so,
now we’re in france. its been a bit of a mad few weeks but things have settled nicely. a few weeks ago, after leaving barcelona we headed up to perpignon. we stayed with a friend of grainnes for a few days and had a most relaxing time, and did all our washing!! kate made us very welcome and we enjoyed life by the med, drinking coffee and cycling about. i must admit to being a bit dissapointed with the medeterranian- i thought that it’d be warmer. but hey ho.
grainne left from perpignon and got the train to bonn, so left to my own devices i headed back to to see karl and karo in toulouse. we’d been there on our way down and it’s a sweet city, so on i went. i drove some some very beautifully french towns, surrounded by vineyards and tiny villages with a post office, a bakery and an old man with a bike (every town has one…). on the way i stopped at a very groovy campsite near foix, in a place called ‘la venert’, but more about that later. karl had sorted me out with free tickets to a gig, on the monday, so after my arival we got stuck straight into some drinking and seeing the town. i discovered a french favourite ‘la pastis’, which is pronounced ‘pasties’, but has nothing to do with cornwall or pastry. it’s basically pernod, but drinkable, and it’s great. also went to see a cool art exhibition in a warehouse were cool artist workshops are based, and found a guy with more bikes than neils old house.
after spending a few days on there, i went back to the campsite near foix and had several days of just me, the staff, and ocassional herds of stag parties who stayed for a few hours and then left. on an interesting note, a stag/hen party is called the ‘girls/boys funeral’ in france. nice.
on i then went through the south of france, and on into the basque country, french side. i’d decided to stay on the french side ‘cos i’ve realised that some fo the french i learnt in school has stuck and i can communicate and coverse a lot more than when on the spanish side. Also, a big shout out to karl for helping me with my linguistic skills. As i made my way further west along the pyrenees i seemed to be attracting a lot of rain, but kept going. i eventually got to biarritz to meet grainne, and it just continued raining. In biarritz i managed to find a very cool place to park for free which was just beside a beach. a sweet spot, and was right beside lots of costal walks, which was nice. I also enjoyed being beside the sea and forgot how much i like being near it.
Grainne arrived back on a friday (maybe) from germany with a sore back, and we stayed in biarritz for another few days, and i got time to practice with my new sling shot (thanks ben) on the beach while G convalesed in bed. but while in bonn she heard about a land occupation in nantes, against the propsed building of a new airport, so we decided that that would be the thing for us. After 3 days driving north i again remembered that france is really big, but we were delighted to arrive at this place. we are on a piece of land beside a tattered house, with a beautiful wood cabin and some carivans and shacks around. its part of a much bigger land occupation covering about 1200 hectares of land and forest. i’ll write more about it soon, but i’m a bit tired now as i was up this morning working in the gardens and spent the afternoon building a solar oven and a bench. also, i’m outside and being hasseled by giant flying things attracted to the screen
a plus tard
brian