After the excitement of Bayonne and Biarritz we stopped on
the coast road which afforded a fine cliff top view of the sea. There is a parking place for people to get to
the cliff edge, admire the view, and a sign which pointed to a coastal path
which herself suggested would make a good walk.
We went a few hundred metres
along it until we reached a little bay and looked at the rock formations, drift
wood, bits of flotsam, jetsam, shells and other dead animals one finds on most
seashores. Heading back up the beach I turn back towards the road, she is
inclined to continue along the path. The look on my face seemed to say ‘I’d rather
sit in the sun with a beer’ (I am rather good at that particular expression) which
prompted her to suggest that we do the walk tomorrow morning before heading off.
This is a compromise I am happy to accept. Many a slip and all that.
Back home, Tricia runs a local walking group, the Amblers. It
comprises walkers who do not want to yomp over hill and dale but prefer to
stroll from a car park to a tea shop a few metres away but taking a diversion
of several kilometres through fields and things. That way they park, walk, have
tea and their cars are just a short stroll from the tea table.
Personally, I don’t get the ‘walking’ thing. When I hear of
people going on walking holidays my first thought is ‘Why?’ For me walking is a
way of getting from one place to another if you don’t have a car, bike or tractor.
It is a means, not an end. I have tried many times but the best it ever gets is
‘OK’. While we are at it I don’t really get the tea shop thing
either. A bar yes, tea shops don’t do it for me. But I digress.
We decide that this parking place is suitable for an
overnight stop. It As the evening proceeds we do the beer thing, have something
to eat and wonder what the hell is going on in the fields up the road where
blokes in high visibility vests are building what look like toilets and putting
up flags in an big field. I suggest that it looks like preparations for a boot
market which could be part of the fete which is advertised for the next day. Tricia
then becomes convinced that they will close the road and evict us from the lay-by
at silly o’clock at night. I manage to persuade her that we will be fine and
that the boot market . I only take one photo of the view (above) and spend the rest
of the evening watching a mouse-like rodent of some sort scuttling about in the
field next to the road.
Cut to 7am. We are spark out. It is still dark. There is a VERY LOUD knock on
the door, a man in a high visibility vest says they are closing the road for the fete and we have to go NOW!
The
chagrin of being completely wrong and herself being completely right is
mollified by the fact that we do not have time for the walk – shame.
Verdict: It is an ill wind indeed that blows no good.
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