So, here is the catch-up, not ketchup, c-a-t-c-h-u-p, as in getting you up to date.
We came back from Mexico (Oh, it seems so long ago, as if it had happened in another century) in May of last year. And the first order of business was to retrieve our cat, which had been parked with a relative (I won't name names) for the duration of our five month trip--or so we thought.
We went to fetch her and, (to quote the girl in Gone With The Wind), " Oh, Lordy, Lordy" we were told that said feline had (to quote a character from the film Brief Encounter) "Offted it", taken a powder, scrammed it, jumped the hoop, taken it on the lam, in other words, gone!
W. C. Fields said that absence does not make the heart grow fonder; if anything, it gives a fella a chance to get a drink. In the case of our cat, it gave her the chance to see the town because not wanting to wear out her welcome, she disappeared into the wilds of Biarritz.
We had given up hope of finding her when one day she appeared on the roof of our wash house. But, resentful as only a female of the species can be, she would not come into the house. Skinny as an anorexic fashion model, she would only come, hesitantly, to have food we left by the garden door.
Finally, after a few days of that, growling as if resentful that we had abandoned her for so long, she consented to come into the house.
Soon after our wayward cat came back, another cat (almost a kitten) started showing up in our window. We had been feeding Tom the Cat, the cat that belongs to the neighborhood, for a while and we thought that this new arrival might be one of Tom's descendants because it had the same striping but very blue-green eyes, not like Tom's dark green ones.
We called it Princess, because it was so dainty and beautifully colored,; but as it grew and became a muscled, well-formed male, we had to change the name to Prince the Cat. Not only has it grown in size, it has grown in strength and muscle power. Prince has taken over from Tom (in fact he has beat up poor old Tom a few times). He fights off any stray cat that comes into out street and has even jumped a sissy dog that strayed away from its home a few houses down the road.
On the home front, there was summer to contend with. My wife started posting our spare bedrooms on a B&B site and had quite a nice response. We had myriad guests from a nice Indian guy from Singapore to a Russian family.
After that, the family that usually rents our house for two weeks during August came to stay and WE offed it to Paris. That was a great trip. As usual, we went by the national roads rather than the superhighways. The nationals are more colorful, there are a lot of nice towns to see on the way, and places to eat and stay. This time we made a stopover in Lectoure, a town famous for its beautiful high tower.
The evening we stayed there was balmy so we looked for an outdoor place to have dinner. We came upon a vary nice terrace, with tables and candle light, which was the restaurant of a hotel. We waited to be seated and when the waitress came, she asked if we were staying in the hotel. We said that we were not and that we just wanted dinner. But, she said, I can't give you a table if you are not staying in the hotel. Trust the French to figure out a way to turn away business.
Rebuffed, we went on our way and found a very nice restaurant with a very busy and nicely appointed terrace, with huge umbrellas that protected the tables from the few raindrops that fell. After a very good dinner in that terrace restaurant we walked along the village, which was quiet and peaceful--everyone being home and in bed.
Paris was, well, Paris: full of summer tourists and the hustle and bustle of a large city. We stayed away from the usual stomping grounds of the crowds. I only visited the Louvre a couple of times and when we went I usually steered clear of the gathering places for the herd: the Mona Lisa, the winged victory, etc. There are so many other things to see, many of them never visited by the crowd.
We like to take city buses into and from the city. It is like being on a bus tour. Number 52 goes by most of the "sights" of Paris and leaves you just on the Hotel de Ville or the Madeleine.
OK, so back to Biarritz we came at the middle of August. Fortunately by then the highways were not so crowded as at the start of vacation time. Now it was time to get ready for all the late summer activities: the visit from the kids, doing some gardening and taking some local trips with the AFLACOBA crowd.
September was taken up by the Biarritz Film Festival. Since we are members of AFLACOBA, the Latin Americans in the Basque Country association, we get a special price. There were a lot of good films and documentaries this year and the "Latin American Village", a sort of market place for people selling food, wares, and goods from Latin American countries was as usual noisy and fun.
The AFLACOBA also organized a trip to a very beautiful, historic and colorful Spanish town just south of us: Pasajes.
Pasajes other claim to fame, other than its colorful beauty and anchovy canning business, was the fact that Victor Hugo came here and rented a house for the summer. It is also the place where he received the terrible news that one of his beloved daughters had drowned in a boating accident.
October and November are sort of the doldrums around here. The town is resting from all of the tourists that have crowded it for two months and everyone is doing house chores and getting ready for the big vacation and celebration: Christmas.
I took the time to start a new novel: "Diego Rivera and Don Porfirio Díaz" about the fictional meeting in Paris of these two seminal personages of Mexican history. But, I also finished another novel, "The Story of a Doctor, his Town, and his Country", which I printed two copies of and sent to a Novel contest by the great editorial house Planeta in Barcelona. I also finished a book of short stories and sent that to another contest in Cadiz, Spain.
So, then came Christmas: it was, as usual, a great dinner with friends and family. On the 24th we had the traditional oysters, foie gras with champagne, and a splendid dinner that was topped with Christmas pudding. On the 25th we had a great lunch of salmon and lamb chops; the fish course featured a great Sancerre white wine.
We were a bit disappointed we could not get away again to go back to Mexico. And, having been spoiled by the temperate and constantly nice climate of Dolores, the town where we stayed for five months, we were not prepared for the constant rain and cold of this year's winter.
We are prisoners of the climate here: few days are nice enough to go out and about. We stay indoors and I we write or work, as the time permits. The garden is a mess and we will have a lot of work to do in the Spring and Summer.
Right, so that is our catch-up. I will now post my weekly blog with the usual sarcasm and wit. Please leave some comments on the blog.
APT
Rodolfo
