summer in France

Summer in France means beach ,packed beaches even on days with crappy weather,warm water with small waves and lots of tourists.The water temp is about 22-23° ,pleasant swimming temp and the waves are generally small which is a change from the strong and powerful waves and currents that make these beaches very dangerous and not really user friendly for kids or unwary, uneducated tourists that can live a long way from the beach.Drownings are not uncommon here and i am sure that i prevented what could have been a possibilty if i hadnt informed the lifesavers who unfortunately werent really watching what was going on .A guy swimming a long way from the flags was caught in a rip and i saw him struggling a long way from shore;After telling the lifesavers,one of them swam out but as the crowd watched what was going on ,others continued to swim in this rip as the other LS blew his whistle and waved to them to move, they just waved back,familys with young kids too.It amazes me to see all the warning signs in the carparks and next to the tracks but so many people take their young kids to swim in unsupervised areas;its not like Oz ,where everyone can swim.I'm amazed at how many people cant swim here.

The waves have been small for the last 2 months and i havent been surfing much .I still get in the water when we have a little pulse of swellthat may last a couple of days.But mostly I've been hanging out at the beach with Lola,swimming with her and taking her surfing in perfect little kids learning waves of not much bigger that a foot at times.She has progressed well and is catching the waves on her own now.I still need to help her as her surfboard is so big and bulky she has trouble getting it in the right position.Its big and being so big its very stable so its easy for her to get up to her feet, but also easy to catch waves too.We're going surfing this afternoon as the waves are small and low tide is at 2pm.2 days left in the holidays and its back to school on Thursday.Finally after 8 weeks

fete de Bayonne

We went to the Fete de Bayonne last sunday.We caught a train from St vincent de Tyrosse to avoid the traffic and lack of carparksfor this huge yearly fiesta.With everyone in traditional red and white, its an amazing sightin the beautifully historic city of Bayonne on the edge of two large rivers that run into one.Red wine,great food ,roving minstrels,thousnds of people ,this fiesta runs for 5 days

and attracts an enormous crowd with fun for all from heaps for the kids thru to bars every 20 metres.Very loud with lots of drums and trumpeters everywhere.I loved the makeshift urinals (as you can see in one of the photos) that are in the smaller laneways,hilarious stuff.

We met Corinnes family there about 11am and kicked right into things ,then wandered from bar to bar and onto an outdoor restaurant where we enjoyed some very good wine and some great food,very traditional with lots of foie gras and lots of duckand of course finished off with more red wine and some cheese.After that we did another bar crawl,watched some traditional dancing ,found another bar where some of the patrons picked up their guitars and sung some sensational basque songs,excellent stuff.Something that i do love about the french is that they really do guard their traditions ,and in such an old historic medieval city like Bayonne,a fiesta like that has an amazing feel ,its something that is impossible to find in Oz

Corinne ,Lola and i caught the 6 pm train back and left the rest of the family to continue their bar crawl.A very entertaining day for all.

fete de Bayonne