faultless display. The girl who runs the class was impressed. I know better though! 

It's been a while since I've included a Basque choir - so without further ado, here's Oldarra - with their beautiful rendition of Agur Jaunak - a song of welcome.

If my dear old Mum was here, I'm sure she'd be saying that, in the interests of balance, I should include a Welsh male voice choir - so as I'm a quarter Welsh, who am I to argue! I grew up to the sound of her singing as she went around the house - and she loved Welsh choirs. I think there are quite a few similarities between Basque and Welsh male voice choirs. See what you think:

6th September. This song was the soundtrack to our early days and it's for all those who have had a long distance relationship - the interminable waiting at airports and windblown train stations, the hellos and the bittersweet goodbyes:

A few minutes ago I felt like reminding myself what it's like to row in a fast VIII.. and I found this clip on YouTube. I've never rowed six abreast in an VIIIs race, but looking at this video of the Olympic final of the Mens VIIIs in Rio, I can only begin to imagine the exhilaration in that British boat after the controlled fury of that thunderous start when they found themselves leading the race. All the pain of endless training - the early starts, the weights, the dieting, the rowing machines, the runs - would have disappeared in that one golden moment. Need I say it but it's best in full screen. The overhead view from the drone camera really does capture the spirit of that event.

3rd September. I was down at the beach at the Plage des Cavaliers, Anglet, this morning with Nutty for a quick run.. This is definitely September weather now - always the best month here. Most of the holidaymakers have gone and the weather has cooled down a notch or two. The blue green ocean was calm with impressive breakers forming just at the water's edge. Silver mist hung over the empty golden sands with the mountains just a faint blue line in the distance. Days like these remind me why we love this blessed part of the world and also the fact that we're lucky enough to be spending our retirement years here.

"Tally Ho"

2nd September. For the past few months I've been following the inspiring story of Leo Goolden, a resourceful young English boat builder, who has taken on an enormous restoration challenge: that of rebuilding "Tally Ho" - a 108 year old wooden yacht (right) that was teetering on the brink of total dereliction. He's rebuilding it in Sequim, WA, and he intends to sail it back to the UK once the mammoth task of restoration is complete. Looking at it, I would have said it was beyond economic repair. The story is being told via a series of short bite-sized YouTube videos - and if you're anything like me, you'll find them compulsive viewing. He seems completely undaunted by any of the challenges that the boat throws up at him - and believe me, there's no shortage of those. It seems that there's nothing that fazes Leo.. I tip my hat to him in total respect. 

If this project interests you but Washington State is a bit far away, then there's this traditional pilot cutter - all 68 feet of her - that's being built from scratch in Truro in the UK.

1st September. Had a good session with Nutty down at the dog training class this morning. I think there's a film waiting to be made here! Put 15 assorted dogs into a fenced off enclosure, let them loose and watch the fun develop! The girl who runs the class has one of these (left) - a Cane Corso Italiano - and, as you might expect, he's very well trained. He's a large gentle dog with an excellent temperament and he simply sits there watching the chaos developing all around him. If he wanted, he could sort out the 'bad lads' in a few seconds. But he's seen it all before and he occasionally shifts his position - but does little else. You'd need a large house for him to be comfortable. (It appears here that Nutty's not the only dog who eats pebbles!)   

As I write this, there's a bullfight in progress in the neighbourhood (5 minutes walk from here) - and occasionally I can hear the jeers and catcalls of the moronic crowd as a bull hasn't read the script and doesn't die as he should. Ugh.. How people can watch the spectacle of 6 bulls being dispatched in this manner - for their entertainment - is beyond me. I believe there's another corrida tomorrow too. Instead of fiddling about with summer time, Juncker and his unelected cronies should set about banning this barbaric 'sport' from Europe - a spectacle where animals are killed and their deaths are applauded to amuse the crowds. Shameful.    

September - this is our kind of weather. Temperatures in the lower twenties, humidity down from the unbearable wet blanket that lay over the land just a few weeks ago, and blue skies.. 

Meanwhile, it appears I won't have much time for blogging! I read that these are the tasks I should be carrying out this month: removing dead and non-productive vegetable crops; apply manure and compost to clay soils; planting crops for late autumn harvest: cabbages, peas, fennel, cauliflower, lettuce, swiss chard, onions, leeks, Chinese peas, and endive; drying peppers and squash; start new strawberry beds; dig up and divide garlic, perennials, iris, daylilies, bulbs and onions; keep watering properly even as the weather begins to cool; clean up all dead fruit; fruit trees fed and sprayed with tonics; seed lawns with rye grass for winter colour; remove any dead shrubs or trees; dig holes for planting trees and shrubs; purchase potted trees and shrubs for planting in autumn; continue to mulch trees and shrubs; raking fallen leaves and add to compost pile; purchase bulbs from nurseries; feed lawn with slow release fertilizer; remove spent blooms from roses; weed vegetables and shrubs, mow lawns; start to prepare sheds, tools, and equipment for Winter weather; repair roofs.

My response to all this would be to ask: "And what, pray, should I do with the feather duster?" Answers on a postcard please!

Quote of the day: Remember: we're all in this alone.

I remembered late tonight that it was 11 years to the day since we arrived here in the Pays Basque - thus setting in motion the second part of a dream we'd had for many years. The first part was selling up in England. Having successfully managed that, we put into storage all the non-essentials and headed south in a rented van with everything we thought we'd need until we found our house in the Pays Basque. Living the dream - it's not often in life that you get to do this.      

258. Bon voyage!

31st August. It's not every day that I stumble across a replica of a 17th century Spanish merchantman moored at the bottom of our avenue - but there's a first time for everything! Welcome to the imaginatively-named Spanish ship El-Galéon.. (made of wood and - wait for it - fibre glass.. I wish I hadn't read that). Ships such as these were the Apollo 11 spacecrafts of their day - going on long voyages and exploring the New World. To my land-lubberly eye, she doesn't look too dissimilar to the replica of the Mayflower I saw once in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The length of El-Galéon is given as 50m - whereas the Mayflower II is 32m.

She's in the Adour until 9th September. 

27th August. The unmistakeable sight and sounds of Ferraris were greatly in evidence around Bayonne this weekend past. For 25€, people could go for a drive in a Ferrari (as passenger!) with all the proceeds going to children in need. A worthy cause generously sponsored by the local Lions Club of Bayonne.

I spotted one of these parked at the top of our avenue this morning.. It appears to this old curmudgeon that the designers of the vehicle have managed to incorporate (at great expense) all of the disadvantages offered by both cars and motorcycles - and none of the advantages..
I see from a quick google that one could be yours for around 35,000 euros.. I just can't imagine to what question this is the answer. I must be getting old! ☺

26th August. The pooch and I went down to the beach this morning.. and there's no sign of any diminution in the number of tourists yet - even though according to the news yesterday, many people were heading back north. The season here continues much as before for at least another month. If you want to escape the mass of tourists who clutter the coast, then the best advice is to head for the hills inland (a 30 minute drive from here).     

25th August. Here's Gunhild Carling and her Swing Band with their version of "Dark Eyes":

24th August. We're having a very welcome downpour here this morning.. a garden hose can only do so much. This will keep everything as green as nature intended - as well as cooling down the air.

As the Brexit negotiations enter the final stage, for any Brits resident in France, or indeed elsewhere in the EU, I'd strongly recommend downloading this free Brexit Guide. Even though you might have done your planning for all eventualities, it's a very useful "sanity check". It prompted me to consider one or two things I hadn't previously thought of.   

23rd August. This mighty piece - Symphony n°3 - by Saint-Saëns played by Daniel Roth at the organ of the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, could well have been the inspiration for that oft-quoted comment by Admiral Farragut of the United States Navy: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"! Those majestic opening chords give me goosebumps.. Go on - crank up the volume!

21st August. I was spraying the garden around 9pm this evening - as it was parched after a long hot day - and, as if by magic, the water brought the smell of the hot earth and the plants to life - along with someone in the vicinity who was barbequeing some meat. Aah, the smells of summer...

I went for a ride along the Nive this morning as far as the rapids at Ustaritz (30km). Very enjoyable.. not too many other people out and about and not a soul out on the river.

Who said “too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough”?

* answer at the foot of this post.

Meanwhile - where can I find one of these?

"Say when..."

19th August. The weather has been kinder to us of late. Thankfully, the temperatures have lowered a few notches from the stifling heat of recent memory - and more importantly, the humidity has decreased to sub-Amazonian levels. Previously, any physical activity would have quickly resulted in a wet shirt and a longing for a cold shower. This morning, I spent an hour or two cutting back the latest growth in the garden - notably our three palm trees that have been growing as if on steroids! At this time of the year, visits to the déchetterie (the council waste disposal site) have become a twice weekly event.      

16th August. Spent most of yesterday up in the mountains with a few kindred souls - all related to the Comet Line. The spectacular weather allowed us almost unlimited visibility.. We were accompanied by a couple of journalists who are preparing a feature for their paper. We were right on the Franco-Spanish border here - a significant location during WWII - as this was the very spot where around 125 Allied airmen - shot down in northern France and the Low Countries - crossed the border at night en route to freedom. German mountain troops were based at Esteben Borda, an isolated farm that now serves a hearty lunch to hikers.

If you click on the above link, looking slightly south of due west from Esteben Borda, about 1 km distant, you'll see a small building in Spain - this is Jauriko Borda - and during WWII, this was the first 'safe house' outside occupied France. It's incredibly well hidden and only visible from a couple of distant viewpoints. We took the journalists down to the old farm building that nestles into the hillside surrounded by trees. After this, we went back up and over the ridge to Esteben Borda for a lively lunch. Highly recommended!

12th August. Out on my ebike this morning.. A very pleasant ride down the Adour to the Atlantic coast then a left hand turn to parallel the sea and then straight down to the lighthouse at Biarritz (27km total). Lots of people out on two wheels so much care needed. Biarritz looked alive in the sunlight with a mass of sun-lovers already stretched out on the Grande Plage.
9th August. I was reminded earlier of Karen Blixen - a Danish national who moved to what is now Kenya (British East Africa at the time) in December 1913. There, she bought a farm and planted coffee. Most of us are familiar with the story through the film "Out of Africa" - inspired by the book of the same name she wrote under the nom-de-plume Isak Dinesen.

I once mentioned here that her book was the only reading material I had for 5 months when we moved into a gîte on our arrival here in August 2007 - all our other books having been boxed up and put into storage before I had the time to extract a few old favourites to last me for an unknown number of months. Fortunately, I'd been reading "Out of Africa" at the time and I stowed it in an overnight bag. I doubt if I could have improved on my choice. I think I read it three times during that period. Her opening sentence in this beautifully written autobiographical account still stops me dead: I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills. 

Ngong Hills

Highly recommended for her insider's view of the colonial community - but mainly for her lyrical view of an Africa that ceased to exist a long time ago.    

8th August. Here's the Symphony Orchestra from the Bulgarian National Radio playing an old favourite of mine - George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue..(1924)
 (And - genuine question - did the player of the kettle drums come in half a beat too soon at 3:24? Or half a beat too late. I can't tell.. It sounded a bit odd there to my untutored ear)

See what you think of this version by the Royal Academy of Music (keep an eye on the violinists!). Plus see if you can spot the banjo.

6th August. There was a fragment of this piece in the soundtrack of "Florence Foster-Jenkins" - well worth a listen:

There's something about Paris that lends itself to black and white photography.. I first visited "The City of Light" in in the mid-sixties and, to my eternal regret, I didn't take a camera. Fortunately there's no shortage of period photos on the web - so I thought - hang the expense! - I knocked up a quick slideshow for you. Sit back, relax and enjoy these evocative and nostalgic images of this, the most photogenic of cities:

Trying to think who's singing the song? It's Lucienne Boyer - with "Parlez-moi d'amour".. from 1930. And well before my time before anyone thinks I'm an old fogey..!

3rd August. For those unfamiliar with French roads, I thought I'd add a few words of explanation. Where to start..? There are three main types of roads here and the prefix letter identifies what type of road you can expect. 

A roads, or Autoroutes, are designated by the letter A followed by a number. An Autoroute is the equivalent of a British motorway or an American freeway. Autoroute signs are indicated with white lettering on a blue background. Although some are free to use, most Autoroutes in France are toll roads - and these are indicated when joining by a sign indicating Péage (the clue's in the name!). 

N roads, or Routes Nationales, are the major trunk roads throughout France and on directional signs are depicted with white lettering on a green background. They are designated with the letter ‘N’ followed by a number which is normally shown as white lettering on a red background. Since the recent regionalisation of responsibility of main roads, road numbering has become somewhat misleading and therefore it is recommended to follow the directional signs for your place of destination. 

D roads are the Departmental, or county roads, and can range from busy local routes, recently downgraded route nationales or the much smaller country roads and lanes France is so well known for. I must admit to liking driving on D roads as you can find that yours is  the only car on the roads. The other main advantage is that you get to see France - as elsewhere, the autoroutes are largely indistinguishable from one another. Then there are the roadside restaurants..

However, a note of caution. Drivers on D roads should remain alert as local councils seem to change the posted speed limits arbitrarily.

When entering a town, village or hamlet, its presence will be advertised by a sign such as this (right). This means, unless otherwise advised, that the speed limit is automatically 50km/h (30mph). It is commonplace to see the name of the town repeated underneath in the local language. Within the town or village, you may find that the limit changes within the space of a few hundred metres from 50km/h to 30 or even 20.

Exiting a town or village will be marked by a sign like this (with a red strike through) which indicates that the 50km/h restriction no longer applies.

Speed cameras have become de rigueur on all roads - and average speed cameras (that make use of automatic number plate recognition technology) are steadily being introduced on autoroutes. The maximum speed limit on D roads (without a central reservation) was formerly 90km/h. It's now 80km/h. 

One final tip - offered in the best interests of preserving marital harmony - if your car is fitted with GPS, do yourself a favour and update the memory before travelling! Enjoy your trip!

* Answer: Mark Twain.