Well, I just don’t know
what season this is supposed to be! Monday was a pretty good day although
hardly warm. Tuesday was grey but not quite raining. Wednesday was simply
beautiful with clear sunny skies. Thursday poured with rain all day. Friday
started off well but soon deteriorated and
a strong wind came up. Saturday rained most of the day after raining all
night, and once again a strong wind came up in the afternoon, and then today,
Sunday started off really miserably; cleared a little round about lunchtime and
got progressively better from there on. It has rained so much that I am sure
the house is floating! Certainly, when we walk anywhere in the garden, it feels
as if we are walking on a soggy sponge. We feel really cheated! Spring last
year was truly stunning and we spent a lot of time driving around enjoying the
flowers and the new green growth on the trees. In fact,the only thing that
tells me that we actually are moving into Spring is that the sun now sets at
about eight o’clock instead of six thirty as it did when we arrived.
As a result of the grey
days, we have not been out and about as we had hoped, but did go to Auch on
Tuesday to collect our new resident’s permits and are now legal again for
another year. And then on Thursday we took Pieter to the airport in Toulouse to
catch his flight to South Africa where he will be for the next couple of weeks.
On the way home, we stopped off in Auch again to visit a shop we had heard
about but never visited. It is a sportswear outlet known as Decathlon, which I
believe has branches elsewhere too, but this is an exceptionally large store. I
suppose one could refer to it as a warehouse with aisles in it similar to a
supermarket. Each aisle is devoted to
the equipment needed for a specific sport. Cyclists, for example, can buy all
the clothing needed – shoes, socks, shorts, shirts and crash helmets – for the
weekend outing, as well as the special light-weight gear preferred by the
professionals. And the
bicycles! Everything from kiddies models with training wheels to the top
ultra-light racers. And that is only one sport that they feature. As we
wandered the aisles, we discovered that there was equipment for all the racquet
sports; skating of various types –ice, roller and board, with all the
associated protective gear; hunting, fishing and hiking; not to mention
mountaineering and rock-climbing. And what about ball sports – football and
rugby? Yes, them too. I really didn’t know that so many different types of
shoes were available just for sport! What an eye-opener.
Since then though, we
have hardly moved out of the house except to go shopping for groceries. The French
don’t enjoy a long weekend over Easter as we do, but judging by the number of
chocolate eggs and bunnies arranged in the supermarkets, they certainly enjoy
lots of sweet stuff at this time. An interesting tradition is that all the
church bells are silenced from Thursday evening before Easter to Easter Sunday
morning. The children are told that all the bells have gone to Rome to fetch
Easter eggs, and are sent outside just before the bells ring on Sunday to see
if they can see the bells flying back from Rome. While they are outside, the adults
hide chocolate eggs for them which the children then hunt for once the bells
ring out again. Rather a fun idea, I think.
Another result of the
grey days, and us not having been anywhere of note, is that I have only one
photograph to share with you this week. In a rare moment of sunshine I saw this
remarkable little flower and had to snap it. It is a tiny plant, standing less
than ten centimeters high, with the most amazingly blue flowers. Quite lovely.
We can only hope for
better weather next week.
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