71. Summer music

11th July 2010. The telltale signs that the Fêtes de Bayonne is approaching are starting to become visible around town.. Council workmen are erecting barriers on central reservations and roundabouts to stop parking; big signs have appeared warning the unwary that the centre of town will be closed to traffic; in the Place des Basques, barriers have been installed to enforce orderly bus queueing (dream on!). What is the Fêtes de Bayonne, I hear you ask..? Imagine a cultural spectrum with say, a Welsh Eisteddfod at one end and the San Fermin festival at Pamplona at the other.. The Fêtes de Bayonne lies somewhere between the two.. Normally, Bayonne's population hovers around the 40,000 mark but over the duration of the Fêtes, well over a million visitors will descend on the town.. the overwhelming majority of whom will be dressed in white with a red sash around the waist and a red neckerchief.. I must admit to finding it slightly disturbing when walking through town during the Fêtes and everyone's dressed the same. It's something to do with the loss of individual identity of the public. (Rightly or wrongly, I always draw a mental parallel with Germany in the 30s) Here's a short clip that gives a flavour of it:

  

This next clip features a song close to the hearts of all in the Pays Basque, but especially Bayonne.. 

Here's some of the madness.. not sure what you'd call this beast.. it's not a bull but I don't think you'd want to get involved in an exchange of views with it! (it's actually a cow) Of course, I abhor these kinds of degrading spectacles - I'm an animal lover - and it doesn't sit well with me to see some poor animal surrounded by an excited mob intent on tweaking its tail or whatever. However, if there's a choice to be made between staging bullfights (where the death of the animal is the goal) and the kind of thing shown below, then regrettably I'd have to say that the latter activity would be preferable.

San Fermin is currently running as we speak and buses are available (Bayonne-Pamplona direct) in the Place des Basques to take people.. Yesterday I saw a few passengers getting off the Pamplona-Bayonne bus looking very much the worse for wear! And quite a few waiting for the next one. Today promises to be a big day in Pamplona.. One, it's the Sunday and so those who are still working can attend and two, Spain are in the World Cup Final.. which is today.. If Spain win, I think Pamplona will erupt!

We've decided that we're going to take a break from the Fêtes de Bayonne this year. Our neighbours kids are keen participants and they invite all their friends back in the wee small hours. The first year we were here, we only had single glazed windows and we discovered the hard way that a group of 15 or so French teens and twenties, hyped up on the occasion after a few Sangrias, can generate a fair amount of noise out in the rear garden - all talking & no-one listening in the classic French manner! We could hear the pop as corks were still being extracted at 6am.. That first year they finally called it a night at 10 in the morning.. Even now that we've double glazed the house, the hoots and the hollers still penetrate our bedroom. This year therefore, we've booked a hotel in the mountains for a few days. It's not that we're a couple of old fuddyduddies.. but we like our sleep!

14th July 2010. Summer would not be complete without Bastille Day - 14th July - which, by a freakish coincidence, happens to be today! The presenter on Télématin (breakfast TV on France2) introduced his report on the glittering Défilé (military parade) that will take place on the Champs Elysées later on this morning as "the most beautiful army in the world marching down the most beautiful avenue in the world". I have to admit on mature reflection that he's right. It's arguable that a Scots Pipe band should be up there with them but, hey, let's be charitable on this day of days. We're not talking about military capability or effectiveness but the French military, on days like these, does look good. I've often wondered why other nations (such as the US or the UK) are strangely reluctant to parade their military.

Anyway, setting all these arguments aside, I enjoy watching the spectacle every year and, as always, the parade on the ground is preceded by a fly past. This clip of the 2009 parade - when the Indian military was strongly represented - runs for about 1.5 hours. The legendary French Foreign Legion make their appearance at 44:15 - they are traditionally the final unit to appear on foot with their distinctive slow march, with the pionniers (combat engineers) carrying axes on their shoulders and wearing leather aprons. Time now to make yourself a coffee, get comfortable, watch the clip and then tell me afterwards if the France2 presenter was right or wrong:

70. Road to Laredo

8th July 2010. Last Monday we decided to make a foray into Spain - aiming for a place called Laredo (Cantabria) situated between Bilbao and Santander along the northern Spanish coast. We took the new motorway (a combination of the E-70 & the A-8) - a spectacular and, no doubt, expensive road that threaded its way left and right through and around the tree-covered crumpled hills and jagged mountains. Cutting its way through contorted layers of stratified rock that were near the vertical in places, the road passed through innumerable cuttings and tunnels and over some impressive bridges and viaducts. The severely folded landscape left precious little room in the valley floors for expansion in an outward direction and therefore the cramped towns and villages had  to resort to making extensive use of apartment tower blocks - which looked slightly incongruous. The road itself was a continuous series of curves and bends and it was hardly possible to take my eyes off the road ahead. I drove at ~100km/h despite the speed limit being 120km/h which, given the twisty nature of the road, seemed a little optimistic.

If ever there is an international competition for the town or city where the planning process has clearly broken down and the result is a complete eyesore, then Bilbao would be an odds-on 'cert' to reach at least the semi-finals. This (below) is the Bilbao Exhibition Centre and the photo doesn't reveal its true awfulness.. It looks rather like one of those regional logistical depots for a major supermarket chain.. but in the middle of town.

Is this a museum or the box it came in..? Joking..! All observers seem to agree that this - the Guggenheim Museum - is a stunning looking building that we still have to visit.. (Edited to add: Madame since been there - but I can't see how we can both get there with the dog).  

To be fair, we only drove through and we didn't get to explore the old town which is clearly alive and well:

Moving swiftly on, we soon left Bilbao behind us and off to our right, we caught glimpes of the lapis lazuli sea. Arriving at Laredo, it's clear that the hotel and apartment building boom of the 70s and 80s in Spain hadn't passed Laredo by. It had obviously once been a delightful old fishing port with a natural harbour but the new part had increased its size perhaps eight-fold.

Lunchtime approached so we found a restaurant with a cool terrace. I felt like declaiming to the waiter in booming Shakespearean tones: Go, get thee in, and fetch me a stoup of liquor*. Instead, we ordered their set 12€ lunch, which included a welcome bottle of chilled rosé, of garlicky gambas followed by an assortment of grilled fish, squid and yet more gambas on skewers.. with ice cream afterwards and coffee. 

* lines from Hamlet I think

This absolute shower (or shar as Terry-Thomas would have pronounced it) - aka ZZ Top - were playing at Les Arenes (the bullring) this evening. Unfortunately we live just a few hundred metres from it and so we had to endure an evening of total carp (sp?) played fortissimo..

69. Mystery in faded ink

4th July 2010. Madame has a number of her father's books - one of which is Saint-Exupéry's Wind, Sand and Stars. Her father earned his pilot's wings in the mid-1930s in the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) and, like Saint-Exupéry, later served in North Africa with the Free French where apparently they knew each other. Saint-Ex's writings on aviation would, no doubt, have been close to his heart.

I picked this particular volume out of the bookcase this afternoon and, on opening it, I found a poignant inscription written on one of the opening fly sheets:   

For Tooks -

I think this may do for reading in our hut by the sea. I hope you like it as much as I do "Island in the Sun". With love from K.S.M.

                                                                                                                                             Summer 1940

(click on the image to enlarge it)

Who knows now who "Tooks" and K.S.M. were.. It sounds to me as though Tooks was in the flying game - and Summer 1940 was a particularly dangerous time to be involved in it.. I can well imagine that a couple in wartime would invent an imaginary hut by the sea where they could temporarily escape reality during their precious time - together or apart. There's a story waiting to be written here.

In different handwriting - in the corner of the same page - someone, probably a bookseller, has written £7 (1940) 1/5. We'll never know. I did a quick search for "Island in the sun" but I was unable to unearth any reference to it that made any kind of sense - given the date of the inscription. I would guess that Madame's father bought the book sometime in the post war period for £7. 

I stumbled across this little gem on YouTube - a gypsy jazz-style rendering of Dark Eyes - by 3 talented kids - each around 12 years old. Well worth watching!