les Davey de France

 

 

 The lovely black fertile soil is slowly being spread all over the Jardins de l'Ars. It is pre-mixed with manure, so it comes with a slightly sharp, countryside smell, but that won't last long and we hope that soon planting will begin.

 

 Lourdes is about 30 minutes by train from Pau, so we went for the day. Two women were sat in our seats. "You can sit in front. We sat in the wrong seats", they said. I don't much care where I sit, but thought it might have been nice to excuse oneself, so I said, "I hope that works out". All the way to Lourdes they were reciting their rosary, so perhaps they did excuse themselves - though not to us.  As we arrived the train conductor announced "We will shortly witness the apparition of the station of Lourdes." It set the tone for the day. Lourdes is like a cross between a run-down seedy seaside resort and the Sistine Chapel - or if Father Ted was filmed at Clacton-on-Sea. We goggled at the sacred supermarkets, found somewhere for lunch, visited the shrine and saw the grotto.  Then it was a toss-up between the castle or the funicular railway up to a mountain peak. The latter won, so we had a 30 minute forced march out to the place, then a quick scamper ...

 We scuttled off by train to Pau for a few days away from the big city. Pau is a historic town in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for being the seat of Henry IV when he was just King of Navarre, before becoming King of France, and also for being one of the favourite towns of the English looking for clean air and a pleasant climate. Because it's fairly near the Atlantic it doesn't get too cold, and because it's in the hills it doesn't get too hot. We rented an AirBnB right in the middle of the town and ate lunch in various cafés to save cooking and cleaning and so on. Pau has beautiful views over the mountains, lovely parks and the Castle. There was plenty to occupy us.

 The guys are laying concrete walkways

 The pass sanitaire is generating a little opposition. These are the riot police vans getting into the centre of the city last Saturday.

 On Sunday we missed tram D, which takes us nearest to the church, so we hopped on tram C instead.  It drops us opposite the Jardin  Public, Bordeaux' most central park, so we weren't disappointed to be able to scuttle through the park and take photos of the flowers on the way. The weather has been pretty unstable - humid heat interspersed with torrential downpours. Our friends from the tropics say the rainy season has arrived at last! They feel quite at home!

 We are constantly baffled by the earthworks that the gardeners are doing.  They pile up earth here, then remove it to pile it up elsewhere before once again bringing it back. They construct roads then destroy them only to construct others alongside the previous one. They are creating an artificial hill just below our balcony, but alongside it is a deep ditch. Circular flat areas lie above strangely shaped holes. The latest excavation for a road unearthed three drainage covers. We are fascinated, but also anxious for it all to be over and for planting to begin !

The keen-eyed will observe that we have a new crane opposite our flat just behind the school.  It’s for building the new college. 

 

 It basically takes up that entire block of somewhat decrepit buildings. The owner is now selling fruit and veg in the satellite town where he lives and some newspaper reports suggest that he is planning to convert the nightclub into cafés and restaurants. 

 Pat and I talked about the past, the present and the future and enjoyed the mild weather with its hint of spring.

 It stopped raining this morning and my phone said it would be dry all afternoon so we left high ground and took the lift down to the swamp. We decided to walk down to a street in the Saint Pierre district where there are various street food places - one place sold empanadas, another focaccia and so on. When we got there the empanada place was closed and we fell back on something we know, caféincup. I got a toasted pastrami sandwich and Pat decided to go with BLT, but changed last minute for grilled cheese. I also got some ground coffee for my morning boost. We took our bag of scran and found an empty bench looking out over the river. Bliss.

 

 Yesterday I had a brief appointment in the centre of town at 10am, and it was bitterly cold in Bordeaux. Now I know that "bitterly cold" for us is still pretty warm by UK winter standards - we have become soft, please don't judge us. Sometimes in our flat it has dipped below 20°C this past week and we're barely coping. I know, it's pathetic. Anyway, off I trotted into the city pausing briefly to take another angle on the opera house. On my way home I had intended walking but it was so cold so I took the tram again and chose the quickest back street to the stop. That's how I found it. Place Georges de Porto Riche. The most sweet little square you ever saw, with lovely houses and trees all leafless. It was too cold to take a photo. Here's Google Maps' offering, with leaves and parked vehicles. I scuttled through and made a note to come back in more clement times.

 

In confinement it's great to have houseplants, an office, a balcony, but nothing really compensates for walking under the trees and kicking the leaves. In the spring confinement I remember how thrilled I was to find some horse-chestnut trees just in front of the railway station. After confinement getting back on the quays, then to the Jardin Public was very therapeutic. Of course, soon we'll have more trees than we can shake a stick at right down there at the foot of our apartment block. Maybe by spring? But meanwhile. Then last week Mrs Davey found a park while out running. It's not a big park. It's cosseted between a school, some apartment blocks and a vehicle testing centre, but it's a park and it's within a short walk of our home. Next door to the vehicle testing centre is the nearest cooperative supermarket. We must investigate.