A Protest March

It's been another busy week with various parties a jazz concert, and a protest march against the re-opening of a stone quarry in a particularly pretty valley near Lorgues. The French like their 'manifestations' or 'manifs' for short and have some practice in organizing them. The march followed a circular route of about 3 miles, the quarry in question being about half-way round. In order to entice the largest possible number of protesters the organizers had laid on a well publicized spread of eatables and plenty of wine, all courtesy of an English owned domaine, So 200 people tucked in and in no time at all the original aim of the exercise had largely been forgotten. Lots had brought their dogs, including two beagles. These got very excited, thinking that the hunting season had begun, and as soon as we moved off they started to bay loudly. All the other dogs joined in, and in a brief flight of fancy I was back in the saddle once again.

Party time

The 14th July, or Le Quatorze is France's national day. There is a huge parade in Paris and every town and commune celebrates. Little St Antonin with its 450 inhabitants always puts on a fine show, with a very loud firework display and a much louder band that plays all the popular tunes by popstars living and dead. Everybody dances from the oldest granny to the smallest baby in its mother's arms. This year, instead of the traditional sit-down meal, we had a running buffet, quite naturally washed down with wine made in the village. At 3 Euros a litre it might be a bit suspect, but it's good stuff and wins prizes at several important wine fairs. We went down to join in the fun with John and Jan who were staying in the wing, and quickly met up with some French friends and some Belgian friends of theirs. Svea loves her dancing so pranced and twirled around the floor, twirling me and passing friends with her. We withdrew, slightly unsteadily sometime after midnight, while the band played on long after our heads had hit the pillows.

First Post

It's going to take time to get used to this blogging. I'd like to tell you something about Les Castellans, but there seems to be some sort of limit to how much I can say. You may have heard about the floods in the Var recently. Well, we were lucky just to have a couple of small leaks in the main house, while the wing, where our guests stay was completely dry. Amazing really, as it was just like being under a waterfall and you could see no more than a couple of metres. Others were not so lucky, and a friend close by had a large part of her garden washed away. In Draguignan 15 kms away, they are still clearing the mud and drowned cars away a month after the waters subsided. The main road bridge at Taradeau is still down and so if you are coming from Nice you need to go to Lorgues by Draguignan or Vidauban. It puts an extra 15 mins on the journey time. We had a great party in St Antonin village for the Quatorze Juillet, so I'll tell you about that in my next post

Victor