Bonjour a nouveau,
Well we have had a mixed bag of weather this week which we think is linked to the beginning of the French holiday season and also a few friends visiting France from the UK (mentioning no names!!) and bringing the typical UK summer weather with them eg sun followed by thunderstorms.
We had some lucky escapes too from the worst of the storms which seemed to pass either side of us with reports of large hailstones in Carcasonne and Narbonne, Narbonne is only 30 miles away, which smashed car windscreens, house windows and also wrecked a lot of vines in the wine growing regions of France, everybody you speak to says that this is not the norm for this time of year, but after looking at the weather it does look like it’s getting more settled over the next few days and into next week and the blue sky's are back.
We have seen pictures on walls in surf shops and bars here of the whole of the beach/salt flats flooded for as far as the eye can see which is caused when the wind changes from Tramatona to Marin which for some reason brings 2 metre waves which breach the beach and flood the surrounding area.
It is such a spectacle to see but really strange to walk out of the campsite one day to a huge beach then the next to walk out to a huge lagoon for as far as you can see.
La Franqui is well known to be the wind capital of France and this week it has certainly lived up to it’s title, most days the average wind speeds have been 50 to 90 kilometres an hour (30-55mph) so it’s been small kites only, 5m & 6m and some serious smiles all-round and aching arms even if the wind is a bit gusty at times, but the locals say you do get used to it but the last few days it’s been too windy to kite at all!!
Due to the beach/salt flats being swamped and slowly draining away the campsite has had a lot of very frustrated land yachters sitting about because as the flats dry out it becomes very slippery so as they try to go straight all that happens is they get blown sideways and end up covered in mud so most days as we walk out to go kiting there are people tinkering with their buggies/yachts ready for when it dries out which with all this wind won’t be long!!
As usual we always cook around the van as it’s nice to sit outside and watch the world go-by while we do our dinner with glass of wine in hand and as it’s now holiday season there are a few small takeaway vans that visit the site a few nights a week i.e. pizza van, rotisserie chicken, fresh fruit and also a couscous van. While I was cooking a mixture of grilled meat on the plancha hot-plate the other evening Julie piped up and said do I fancy some couscous to go with with it so I said OK go and check it out, well 10 minutes later Julie returned with two massive plastic tubs and minus €12 and she then explained that you know when you are just too far in to say no as the over excited French bloke had done one pot of couscous and then an even bigger pot of vegetables and chicken in some sort of stock which included carrots, celery, white beans, gherkins etc etc and then to top it off a small pot of chilli paste. I was a bit baffled to know how we got all this when we only wanted couscous but Julie said he didn’t speak a word of English and her French wasn’t good enough to back pedal so it was easier to pay the money and walk away, to be far it was very nice anyway!
Au revoir for now,
J&J
x
No comments:
Post a Comment