Saintes Maries De La Mer was a nice jaunt. I set the satnav to avoid tolls and we traversed the countryside on a series of D roads, single lane roads of good quality with hard shoulders, and a speed limit of 80kms/hr. The roads were quiet at around 1pm on Easter Sunday and we were… Continue reading Les Saintes Maries De La Mer
La voiture est tombée en panne (Our car broke down)
Our car died yesterday on a roundabout on the outskirts of Arles, as we returned from a day trip to the Med at Saintes Maries de la Mer. The sun is shining, it’s early evening, you enter a roundabout shifting down gears as you navigate the steady stream of traffic from beach goers and attendees… Continue reading La voiture est tombée en panne (Our car broke down)
In France, trying to speak French
I am in France trying to speak French, a language I have never spoken before beyond the few desultory touristic attempts so bad that the French counterpart felt forced into using their English, itself usually limited to a few isolated words badly pronounced, but still superior to my grasp of their language in their country. … Continue reading In France, trying to speak French
Avignon
Somehow, somewhere, in my life along its cobblestoned way, I introduced the notion to myself that Avignon and ABBA were an item, that they belong together. I simultaneously in a different part of my brain connected Avignon with the Arthurian legends of Camelot. Avignon is such a beautiful name, it oozes the richness of medieval… Continue reading Avignon
The French
French people based on my interactions to date are as friendly as anyone anywhere. Walking around our little town most people greet with a ‘bonjour’. The supermarket assistants are consistent across different stores at wishing one, ‘une belle journeé’. They have the friendliness of the financially secure, call it euro-friendliness, observable also in Ireland and… Continue reading The French
Provence
We walked today out of town along narrow one car width roads through a landscape of vineyards and chateaux in a gentle excursion beyond the city limits. We picked up our dog poo and faced that moral conundrum that the porters of dog poo are want to meet, the coming to the garbage bin of… Continue reading Provence
Sur la route trois
from Bilbao to Provence The route took us up the coast, north eastwards from Bilbao for about two hours, then East with the Pyrenees to our South, our right-side, for the remainder. We drove first in the direction of San Sebastian, a place my wife would very much like to visit, through undulating landscape of… Continue reading Sur la route trois
Sur la Route deux
ferry time Our ferry journey was 36 hours, board at midnight, disembark at 8am on Sunday morning in Bilbao, all told a pretty dreamy piece of scheduling. We had booked two cabins as dogs over 10kg were limited to one a room. From uber cramped car, where Ali could not place her feet in the… Continue reading Sur la Route deux
Sur la route
from Rosslare to Provence How did we get here? In a 2008 Volvo V50D is the answer, the short answer, accurate but not complete…as is often the case. Our departure from Graig was abrupt, chaotic and not without mishap. It played out as daylight gave way to darkness, when the frantic efforts to clear the… Continue reading Sur la route
March 7th, least shitty trade du jour
JPM opened trading on 7th with a spike down, then traded in a range all day until downward trend resumed near close