It’s been a pretty busy summer and Nick and I felt sorely in need of a break before the next lot of visitors arrived. The forecast was good for last weekend, so we decided to head off for the little town of Vieux Boucaux on the west coast on Friday.

The garden is still producing loads of veg, so the whole of Thursday was spent in the kitchen, making vast quantities of tomato coulis, putanesca pasta sauce and Indian peach chutney (it was meant to be mango chutney, but we didn’t have any mangoes, just a tray of peaches that weren’t ripening). Once all that was done, I went to band practice, leaving Nick to clean up the catastrophe of a kitchen.

By Friday morning, we hadn’t done any preparation for the trip and really wondered if we ought to stay home and do some gardening, tiling or any of the other 1001 jobs that need doing; but common sense prevailed, we threw the essentials, or most of them, into the camper and set off. We called in to Adrian’s for lunch and he took me out for a motorbike ride and to look for a hinge for our new front door; we didn’t find a hinge, but had a great ride with Kieran. The next port of call was Dax, to take Alice her birthday present and enjoy aperitifs with her and Kieran; so by the time we arrived in Vieux Boucaux, it was already dark and we only found the camping car site with some difficulty.

On Saturday, we went to explore the town; it’s lovely, built just behind the big sand dunes. There’s a marine lake too, linked to the sea by a little river and in contrast to the big waves of the sea, that attract surfers, the lake is completely calm. There was a great market to look around and the beach looked very inviting. It was too cold, at 20ºC, for me to go in the sea, but Nick spent ages diving into the big waves.  On Sunday we went for a ride along the cycle path; built on the old railway line, it extends to Mimizan to the north and Cap Breton to the south, going through miles of beautiful forest. It’s well used, by walkers, cyclists, roller skaters and skateboarders and being in the Landes, is pan flat. Then for a walk around the lake and another dip in the sea for Nick.

On the way home, looking for a petrol station, I realised that I’d left the bank card in the pocket of the motorbike jacket that Adrian had lent me; but it was OK; the “low fuel” light didn’t turn on till 5 miles from home. I was forgiven.

Il a été un été très occupé et Nick et moi nous sentions d’avoir besoin d’une pause avant le prochain couple d’invités seraient arrivés. La meteo était bon pour le week-end dernier, nous avons donc décidé d’aller à la petite ville de Vieux Boucaux sur la côte ouest le vendredi.

Le jardin continue de produire des quantités de légumes, donc l’ensemble de jeudi a été consacré à la cuisine, on a fait des vastes quantités de coulis de tomate, sauce putanesca  et de chutney de pêche  Indien (il a été destiné à être chutney de mangue, mais on n’avait pas de mangues, juste un plateau de pêches qui ne mûrissaient pas). Une fois qu’on avait fini tout ça, je suis allé à la repete, laissant Nick pour nettoyer la catastrophe d’une cuisine.

Vendredi matin, nous n’avions rien fait comme la préparation pour le voyage et on se demandait si nous devrions rester à la maison et faire du jardinage, de carrelage ou de toute de l’autre 1 001 taches qu’il nous faut faire; mais non, nous avons jeté les choses essentiels dans le camping-car et sommes partis. Nous sommes allés chez Adrian pour le déjeuner et il m’a ammené pour une rando au moto et de chercher une nouvelle charnière pour notre porte; nous n’avons pas trouvé une charnière, mais il etait un très bon tour avec Kieran. Notre prochaine arrete était Dax, à offrir un cadeau d’anniversaire à Alice et profiter des apéritifs avec elle et Kieran; donc au moment où nous sommes arrivés à Vieux Boucaux, déjà il faisait noir et nous n’avons trouvé le camping qu’avec une certaine difficulté.

Le samedi, nous sommes allés à la découverte de la ville; elle est belle, construit juste derrière les grandes dunes de sable. Il y a un lac marin aussi, reliée à la mer par une petite rivière et en contrast aux grandes vagues de la mer qui attirent les surfeurs, le lac est complètement calme. Il y avait un grand marché et la plage était très attrayante. Il faisait trop froid, à 20°C, pour moi d’aller dans la mer, mais Nick a passé du temps de se plonger dans les grosses vagues. Le dimanche, nous sommes allés pour une promenade sur la piste cyclable; construit sur l’ancienne voie ferrée, elle étend à Mimizan au nord et au Cap-Breton, au sud, va-travers des kilometres de belle forêt. Il est bien utilisé, par les marcheurs, cyclistes, rollers et skateboarders et d’êtant dans les Landes, elle est absolument plat. Ensuite, pour une promenade autour du lac et un autre plongeon dans la mer pour Nick.

Sur le chemin du retour, à la recherche d’une station d’essence, je me suis souvenue que j’avais laissé la carte bancaire dans la poche de la veste moto que Adrian m’a prêté; mais ça y etait; la lumière “de carburant réduite” n’a activer jusqu’à 8km de chez nous. Je suis pardonné.

Anyone who regularly reads my blog may remember last year’s guinea pig holiday (https://www.cawthray.co.uk/2013/10/01/once-upon-a-guinea-pig-holiday/), in which our friends Mr Rattletrap and Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it went on holiday.

It’s a little known fact that the collarbones of guinea pigs who eat too much chocolate become soft, rather like twix bars, in fact; so this year, shortly before embarking on his annual visit to the dungeons of the Emperor Adrian in deepest, sunniest South West France, Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it went for a ride on his motorbike, fell off and broke his twixbone – again. He’d enjoyed the experience of having it repaired with a metal plate so much last time, that he thought it a good idea to repeat the experience, even if it meant he’d be unable to ride his motorbike to France.

Luckily Mr Rattletrap’s brother, Mr Oh-no-not-a-seventh had also booked to visit, and being a big, strong sort of guinea pig, offered to carry Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it’s bag, well packed with enough chocolate to sustain him, on to the plane, if he could book a flight.

Like Mr Rattletrap, Mr Oh-no-not-a-seventh also plays a mean guitar, so mean, actually, that Ryanair wouldn’t let it on board, so ferocious is it that he had to leave it in the dangerous animals’ cage. Normally a gentle sort of guinea pig,  Mr Oh-no-not-a-seventh has a horror of playing seventh chords on his guitar, they make him screw up his face in an apoplexy of angst, while shouting “Oh no, not a seventh!”

The first job was to buy Mr Oh-no-not-a-seventh a motorbike as it would have been a squeeze to fit all three guinea pigs onto one, none of them being exactly sylph-like specimens of guinea pig-hood. This done, they set off to chase dragons in them thar mountains, accompanied by Mr I’m-just-off-to-dax-to-see-alice Skinnypig, now known as Mr Aren’t-I-smart-in-my-shiny-new-leathers Skinnypig, on account of his recently having married the lovely Alice and bought a set of motorbiking leathers, the smallest size made, but still less than a close fit. The three rounder-than-they-should-be guinea pigs, whose bodies may be ageing and decrepit, but whose minds are still as sharp as a plastic spoon, and with the combined maturity of a twelve year old schoolboy, had great fun taunting Mr Aren’t-I-smart-in-my-shiny-new-leathers Skinnypig about said new leathers, suggesting remedies for their shinyness, such as rolling about in muddy puddles and when he didn’t agree, they accidentally-on-purpose spilt coffee on him.

The dragons needn’t have worried about being caught this year as Mr Oh-no-not-a-seventh wasn’t used to his new bike and Mr Rattletrap, cosily sharing his bike with Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it (they did look sweet!), rode at a grannie’s pace up the hills, the poor bike struggling under their combined consumption of steak, chips and chocolate, and still sounding like a bucket of spanners being dropped down the stairs, so leaving the dragons more time than ever to saunter back to their caves, laughing all the while at the overtaking antics of Mr Aren’t-I-smart-in-my-shiny-new-leathers Skinnypig.

Once they’d tired of that game, they came to visit us (guinea pigs can never resist a free lunch). Amongst the experimental cuisine on offer were chocolate and chilli samosas for Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it; he had finished one and was part way through the second before he piped up that these samosas were sweet, he hadn’t been expecting that and hadn’t anyone else noticed? Everyone else had veggie samosas, so no, we hadn’t! A delicious selection of curries, made by Mr Bonnet-ornament Skinnypig followed, finished off by an experimental chocolate meringue pie; chocolate in the pastry, chocolate truffle filling, topped with chocolate meringue. Even Mr There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it didn’t dare complain.

I’m sorry I haven’t any photos of the guinea pigs or the dragons, but none of them thought to take a camera and wouldn’t take me along for a ride.

Ceci ne traduit pas bien en français – désolée!

Over the last couple of months, life has been so busy that we don’t seem to have had a lot of time to work on the house, but although it’s been slow, we haven’t ground to a complete halt.

Nick’s finished grouting the tiles downstairs and I’ve cleaned the cement residue off them with acid, so they look really good now. I’ve finished painting the walls and ceiling upstairs and Olivier came back to sand the floor, so Nick is ready to start tiling this week. He’s been working to adapt the doors we bought second hand, to replace the current back door. He’s made an oak frame and will have to cut a much larger hole in the wall, but it’s going to transform the back of the house and allow us to get Joel back to crepi the outside, a sort of render-like finish.

Apart from that, we’ve spent many hours in the garden; watering can take up to two hours a day, then we’ve had to pick the produce – plums, tomatoes, aubergines, beans, onions, courgettes, chillies, butternut squash and melons. Once picked, it all has to be dealt with; we’ve made batches of plum jam and plum butter, about 80 jars of tomato based pasta sauces, heaps of ratatouille and tomato coulis, jars of  chilli and tomato ketchup and, new for this year, several jars of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil. The figs are now ripening; I cut them in half, squash them and put them in the dryer; when they’re dry I can store them, ready to take when I go walking.

Now most of the cooking stuff is done and the freezers are rapidly filling up, things should start to get back to normal. The schools have all gone back and soon it will be time for me to restart my French and English classes. The CLAN is having major work done this year, so I’m not teaching there, but I’m going to have another go at learning Spanish when my friend Maria begins teaching again – third time lucky.

When Gemma stayed with us in June, and came to the cycle club dinner, we didn’t realise the impresion she’d made. But a few days before she arrived back, this time for Kieran and Alice’s wedding party, we were chatting to a few of the guys from the club when they started asking about our beautiful daughter; how old is she? Where does she live? Is she married? And so it went on; she’d obviously caused a stir. Even those who hadn’t been at the meal had heard of her. When we said that she was coming back on Wednesday, there was great excitement; the Nogaro circuit would be open to non-motorised forms of transport on Wednesday evening; they all thought they might go; were we going? Did we think Gemma would like to go too? Did she ride? Did she have a bike? Eventually, we had to promise that she’d be there, and riding, to which she agreed, greatly amused and not a little flattered by the attention.

There were all sorts of vehicles there on Wednesday evening; scooters, roller skates, a recumbent bike, and of course, a large contingent of the Nogaro cycle club, in their best lycra, bikes polished for the event. We rode a few laps of the circuit and watched as the Nogaro peloton rode round, as disciplined as they’re ever likely to be in their effort to impress, before heading home; after all, Gemma had been up since 4am and was flagging by then.

Alex and Izzy arrived on Thursday afternoon, just in time to sort themselves out and pack a few things for the next couple of days. Friday was the party; we stayed overnight in the camper and the following day headed off to Mimizan, on the coast.

Mimizan is a surfers’ paradise with the huge waves typical of the west coast. The area where swimming is permitted was quite small and closely surveyed by three life guards, two on a tower, the third in the water, which gives an indication of how dangerous these waters can be. Even paddling was quite strenuous, as the tide was coming in and the waves hit the shoreline with amazing force. We had two people with Izzy at all times; she loved jumping and diving into the waves, but the undertow was so strong, it could easily have carried her away.

A walk into town for ice creams, post cards and a look around, then it was time to go home, all of us pretty tired after a busy few days.

But there’s no rest for the wicked, as they say; this was, after all, the weekend of the village fete and we’d booked to go to the lunch on Sunday. No chance for Izzy to be bored as there was a bouncy castle at the back of the salle des fetes, so she burnt off plenty of energy between courses, leaving us to enjoy the food, the wine and the company.

Monday, Alex and Izzy’s last day, was less successful. The restaurant we went to for lunch, never having needed to book before, was full; we tried two others, but both were closed, so we went home and ate left-overs from the fridge. Alex wanted to go to the treetop walk that Nick and Izzy had done last year, but it started to rain as we were driving there and within a few minutes of our arrival there was thunder, lightning and a downpour; so we came home. Alex wasn’t happy, but maybe next year…..

Later that evening there was a huge storm with thunder, lighning, torrential rain and the strongest winds we’ve seen since we’ve been here. As it started we went up to the bacony to move furniture back, out of the way of the rain; we were just in time to see the cane chairs and settee sliding along the balcony, whipped by the wind, and about to disappear off the end, if we hadn’t managed to grab them and bring them inside. The following morning we found our beans and tomato plants sorry and battered to the ground, but we were lucky; many people lost trees and tiles from their roofs.

On Tuesday Alex and Izzy went home, followed by Gemma on Wednesday; the house felt so quiet and empty without them. A friend describes the post family visit time as being a bit like a bereavement; I don’t know that I’d go that far, but we certainly miss them when they’ve gone. Fortunately, it doesn’t last too long.

This summer has been so hot, a series of heat waves with temperatures up to 40ºC, each one running into the next, with hardly time to notice when it was cooler in between.

The day of the party to celebrate Kieran and Alice’s wedding was no different; it was held at Alice’s parents’ house in the middle of the forest, so we benefitted from the shade of the trees, but even so, no-one complained when the children started spraying everybody with hosepipes as the temperature soared.

Kieran was up early that morning to light the fire in the outdoor bread oven, for the evening’s pizzas and the fire to cook the Méchoui, a whole lamb cooked on a spit over an open fire, for lunch. There was a tomato salad to start with, then the lamb, which was delicious, served with beans and heaps of French bread. Cheese and salad followed, then the cake, a traditional pièce montée, choux puffs, filled with crème patissière, piled up and stuck together with caramel.

Jacques, Alice’s dad, had asked me to take my guitar, so I’d asked Adrian and his brother Mick to do the same. We played for a few hours in the evening; it was a lovely atmosphere and so informal that lots of people joined in; if I didn’t know a song, someone else would, and if they were unsure of the lyrics, someone would find them on a tablet. Alice’s brother, Max, seemed to know nearly every song and was more than happy to throw himself into the role of rock star.

We stayed over, in the camper, and helped with the clean up the next morning, before heading off to the coast, but that’s another story.

Cet été a été très chaud, une série de canicules avec des températures jusqu’à 40°C, chacun suivant le prochain, avec à peine le temps de remarquer quand il faisait plus frais entre eux.

Le jour de la fête pour célébrer  le mariage de Kieran et Alice n’etait pas différente; on est allé à la maison des parents d’Alice au milieu de la forêt, nous avons donc profité de l’ombre des arbres, mais tout de même, personne ne se plaint quand les enfants ont commencé à pulvériser tout le monde avec des tuyaux d’arrosage quand la température est monté.

Kieran a du se lever tôt le matin pour allumer le feu dans le four à pain extérieur, pour les pizzas de la soirée et le feu pour faire cuire le méchoui, un agneau entier cuit à la broche sur un feu ouvert, pour le déjeuner. Il y avait une salade de tomates pour commencer, puis l’agneau, qui était délicieux, servi avec des haricots et du pain. Fromage et salade ont suivi, puis le gâteau, une pièce montée traditionnelle.

Jacques, le père d’Alice, m’avait demandé de prendre ma guitare, donc j’ai demandé à Adrian et son frère Mick à faire de même. Nous avons joué pendant quelques heures dans la soirée; ce fut une belle atmosphère informelle et ainsi que beaucoup de personnes se sont jointes; si je ne connaissais pas une chanson, quelqu’un d’autre la connaissait, et si il ne savaient pas des paroles, quelqu’un pourrait les trouver sur une tablette. Le frère d’Alice, Max, semblait connaître presque tous les chansons et était plus qu’heureux de se jeter dans le rôle de la rock star.

Nous y avons séjourné dans le camping-car, et aidé au nettoyage le lendemain matin, avant d’aller à la côte, mais cela est une autre histoire.