Mmmm - nice

So, just to make sure they were put together properly and adjusted exactly as they should be, I took one out for a quick ride up and down some hills this afternoon in the gorgeous sunshine.

Very nice...

I must say it was like riding a newer, cleaner version of my old bike, a Giant 1500 hybrid. Very responsive and solid feeling. It changed gears very smoothly and glided along silently. And they look beautiful too.

I may have to ditch my old faithful and take to one of these when the season ends.

The view down our street during Pâques 2012

The whole village is closed to traffic and everyone can wander from stall to stall to building to building (and hopefully buy something!).

Fishing for 'poisson blanc'

Today I saw Pascal, the son of the local fishing shop owner (Le Poisson Roy) and his friend Pierre fishing for ‘Poisson blanc’. That’s the name for anything that isn’t a game fish and in this case it’s chub. Lots of them and very big they are too.

Pierre doing his best to creep up on the chub

They didn’t seem tempted in all the time that I spent there watching. Pascal blamed it on the sun. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Pascal and Pierre have a very good blog with some beautiful photos and videos here:Bearnish Fly.

The Pyrénées Mountains behind a house near 'Hôpital St Blaise'

On this 40km trip, I cycled through nearby ‘Hôpital St Blaise’, Gurs and Dognen. In Dognen, by the church, there is a relatively new resident called ‘Gribouille’, a noisy porker who doesn’t hesitate to come over when someone’s taking his photo.

My name's Gribouille and I'm as happy as a pig in shit...

He smells alot. He lives alone. Not surprisingly.

This is the normally picturesque 13th century bridge

The Rafting centre is literally half underwater and several islands in the river have now been totally immersed. It remains to be seen whether the river gets any higher over the next few days as rain is forecast again until tuesday at least.

The river in sunnier times

...and how it looks today

Aren - a local fishing spot

So he’s got plenty of great photos of the area which I can hopefully ‘borrow’ for this blog.

The results were very encouraging. I’ll try something properly tomorrow!

After this very steep hill, at least you could gaze over the vineyards of Jurancon at Monein

Then, today we had a group of accountants booked in to do some cycling in a lovely Basque village called Menditte.

This is good for team building apparently

There were ten teams of three out to race each other on an off-road circuit as part of a team-building excercise.

They’d picked a glorious day for it which was just as well, as from Menditte they were off north somewhere for a run then some walking. Maybe after that, some speed adding-up or something?

Doggy paddle!

It’s very difficult trying to point the camera in the right direction and there’s a long delay between pressing the button and the shutter going off.

Mine!

I ended up taking dozens of photos and only a few were interesting enough to keep. Thank goodness one doesn’t have to pay to get them developed these days.

Wooflfllffbbll !

That’s Olive’s tail you can just see, that flicks from side to side as she swims, using it like a propeller.

The hills are there somewhere

It soon warmed up once the sun rose over the hills though. One of those days when you feel glad to be alive.