We had no desire to get up early after having been kept up all night, and so the idea of going early with Sandie to the Gourdon markets went out the window. Therefore, we got up about 10am, with the yahooers not far behind us, annoyingly.
We had breakfast, and drove into Gourdon, parking miles away, in a nice shady spot. Before we went, we set my SD card backing up to Christian's laptop, and said hello to a friendly grasshopper on the headlight. We wandered up to the markets, and saw all manner of tasty olives, foie gras, confit, saucisson, fruit, vegetables, quiches, vol-au-vents, paella, but didn't buy anything, as it would have been on the expensive side.
On the way back to the car, I wanted to call in to the chocolate shop, and we bought quiches for lunch, and some moussy desserts for afters. In order to stop the car's battery from flattening, we went back to the car to eat, and to stop the SD card back up. I could have sworn that someone in Sandie's car honked and waved at me, but it turns out it was someone else in a black Audi. Hmmm.
We went back up into Gourdon to explore, walking up to the top of the fortification to look at the view, and read about the history of the town. On the way back down, the large crowd of people had moved away from the church, and so we went in for a look. The church itself wasn't exceptional, but the windows were lovely - strangely, some of them looked decidedly art deco, but we couldn't find any information to suggest that they had been redone recently.
I spotted a sign to some gardens after that, and we went to investigate. They were cute cottage 'zig zag' gardens, with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. We'd seen a reasonable amount of the town, and so headed back to the house, only to discover that the rest of them still hadn't had lunch by 1pm. Christian remembered that he'd forgotten to buy batteries to replace the ones of Sandie's he'd used for his torch, and so we went in search of some in Le Vigan. Sadly, everything was closed for siesta, so we headed back. Luckily, John and Rachael were just going off to do a supermarket run, and so we asked them to buy batteries.
We pootled around for a while, then decided to head straight to the beach without waiting for anyone else. We got a spot in the sun, spread out the broken air bed, and went to get in the water. It was only then that we spotted Annalise and Lita further up. We went for a swim, and Christian went to investigate the cave that John had been in the day before. A bat flew out at him, which was moderately exciting.
I got cold, and my ear, which had been blocked already, felt pressurised and uncomfortable, and so I got out and tried to catch some sun. The sun was annoyingly reticent, despite me chasing it with my towel. After a while, despite my ear, I decided to go back in the water, because I was warm, and because I wanted to try some duck dives, which the others were practising. I can do them, but not very well, so need to practice. Christian said I needed to relax my breathing, and not to take a huge breath in before going under, and this helped. I also need to work on being able to swim 150m underwater, which I definitely can't do at the moment. This was our last chance to do dry caving, and it didn't happen. :-(
After Rachael gave me some of her alcohol/hydrogen peroxide ear drops to try and clear my ear, John and Rachael headed back, and we weren't far behind them. I had a shower and washed my filthy hair. The band had a bit of a rehearsal, and Liz handed me her clarinet. Looks like I was going to be involved. I tried a few numbers, firstly trying to play the melody with Chris, but gave up on that, as Liz herself did. It was just too difficult to transpose. So I attempted to put in some harmony with what Chris was doing. Even that was something of a challenge.
The guests began to arrive, and we all had some pink bubbly to get rid of the last of the wedding wine. The English and the French crowds didn't mix much, but everyone seemed to have a good time. It was nice to meet and speak to Harald - his crazy beagle (Hagar the Horrible) and Wolfie created reasonable mayhem, so both got tied up, to their chagrin. Dinner was lots of cold stuff, with tasty tarts, salad, cheese.
The band played a set, which was mostly fun, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. I was sorry to not actually be able to play out properly, but it wasn't about me.
We asked Maurice about his 60D, and Christian had a go with some of its features. Maurice had a go with Christian's lens.
The band did another set without me, which I was glad about. It was fun to listen, and they had a couple of train wrecks (all good fun).
Christian and I decided to go to bed about 11, and in so doing, missed the fireworks display that John let off nearby. Some of the rocket sticks landed dangerously close to our tent. We certainly heard the noise and saw the flashes. Christian decided in the end to go out and watch them, but only caught the last couple.
This evening wound up much earlier than the night before.
We had breakfast, and drove into Gourdon, parking miles away, in a nice shady spot. Before we went, we set my SD card backing up to Christian's laptop, and said hello to a friendly grasshopper on the headlight. We wandered up to the markets, and saw all manner of tasty olives, foie gras, confit, saucisson, fruit, vegetables, quiches, vol-au-vents, paella, but didn't buy anything, as it would have been on the expensive side.
On the way back to the car, I wanted to call in to the chocolate shop, and we bought quiches for lunch, and some moussy desserts for afters. In order to stop the car's battery from flattening, we went back to the car to eat, and to stop the SD card back up. I could have sworn that someone in Sandie's car honked and waved at me, but it turns out it was someone else in a black Audi. Hmmm.
We went back up into Gourdon to explore, walking up to the top of the fortification to look at the view, and read about the history of the town. On the way back down, the large crowd of people had moved away from the church, and so we went in for a look. The church itself wasn't exceptional, but the windows were lovely - strangely, some of them looked decidedly art deco, but we couldn't find any information to suggest that they had been redone recently.
I spotted a sign to some gardens after that, and we went to investigate. They were cute cottage 'zig zag' gardens, with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. We'd seen a reasonable amount of the town, and so headed back to the house, only to discover that the rest of them still hadn't had lunch by 1pm. Christian remembered that he'd forgotten to buy batteries to replace the ones of Sandie's he'd used for his torch, and so we went in search of some in Le Vigan. Sadly, everything was closed for siesta, so we headed back. Luckily, John and Rachael were just going off to do a supermarket run, and so we asked them to buy batteries.
We pootled around for a while, then decided to head straight to the beach without waiting for anyone else. We got a spot in the sun, spread out the broken air bed, and went to get in the water. It was only then that we spotted Annalise and Lita further up. We went for a swim, and Christian went to investigate the cave that John had been in the day before. A bat flew out at him, which was moderately exciting.
I got cold, and my ear, which had been blocked already, felt pressurised and uncomfortable, and so I got out and tried to catch some sun. The sun was annoyingly reticent, despite me chasing it with my towel. After a while, despite my ear, I decided to go back in the water, because I was warm, and because I wanted to try some duck dives, which the others were practising. I can do them, but not very well, so need to practice. Christian said I needed to relax my breathing, and not to take a huge breath in before going under, and this helped. I also need to work on being able to swim 150m underwater, which I definitely can't do at the moment. This was our last chance to do dry caving, and it didn't happen. :-(
After Rachael gave me some of her alcohol/hydrogen peroxide ear drops to try and clear my ear, John and Rachael headed back, and we weren't far behind them. I had a shower and washed my filthy hair. The band had a bit of a rehearsal, and Liz handed me her clarinet. Looks like I was going to be involved. I tried a few numbers, firstly trying to play the melody with Chris, but gave up on that, as Liz herself did. It was just too difficult to transpose. So I attempted to put in some harmony with what Chris was doing. Even that was something of a challenge.
The guests began to arrive, and we all had some pink bubbly to get rid of the last of the wedding wine. The English and the French crowds didn't mix much, but everyone seemed to have a good time. It was nice to meet and speak to Harald - his crazy beagle (Hagar the Horrible) and Wolfie created reasonable mayhem, so both got tied up, to their chagrin. Dinner was lots of cold stuff, with tasty tarts, salad, cheese.
The band played a set, which was mostly fun, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. I was sorry to not actually be able to play out properly, but it wasn't about me.
We asked Maurice about his 60D, and Christian had a go with some of its features. Maurice had a go with Christian's lens.
The band did another set without me, which I was glad about. It was fun to listen, and they had a couple of train wrecks (all good fun).
Christian and I decided to go to bed about 11, and in so doing, missed the fireworks display that John let off nearby. Some of the rocket sticks landed dangerously close to our tent. We certainly heard the noise and saw the flashes. Christian decided in the end to go out and watch them, but only caught the last couple.
This evening wound up much earlier than the night before.
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