Saturday 5^th October

We are presently camped up on a Municipal site on the outskirts of Souston near the beach, about 5 minutes away on the bike.

After the thunderstorm Thursday night as we were getting ready to leave we heard a tractor staring up in the barn at the back of us, then Alain the Beekeeper arrived to check we could get out and hadn’t got bogged down which was really nice of him.

As the weather wasn’t up to much we decided to head for the coast, the landscape changed again with lots of pine and oak trees and some beautiful spreads of purple heather and bracken and the odd large lake.

Visited the beach to find the sea very rough and the locals making the most of the surf, not sure if we will get the chance to go in if it stays that rough and the sun doesn’t come out.

It poured during the night and the big disadvantage of camping under trees is that the drips carry on for ages after the rain stops, just about long enough for it to start again. We have been lucky though so far in that it hasn’t rained all day once.

I got up and cycled into the village to get the shopping and some sausages on the local farmers’ market then had a trip out to the beach whilst Viv was in the van making jewellery.

Saw my first ever Short toed Treecreeper on a pine right next to the van, also Kentish Plover and Yellow Legged Gulls on the beach with the odd Egret, Kingfisher and Heron.

Succumbed to the call of the sea and went for a surf in the afternoon as board hire place right next to the beach but a bit too rough for me really as the waves were breaking really close in so only managed one very short run. However, I had an enjoyable couple of hours floating about on the board and on the odd occasion being tossed around in the washing machine like surf. Viv washed me down with fresh water in the car park afterwards.

Spent Saturday night a few miles away on a Peanut farm it was really nice to be back to the solitude of the France Passion sites again after the crowd at the Municipal last night. Just us in a big field at the back of the farm house with Black Redstarts for company and the usual Collard Doves everywhere down here.

I don’t think the farmer’s dog has seen or heard a guitar before because as soon as I started playing he came over and started barking at me, it wasn’t just my singing as he barked even when I just played an instrumental. However, he gave up barking before I stopped playing though and wandered back to the farm.

Sunday 6^th October

Woke up this morning to find farm covered in mist that was slowly lifting as the sun started to break through. The temperature rose from 17 degrees to 25 between 9:00 am and 10:30 am as the sky cleared to a beautiful clear blue.

We phoned Gareth and left him a birthday greeting, funny to think last time we were in this area he was only about 14 or so years old.

We introduced ourselves to the farmer and he showed us round the farm, it looks like the whole set up is run by him, his brother and their sons. Just at the back of us was a field of peanuts and next to us a small patch to demonstrate to visitors what they look like. The plant itself is nothing special with very small yellow flowers. However, once they have flowered a shoot comes out of the flower down into the ground and the peanut grows on the end of it. He picked a plant to show us and we ate one of the fresh peanuts, really nice and different to the dried stuff we are used to. Viv bought some peanut sweets one in chocolate and the other in toffee. He said he was the only person he knew growing peanuts and that is was quite difficult to harvest them so maybe that is why no-one else is growing them.

As it was such a lovely day we decided to head for the coast and ended up driving into Biarritz past all the beautiful people posing in their designer gear as they walked about. We found a nice little camping car place right next to a beach so parked up and went surfing. I did much better today as decent waves although the board took a bit of getting used to and it was much busier more like Croyde on a holiday weekend with boards all over the place. The lass in the hire shop only charged me 5 euros for an hour instead of 10 which was really nice of her.

We are currently parked up in the camping car place with electric hookup and a beer as we decided it made sense to stop here tonight rather than go up into the hills and then come back down again early as we have 107 miles to Bilbao to complete tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Gareth we are having a drink to celebrate for you, 29 years ago there was about an hour to go before you entered the world.