And the Lord said unto Nick “It’s going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights; go and build an ark and put two of all the animals into it”. Well, the woodwork’s coming along nicely and we’ve got 2 chickens, 2 snails, 2 slugs, 2 mice, 2 dogs, 2 Rhoneys and 3 Cawthrays so far. We’re having problems catching the doves as they keep flying away, looking for treetop leaves while they can still find them.

I hope this rain doesn’t last 40 days; it’s been cold and very windy for days, too. If we wanted weather like this, we could have stayed in Harrogate!

Still, we had a lovely day today, the day between Kieran’s birthday and mine, in spite of the weather. Adrian and Julie came over for a curry; we played some guitar and Ade did some artwork on Kieran’s leg. They told us they’ve ordered us a joint birthday present – a goose, which will be ready to collect in a couple of weeks. It’s a female and we’d like some suggestions for names, please, if anyone feels inspired.

OK, tea break’s over; better get back to sewing the sails! Anyone know where I might get a pair of duckbilled platypus? (or should that be platypii?)

Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blackcurrants and redcurrants; the ingredients list for tonight’s fruit salad, and all picked from the garden only a few minutes before we ate them. Delicious, organic and so satisfying!

On Wednesday I collected our friends, Anne and Suzanne, from Toulouse airport; our first non-family, non-resident-in-France visitors. Unfortunately, they brought us a taste of more English weather than we’ve been used to recently, but it did mean that we could wander around tourist sites without being too hot!

In the three days they were here we managed to visit Pau (the first time we’ve been there and been unable to see the Pyrenees due to the cloud being so heavy!), Auch, the market in the medieval town of Eauze and the stunning remains of a Roman villa at Seviac as well as eating out several times and having a bit of chill time too. I just hope they enjoyed their stay as much as we did.

When Nick and I got back from Toulouse airport today, it was to find that Kieran had been busy all day stripping down his motorbike to clean and service it. It’s in pieces all over the grange floor now, while he repaints some bits that were a little rusty. I’m sure there’ll be pictures of the rebuilding job as it progresses.

Kieran’s words – not mine, to describe himself after he’d overreached, using the Stihl saw and ended up attempting to amputate a leg! A quick trip to the local A&E department, where he was stitched up (at three levels, apparently, because it was such a deep cut), followed by a 90euro trip to the pharmacy, which doesn’t include the price of the leg brace for which we’ll be billed separately and we were home in less than 3 hours, including a half hour drive each way. Everybody was friendly and helpful and explained everything they were doing, as well as what Kieran needs to do next. Apart from being more careful next time, that is.

He has to wear the leg brace whenever he’s standing for the next 10 to 14 days, so no motorbiking for a while; it’ll be an impressively clean and shiny bike by the time he can ride it again.

Statues, by their very nature, are stationary; they don’t move; right? Well, unless that statue  is the Giant of the Tourmalet! The giant in question is a massive, steel statue of a cyclist. For some reason, it’s removed from the mountain and put into store over winter; it’s re-erection in early summer is something of a “must be there” event for cyclists all over the south west of France. The col de Tourmalet is one of the toughest climbs that regularly feature in the Tour de France. It’s a gruelling 18.6km climb with an average gradient of 7.4% and some sections up to 10.2% on the side we did on Saturday.

It was an early start; at 5o’clock on Saturday morning, when the alarm went off, I really did question my sanity, but we set off at 6 and headed into the mountains. I dropped Nick off just south of Lourdes so that he could ride the 16km from there on the Voie verte, a tarmacked, disused railway track, to Pierrefitte-Nestalas, the starting point of the statue’s journey. By the time I arrived in Pierrefitte, it was already hot, but the atmosphere was great, with about a thousand cyclists milling around the lorry containing the statue and a Bandas (a popular local type of band that play the most horrendous music!). Because I knew I’d be slow, Nick and I set off , with others, a bit before the official departure time. We rode the first part of the route, the 14km to Luz St. Sauveur, together and separated at the start of the col de Tourmalet itself. Nick rode the remaining 18.6km to the top comfortably, with enough breath left to chat to various people as he overtook them on the way, and arrived before the lorry and statue so he saw its installation. I, on the other hand, got to within 9km of the summit and just couldn’t make the pedals go round any more, so I turned round and went down, very disappointed with my performance, though I suppose a 24km climb isn’t bad really.

When we got home there was time for a quick shower and a bite to eat, before heading out to the Caupenne music festival, at which our friend Adrian’s band, Mister Teatime,  was playing. We tucked into magret and chips hungrily during the evening, as we listened to the various bands, until it started to rain and everyone had to run for cover. Ade, his wife Julie and the  band members were staying at our house for the night and I was most peeved that, having pushed myself too hard on the climb, I had a migraine and had to go straight to bed, instead of sitting up till the wee small hours with the rest of them, playing guitars and singing. But the following evening I spent a few hours learning a few new songs from Adrian, some of which Kieran recorded and if you really want, you can follow the links below to hear the result. The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that the Cawthray kitchen remains as chaotic as ever; the only difference being that now I don’t care what people think! 🙂

Kieran arrived home on Sunday afternoon, just in time for a barbecue, tired but happy, having thoroughly enjoyed his ride down from Harrogate on his shiny new motorbike. He, Nick and Adrian spent a long time admiring and discussing the new steed. The general consensus seemed to be that it’ll do nicely, thank you.

I’m beginning to understand the people who say that they only do DIY in the winter and spend the whole summer working on the garden. We decided it was time to cut the grass in the field behind the house this week, as it was nearly as tall as me; it’s taken most of the week, Nick strimming, me raking and taking it to the compost bins. We’re getting up early to do the gardening before it gets too hot, but usually work straight through to midday which has been pretty hot this week, about 30ºC in the shade. The back garden could hardly be described as a lawn, but it’s tidier now than it was.

We’ve also done a lot of work on the potager; we’d been rather enthusiastic in planting rocket and had to pull most of it out today as it had gone to flower. We’ll know next time! The same could be said of the spinach, which we’re eating in huge quantities; we’ll start looking like Popeye soon! Our visitors this weekend will be treated to a spinach quiche, I think.

We’re now getting two eggs a day from our adult hens, Sage and Onion; Sage’s are a normal size, but Onion’s are humungous! I weighed them today, just for interest; Sage’s eggs weigh an average 51g, whereas Onion’s are 82g!

Nick’s been watching the local bird life and has found that a family of Redstarts are nesting  nearby; it’s fascinating to watch the parents find food for the babies and deliver it.

We’ve got a very early start tomorrow and a hectic weekend, so watch this space on Sunday or Monday. That’s all folks!

Each Pentecost Sunday, in St. Jean de Luz, there’s a big bike ride, known as the ride of the quiet valleys, done by the best part of 1000 cyclists each year. The Nogaro club had booked to do this many months ago, before we joined, but a fortnight ago a couple of people dropped out and we were invited to take their places.

We set off by car, in convoy, from Nogaro on Saturday morning, arriving in Ascain, near St. Jean de Luz in time for lunch at the hotel where most of our party were staying; we were lucky enough to be one of the three couples for whom there wasn’t space, and who had to stay at a nearby chambres d’hotes, a far better option! We had lunch at the hotel, a pretty meagre affair; they were obviously not geared up to feed hungry cyclists, then eight of us decided to go for a ride.

I only intended to do about 40km, in view of the ride the following day, but got talked into going “just to the top of the first col”, at which point they told me that we were at the halfway point now, so I might as well continue. I don’t think maths is a French cyclist’s forté; since when has 28 been half of 72,?, the distance we covered that afternoon. I’ve never descended a mountain road in a group before and certainly not at the speeds we did on Saturday; it was quite scary and although I thought I did fairly well, I was given a masterclass in descending hills before the next col! It was a beautiful ride, though, along tiny roads, lined with overhanging trees, beside bubbling streams, over the border into Spain then back into France to tackle the last two cols.

Probably as a result of the miniscule lunch we’d had, (my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) by the time we reached the last col, I was struggling to keep up, but they refused to leave me behind, and as soon as the road started to rise, I started to drop off the back of the group. A short way up the hill I felt a hand in the middle of my back and Gilles pushed me the whole of the 3km to the summit, in the process leaving the rest of them behind! When someone’s pushing you, you have to give everything you’ve got and ride as hard as you can, so consequently, by the time we got to the top, I was nearly on my knees! But the last few km were easy enough and soon I was able to soak in a bath at the B&B.

The following morning we all set off to do the main ride; there were four routes to choose from, 34km, 67km, 90km or 130km. Nick and most of the rest of the men opted for the long route, but I chose the 67km; the hotel was 10km from the start/finish, so we had to add another 20km to the distance.

All the rides started along the same route, splitting up further down the road, so I stayed with the Nogaro group for the first few km, before following the yellow arrows through pretty villages built in the typical Basque style; terracotta roofs, white walls and Basque red shutters and balconies. Loads of the hedging in the area is a type of mock orange and the perfume was amazing as we cycled along in the warm sunshine. One of the cols was the one I’d been helped up on the previous day, so it was a great relief to get to the top with no assistance and no difficulty on Sunday.

Nick completed his ride with no problem, having ridden about 650km during the previous 10 days, while his friend was visiting. His total for the weekend was 220km, while I notched up a mere 160km.

Sunday evening’s dinner was turned into a sort of stag & hen do by Maithée, one of the club members; JB and Claudine, two of our number, are getting married next Saturday, so Maithée bought them Pierrot and Pierrette costumes to wear for dinner on Sunday evening. The meal was no better than the rest we’d eaten there, but the atmosphere was very convivial.

All in all, a good weekend;-)

I’m off to sunny  Harrogate tomorrow, to see Alex, Izzy and Graham; and to catch up with lots of other friends too. The house is all cleaned, my packing done and I’ve just got to make some quiche and flapjack; then I’ll be ready to don the three thick sweaters I can’t fit in my Ryanair-sized bag, but which I’m assured I will need when I get back to the UK.

Nick has a cycling-mad friend coming to stay, but has promised to do a blog from time to time, so keep checking; I’ll do a report on my trip (if anything exciting happens), when I get back.

The sun was just rising over Nogaro, shortly after 6o’clock this morning, when 60 walkers piled onto the coach that was to take us to Bidart, on the west coast, to walk a section of the Sentier Littoral, the coastal path. The weather forecasters got it wrong; instead of blue skies and sunshine, there was quite a bit of high cloud, but that kept it to a perfect temperature for walking.

On arrival, we split into 3 groups, doing different distances and I joined 23 others to do the 25km between Bidart and Hendaye, on the Spanish border. It was by no means a flat route as you climb up and down the undulating coastline, between meadows full of wild flowers, rocky outcrops, forests heavy with the scent of acacia and occasionally a bit of beach walking. We were never out of earshot of the sea and could hear the waves washing onto the shore, as well as the sound of countless cicadas in the fields and birds singing in the trees.

By the time we reached St. Jean de Luz, the halfway point, we were all hungry, particularly since we walked the length of the bay, past all the restaurants serving delicious-smelling food; so we found some benches and stopped to eat our picnic. Not for us a restaurant meal; we didn’t have time to hang about.

After lunch we set off once more, stopping briefly to look at the ancient fort and the lighthouse, before heading out of town along the well trodden path. By mid afternoon the sun had finally shown his face; as we walked through a beautiful deciduous forest, the dappled light through the trees, along with the sound of birdsong, gave the place quite a magical feel. We stopped to admire a Victorian era chateau before the descent into Hendaye, where the final kilometre of the route went along the beach; so we all took off boots and socks and paddled our way to where the coach was waiting for us. Everyone agreed it had been a grand day out!

Sadly, my camera stopped working part way through the morning; but Christian is going to send me his photos, so I’ll put them on this page when I receive them (probably not for a couple of weeks).

When Kate, our neighbour, told us how long she’d spent cleaning roof tiles to reuse them, I must confess that I did wonder if the poor girl had ever so slightly taken leave of her senses. Until yesterday, that is, when I saw the state of the tiles Nick had taken off the cabanon roof; they were totally encrusted with decades worth of moss and lichen. So we set to, to scrape and scrub them clean(ish).I

It was another hot day, 30ºC in the shade, not that there was a lot of shade where we were working; but there was rain forecast for the night, so we decided to push on till we finished. We would both clean several heaps of tiles,  pile them onto the scaffolding tower, then I would pass them from there to Nick, on the roof, who’d put them in place.

By 9o’clock, shortly before the sun disappeared behind the trees, we finished;, having worked a straight 12 hours. We were filthy, hungry, mozzie-bitten and exhausted, but with a tremendous sense of achievement. I just hope the promise of good food, good wine and job satisfaction is enough for those two mad – sorry, I mean brave – souls who have offered to help us replace the main roof this summer!