13th April 2010. I took my bike out for a ride yesterday for a couple of hours along the banks of the river Nive.. With it being a river, there are no hills - which suited me fine! I went as far as Ustaritz - which, looking at the map, is 14kms by road from home and so taking all the river bends into account, I think I must have done upwards of 30km. There weren't many people out - just a few dog walkers and other cyclists. The Pyrenees were a misty blue mass against the horizon. I think I'll start doing this regularly.. it's a stress-free ride - no traffic or hills.
This next is a song I've liked for a long while but without really knowing what it was called.. only hearing snatches of it in the background. I don't listen to pop music stations much so when I finally found out today what the song was, I was surprised to find that it had been released as long ago as 1994! Called "Seven Seconds Away", it was recordedby Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry and it's sung in Senegalese, French and English.
8th April 2010. A big 'plus' for this region compared to many others in France is the almost complete absence of the mosquito or, worse, the dreaded horse fly. In the summer months we generally sleep with the bedroom window open and I'm seldom woken by that annoying musical whirring hum of mosquito wings around my ears. I remember a holiday in the Ardèche region a good few years ago that was ruined for me by biting horse flies during the day and pesky humming mosquitoes by night. These large horse flies (some the size of a B-17!) would settle on me while I'd be drying off after a river swim and the first indication that one was on me would be the bite. The bite area would discolour over the following few hours to the size of a dinner plate and would be hot to the touch. Aaagghh! I must be an insect magnet as they ignore Madame and focus all their attentions on me. Here, though, in the Pays Basque it's a rare event for me to attract even one bite (touch wood!). I'm not complaining..
Saturday, 10th April 2010. Eric spent yesterday fitting the new garage doors and we're very pleased with the result. Another job ticked off. Only a few left to do now.
Today the skies were a cloudless blue, the temps were up around 21 and after finishing painting the new garage doors, I set up the table on the terrace ready for our first al fresco lunch of the year - sangria to start with then smoked duck breast salad with a few drops of balsamic vinegar, then cheese. I found the last of my Christmas cigars and I enjoyed it (feelthy habit!) over a Turkish coffee.. (for any smoking nazis out there I smoke about 3 a year!) (Yes I know - that's 3 too many..) There was hardly any traffic noise, just some bird song and the sound of a light aircraft somewhere.. Summer's coming. At last. When the heat of the afternoon faded, I cut the grass and then gave the dog a medicated shower - he's picked up a few fleas - and then I lay in the sun while he dried off. We're thinking about a trip inland for tomorrow - maybe up in the mountains.. have to see what the weather's doing.
Thought for the day: I once read of a British motorcyclist who was riding up the length of Norway to visit Europe's most northerly point - North Cape. On his way up there he met up with a fellow motorcyclist coming the other way so they stopped for a chat to compare notes. The other rider was an old American guy who'd taken 12 months off to explore Europe. The Brit asked him, "How can you afford to do it?" to which the old guy replied, "How can I afford not to..?"
3rd April 2010. Eric - our friendly carpenter from the Basque Mafia - brought the new doors around for the garage the other day. Altogether there are 5 door panels that need painting. One is the new entrance door from the garden that he made from scratch and fitted on Friday. He's really made an excellent job of it - the old one was rotten & starting to sag on its hinges so much so that Madame could hardly open it even if she managed to unlock it. Now? The lock now snicks opens with a well-oiled click and the door fits snugly in the recessed doorway. However, the new garage doors will require a touch of Eric magique™ as they are concertina doors and he'll need to fit the track.
In case you were wondering, my part in all of this is to paint everything. I counted up this afternoon how many coats of paint I'll have to apply on the doors - it went like this - Entrance door: 6 coats (1 undercoat plus 2 top coats x 2 sides - front and back); 4 concertina doors: 24 coats (3 coats as before x 8 sides) - total 30 sides.. I went to Castorama the other day to buy some large tins of undercoat and top coat - which, by the way, has to be Basque Rouge. For a 2 litre tin, the prices ranged from 40-60€.. (that's $53-$80 for just over ½ gallon US). Ouch! While I'm in a frenzy of converting prices, here's one to ponder for any readers in the US.. Diesel here is $6.20 per US gallon..!
Meanwhile - the last few days have seen La Foire au Jambon in Bayonne - the annual event that's been taking place since 1426 (yes, 1426 - before Columbus discovered America!) that celebrates the famous Bayonne ham. I've been too busy painting to wander down there to see what's going on but we went last year and yes, it was as you'd expect - there was a large marquee set up by the covered market that was full of some very Basque faces tucking in to Jambon de Bayonne and other regional products in all of its guises.
5th April 2010. With yesterday being Easter Sunday, we decided to attend the Sunday morning service at the cathedral in Bayonne - and I wore a tie. As we neared it, we could hear the unmistakeable sounds of Basque bands. There was one drawn up in ranks outside the main entrance beating their drums in an ominously slow roll as another one approached. Luckily we arrived at the entrance just in time to squeeze in before a long, colourful procession of Confréries of all kinds.
The Confréries (think the word means a brotherhood) exist in support of various foods and wines (and probably many other things too). They preserve the traditions and customs associated with their selected product and they celebrate it. They are often seen in attendance at religious services and processions and they offer mutual help and charity. They dress in colourful medieval robes and hats and they carry banners that attest to the glory of their chosen food item. This is a most French tradition and it's definitely something that you just cannot imagine in England. The Brotherhood of the Black Pudding.. The Brotherhood of the Meat & Potato Pie.. The Brotherhood of the Pork Scratchings.. It just doesn't work does it?
We took our seats inside and shortly afterwards the entry of the Confréries started. Of the ones I can remember, there were the Confréries of the Gateau Basque, Confit de Canard, Madiran, Foie Gras, Jambon de Bayonne and Piment d'Espelette - but there were more.. It's moments like these that bring home the deep-rooted links between the produce of the local terroir and the people.
The morning service was accompanied by Errobi Kanta, a Basque choir and their voices filled the cathedral with their distinctive harmonies. This was the timetable for the Confréries yesterday:
8h: Rassemblement et accueil des confréries à la Maison des associations in Bayonne.
9h15: Intronisation des nouveaux membres de la Confrérie du Jambon de Bayonne à la Maison des associations.
10h15: Défilé des confréries vers la cathédrale.
Circuit: quai Chaho, pont Pannecau, quai Roquebert, rue Port-de-Castets, rue Argenterie, cathédrale Sainte-Marie.
11h: Messe traditionnelle de Pâques en la cathédrale en présence des confréries et animée par la chorale Errobi Kanta.
12h30: Défilé des confréries de la cathédrale à la Maison des associations en passant par le carreau des Halles.
Circuit: rue du Pilori, rue du Port-de-Suzeye, carreau des Halles.
17h30: Bal des confréries à la Maison des associations et clôture de la Foire 2010. This last event would have been worth attending!
As I've said before, the French have a far more complex relationship with their food than is the case elsewhere. In the UK, food is what you eat when you're hungry. End of. Here - particularly here - it's about pride in one's region. In France, you are expected to be able to discuss food & wine (French food & wine)(what else!) in all of its regional varieties intelligently, knowledgeably and passionately. Food & wine are both subjects for discussion around the table - and while people are eating one meal, they'll often be waxing lyrical about one they've had or one they're going to have.
After lunch, we decided to take a drive up to the Pas de Roland.. which is one of the oldest routes across and over the Pyrenees and which lies at the foot of a mountain known as Artzamendi. We noticed quite a few fields had small numbers of contented looking donkeys in them. Why the Basques keep them I'm not sure but often you'll see local cars with a donkey sticker on the back. We also saw some wild shaggy coated mountain goats. There was a large male with two smaller females and the male had a spread of gnarled horns a couple of feet long that erupted up and out away from his head like the handlebars on a 'Chopper' bicycle..
The road out of Ixtassou (famous for its black cherries) is essentially single track but of course, local drivers treat this as a challenge and it wasn't long before we had our first meeting with someone coming the other way who didn't see the need to pull over when it was possible for him to. No, instead he simply advanced.. Where he thought I was going to go is a mystery. This was yet another "I'm gonna reach for the 'pump action' moment!" There's always one.
This is a duet I've always liked - it captures the recall of shared memories that exists between couples beautifully. Who is there now who can put over lyrics like these two..? The late great Maurice Chevalier with Hermione Gingold (and yes, you're right, there is something of Madame and I in this!) (maybe):
There's usually an outdoor competition to judge the best Omelette au jambon and all the usual suspects are there offering dégustations (tastings) of various products - patés, saucisses, cheeses, wines etc etc.
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?"
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:
