24. It's all go at the Rowing Club on and off the water

19th October 2009. I’m going to have to skate over the period from Spring 2008 to date, otherwise I’ll never get up to date..

I went along to the Rowing Club in Bayonne in September 2008 and joined the Loisirs (= Leisure) Section. I’d say that there is an equal mix of the sexes. We go out on the river 3 times a week – Tuesday & Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. It’s a very friendly club - on arrival, the first arduous duty being to shake hands with all the mecs (blokes) and to kiss all the nanas (girls). This can take some time. The first Saturday I turned up to row, I was put in a quadruple sculler coxed ‘four’ (known here as a yolette) as the only mec in a crew of nanas. I was asked if I’d like to have lunch at the club and after checking with Madame that it was OK I said yes.

We set off up river and it wasn’t too long before the questions to the “Angliche” started coming thick and fast.. After explaining what I was doing in the Pays Basque, what I’d done before and what I thought of France etc etc we reached our turning point, and turned around to shoot down the river with the very strong current that was running. We did 16km that first Saturday and was I ready for a drink!

We sat down to lunch at 12 midday in the Salle des Rameurs (Rowers Room) which was lined with masses of silverware, trophies, pennants and photos. There were about 20 of us around the long table for lunch.. The wine appeared. Plates of charcuterie came and went, then some steaming great platters of cous cous, each with a mound of meat in the middle.. After that cheese (and more wine) before the tartes au pommes were wheeled out.. With the coffee, some bottles without labels were produced mysteriously from under the table – I’ve no idea what they contained but the contents of some of them could have powered the space shuttle. The lunch finished at 4pm (yes, a four hour lunch!) and was a great introduction to the club.

In November 2008, they had a Beaujolais Nouveau evening – which was another great success.. By the way, Beaujolais Nouveau here is a completely different beast to that which is sold in the UK.

Meanwhile the debate over the south western extension to the TGV network rumbles on.. I think the real issues are to do with preserving the status quo especially in the housing market.. ie, house prices pegged at their current level without the inflationary effect that would result from opening up the Pays Basque to affluent Parisians who could afford to buy a residence secondaire locally and commute to the capital on a weekly basis. Marseilles is now only 3 hrs from Paris by TGV whereas the Pays Basque is 5hrs.. I think the local view is that they don’t want or need an influx of outsiders and that this new line would benefit Parisians far more than it would them.

This is the latest TGV which just broke the world speed record for trains at a staggering 574kph (356mph for us). I'd much prefer to use the fast train (when it comes here finally) rather than drive or fly up to Paris.. The advantages are obvious - city centre to city centre, turn up and go, room to move, no lengthy check-in and security checks (yet!), more relaxing.. I for one look forward to the day when all the major cities of Europe are connected by high speed trains. Look at the clip here at 1.25 for a good impression of the speed:

I think this is a technology that the UK could and should have been developing.

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.

22. Wide Loads

This morning we woke up feeling in need of a dose of adrenalin-fuelled high octane excitement - the sort that can only be generated by indulging in some cutting edge retail therapy - so we went out to buy a new toilet seat..! The one we inherited in the downstairs bathroom was past its sell-by date (enough information - it just was!) and was long overdue for replacement. You really haven’t lived until you’ve visited 3 DIY superstores to measure up the myriad toilet seats out on display. You do have to wonder at some of the ones we saw.. like the clear plastic one with barbed wire embedded in it - why?

We had a toilet seat problem.. and it's not often that you hear this discussed in a blog.. Perhaps the previous occupant(s) of the house were "wide loads" because for some unknown reason she/they had chosen to fit a special Godzilla-size toilet in the downstairs loo and not many seats appear to fit it. The only one that fit the bill was lavishly decorated with a highly coloured tropical scene from the Maldives.. Now we have to explain to everyone intending to use it why exactly we chose this particularly garish model..

On the other hand, Madame is absolutely delighted with her new kitchen.. she says it makes her feel like a star.. with everything to hand it’s all very practical. She’d had this idea for a tall wrought iron unit with glass shelves (for cookery books etc) to go in a corner and we walked into a lighting-cum-furniture shop and, “Stone me!” (in the immortal words of the Queen Mother) - there it was – the only one they had and in the exact colour (to match the walls) she wanted too.

More jobs crossed off the list.. put up the first aid cabinet and also tried to install the new small flat screen TV for the kitchen.. There was no aerial point in there so we’d bought an indoor aerial which turned out to be a waste of money. It didn’t seem to matter much where I pointed it, at best we got a black and white picture in a snowstorm.. but luckily the shop did say that if it didn’t work, they’d take it back. So no prizes for guessing where that’s going.. There’s an aerial socket in the dining room and now we’re thinking of taking a feed from that and drilling a hole through the wall to get it into the kitchen. However, I’m rather reluctant to do that as the walls are so pristine but I don’t think we have a choice.

This morning, I finally took the plaster off my middle finger – that was the one that was cut the worst – and it seemed to have healed over now. Unfortunately it was right on the knuckle where it flexes and the doc said I’d have to be careful to try and let it heal without doing too much physical activity.. (“Music to my ears!”) No, to be honest, it’s been a major limitation with all the jobs that needed doing.. I just had to try and avoid gripping things too tightly with my right hand.

I'm off now to have an arduous physio session with a bottle of Ricard..