Bayonne, France, Thursday July 17th

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I met our figure skating fellow lodger a little earlier that expected when I mistook his bedroom for the bathroom at seven a.m. He looked very surprised and I don’t know what else, since I quickly shut the door after stammering, “Pardon!” Later he was very gracious about my faux pas, and at least we had no need to break the ice when we sat down to breakfast.

We are lodging with a very kind and friendly music teacher, two of her children, and Jan, our fellow lodger who lives in France but was born in Poland. He is training for the next competitive season at the ice skating rink in Biarritz, about fifteen minutes away from here by bicycle. As lodgers we have complete independence, but there is a friendly atmosphere of chatting to each other and sharing cups of tea.

This morning Catherine drove us into town to help us with our telephone problems. She explained our problem at the Telecom Office and made two phone calls for us. We then needed to fax a copy of Keith’s passport to Telecom, since they had not received our registration card in the mail as yet and, until the phone is registered, it can’t be used. This was done at the post office where the staff members were friendly and chatty; something that we have really come to appreciate in France. As we left they closed the doors for their two hour lunch break.

Next we set off on our own to the tourist office, where helping us seemed to be their joy, and where bicycles for free use by tourists were lined up out the front. Our final goal was to buy a dictionary and some books to help with our French, since we will be much more on our own and need some resources. We looked about while we followed various people’s directions and eventually we came to the bookshop. It had an excellent language section so we bought a dictionary, a magazine full of articles about aspects of French life in French, and a book of verb conjugations with a grammar section at the front. I couldn’t wait to get home for a read, but also for lunch since our breakfast had been some very ordinary little apple biscuits from a packet.

We called at the ‘Casino’, a little supermarket that Catherine had shown us, but it was already the lunch break there and so it was closed. A couple of apple biscuits later and we were reading our new books. Both of us were very tired and found that the words just didn’t stay in our heads for even enough time to register them, let alone to learn anything. We gave up and had a snooze.

‘The casino’ was open on our next visit, so we bought vegetables, rice and bread for tea and for the next morning. The man serving was friendly and interested in where we had come from etc, giving us a chance to listen and talk and the feeling that we would like to come back again. The stock was clearly slanted to the French lifestyle, with a wide variety of salad vegetables, cheeses, vinegars, oils, sausages, baguettes in a basket and the local pimiento sauce, and it made us wonder what items a French person would notice in a small shop in Australia as being indicative of the Australian lifestyle. We had ‘lunch’ at about 4.30, and then dinner at about 7.30, which amounted to a lot of cooking and eating in a short time.

After dinner, Jan took us to the free concert by L’Harmonie Bayonnaise, a local concert band, at the rotunda in the Place De Gaulle in the city centre. Before the music started there was a display of Basque dancing, including the famous Fandango. Young boys and girls in traditional costumes danced separately and together. One of the boys’ dances involved carrying two sticks, which were banged together in patterns around the legs and with other dancers. Later in the week, at the Basque Museum, we saw an extension of this dance, in which a boy with padding on his back dances in between the other boys and then submits to a beating on his back as the finale to it all. Maybe no-one had agreed to be beaten just for the entertainment of the summer crowd on this occasion. The girls carried half hoops decorated with flowers and they used them to crash against other dancers’ hoops, following up on the ‘dancing equals combat’ theme. The fandango is a very athletic dance, with lots of footwork and twirling this way and that, and was danced by young men and young women. It occurred to me that, in the past with less mobility and with a greater degree of set roles and expectations for both men and women, most people would have married within the confines of a few neighbouring villages. What better way to look over likely prospects than to go to the festival and watch the dancing displays, where physical form is clearly apparent, as well as stamina and coordination. Some of the dancers were clearly enjoying themselves, while others looked as if they could be hard to spend an evening with, let alone your life.

A small band of musicians played for the dancers, with the two pipe players only using one hand. Later we were to see photos of people playing the pipe with one hand and a drum with another, extending the musical possibilities for a solo or small group.

L’Harmonie was a large group of predominantly young players. Although dressed formally in black and white, their conductor was light hearted and casual, except when conducting, and there was a relaxed and convivial vibe emanating from the stage. They played a wide variety of numbers, with the music of Laurel and Hardy contrasting with a funeral march and a medley of Queen music. The crowd could collect their own chairs from under the rotunda and put them back later – a very sensible approach to an outdoor concert on a balmy evening.

We are staying one street away from the bull fighting arena, Bayonne being part of the Basque Country and bull fighting a traditional sport. There was action there tonight, but no cries of anguish from man or beast. A soprano was singing with a full orchestra in rehearsal for tomorrow’s opera, La Traviata, playing here for a short season. Some young people down the street were laughingly mimicking her singing and we were alarmed when Jan started to do the same. He stopped before security or anyone noticed, and we turned back towards the house, still listening to our free audio only version of the opera.

A small hedgehog was mooching along the path, no doubt an opera lover with poor hearing who just had to get closer. Never having seen a hedgehog before, we were fascinated. It saw us and hesitated, glancing around to assess its options. With road, path and solid wall surrounding it, it was probably wishing that hedgehogs had wings. We stopped and it slowly and self consciously stood up with its front against the wall and its front paws raised as if to surrender. Gradually its spines lifted but it kept looking around as if to say “I know I don’t look scary but it’s the best that I can do.” It was a very humble creature who waited for Keith to return with the camera and then submitted without complaint to numerous flash pictures. It was very much like a middle aged gentleman in a shabby waistcoat, waiting for a group of hoods to finish having their fun so that he could shuffle on home to eat a kipper and drink a cup of tea in front of the telly. At last we hoods moved on, down the steps to our house, where Catherine told us that hedgehogs are not her favourites, since they get into the cellar and steal the dog’s croquettes. This sounded badly out of character for the hedgehog we had met but, on reflection, a low profile crime that could be in his line.

Houses, streets, median strips, bridges and walls are bedecked with flowers in many places in Bayonne as well as other French towns and villages we have seen.

The War Memorial is unusual in depicting a farmer with a bull, representing the background of many men who died in World War II.

A view of the old part of Bayonne and the Nive River.