Already exhausted

It is a little over a week since we returned to Caunes after our Tour de Yorkshire trip “home”. However, quite a bit has been packed in during the last week, and we are now looking forward to a couple of quiet weeks before various family members arrive. 

Watching the world cup final on a large screen with French neighbours, interspersed with joining the fete nationale parade from the Mairie to the rugby stadium for pre quatorze feu d’artifice…( then back to the big screen for the world cup extra time ) …..was exhausting in itself.

The children's lanterns all held candles.... we saw a few lanterns that had caught fire by being tilted too much...parents had to be pretty watchful.

These flares were set off along the route of the parade....next to parked cars, children in buggies, etc. It looked dangerous, but there seemed to be no problems.

The parade grew and grew as more people joined it as it wound its way around the village. It filled the whole main street at this point.

Then there was le Quatorze itself……having picked up friends from the airport who joined us for the experience, we watched the amazing Carcassonne fireworks from a hillside outside the city.

We waited for the fireworks as it finally got dark.

They were spectacular, and as usual, there is a section in the middle of the display where Carcassonne looks as if it is completely on fire.  The theme for the display this year was love, although at one point we were pretty sure it must have been war.

The weather has been beautiful all week, while our visitors have been here. I began teaching with Melody 38 years ago, and I lived with her during my first couple of years as a teacher. We had some serious adventures during those years ! ( another post maybe ).

So, we have done a fair bit of lazing around the pool, but  we also felt it was important to show our guests how lovely Caunes can be.

Melody and Craig enjoyed seeing Caunes, but particularly enjoyed breakfast in the bar each morning

One morning, I left our guests by the pool and  joined friends for a walk to the cave outside Trassannel, where a group of maquis members were massacred by Nazis in August 1944. However, we managed to lose the right path within 100 metres of the car park from where we set off. We had an excellent  7K walk...but, failed to find the cave.  We discovered where we went wrong....so...........next time, we'll find it !

If we had done what Wendy said we should do...we'd have been fine !

We should have followed the red and yellow route....#36.....we ended up on #37. I fear, if we'd carried on, and not turned back, we'd have ended up in Paris !

We also invited some friends round for a chili ( on what was probably the hottest day of the summer so far….perhaps not the best menu choice ).

Another round of the café des langues took place in the local bar.

The cafe des langues has now become a weekly fixture in our local bar. Sometimes the conversation dries up...but we certainly have a laugh, and learn new phrases all the time...this week we learned about hangovers ! ( It was the morning after our chili night, Mark was one that felt just a little fragile.

…..and we enjoyed a couple of lovely meals out with Melody and Craig……

and finally, I kept in touch with Jess all day yesterday via various social media sources, to try to share in her " graduation as a teacher day". We flew back to England last year for her  degree graduation, but agreed with her, that perhaps we didn’t need to be there for her PGCE graduation. Thank goodness for face book, whats app and blogging !