What We Did on Our Holiday

Do you remember, in days gone by, when neighbours would invite you round for drinks to admire their tans and before you knew it, the curtains were drawn and a projector, a screen and cartridge after cartridge of transparencies were there in front of you for hours and your eyes would immediately glaze over with no escape in sight?

With that in mind, I will not subject you to more than a glimpse of some of our recent trip to the French Pyrenees in our camper-van. Jon, being a keen cyclist, managed to climb several of the iconic mountain passes of the Tour de France and even this year's Vuelta (including the Col du Tourmalet and the Col D'Aubisque.) He was surprised that he managed them although he lacked the speed and finesse of Messrs Froome and Quintana.

The French do have a sense of humour! (The "hypermarket" at 'La Natura' Lac d'Estaing camp-site)

Pity you can't hear all those tinkling bells.

A baking hot day by the Gave du Saison, Tardets-Sorholos

And that's all you're getting. I could wax lyrical about the heat, the heady scent of pine-woods, the cow bells and herds of wild horses, the sheep's cheese famed in the French Basque region, not to mention the Basques theselves who straddle the border between France and Spain with their unique and distinctive language (all those x's and z's) and all those village Pelota courts.

Now it's head down to concentrate on that messy final draft of my novel in progress - still. I perhaps might finisdh it by the end of the year..