The village of St. Jean de Fos is very old and its occupants are very sociable. People kept stopping to say ‘hello’. For such a small place, the village centre always seemed to be buzzing. I spent the first day here lounging about and getting some rest after our long drive down, but then, on Monday morning I was up early and out for a walk – as I did each morning afterwards.
Our first visit to the (sea) beach took some time to organise as I woke up to a flat battery.
The week before we set off on holiday, I had had a new radio fitted in the car and was told it was connected to the battery but not to the ignition – this would help to remind me to remove the radio each evening and NOT get it stolen1. Well, the day we arrived, I did forget to remove the radio and although it was ‘off’ it still managed to drain the battery. Luckily, Jim (Lynn’s husband) had a friend in the village with jump-leads. Imagine that, jump-leads in the very south of France. Still, they worked for us and we set off for Agde. It wasn’t the nicest of beaches, but we were glad to get there after almost an hour’s drive. I was longing to take a dip in the Mediterranean, it is always so warm. Not today though, because of the recent bad weather, the sea was still fairly chilly. Still – it wasn’t Scarborough eh?
The drive to and from Cap Agde was stunning. Of the full thirty or so miles there, roughly eighteen of them were down an avenue of Plane Trees which kept the by now very hot, sun off you while driving. And, this was not the main road: That was full of traffic trying to get to Montpellier or Beziers. This was just a local (D) road that went in the right direction. Despite being such a road, we were able to maintain speeds close to the national limit, which in my car at the time, kept fuel consumption to a minimum2.
That night, I set the habit for the rest of the week and played boules outside – with the locals. I really enjoyed that, but it was not what Sharon had come to do, so she sat and read. During this first evening, I was intrigued to find that the village clock chimes the hour twice, just before the hour and just after3. It also strikes just once on the half hour. However, at first, I wasn’t aware of this and at 22:30pm when it ‘bonged’ once, I thought it was 01:00am and declined another game (I thought they were just playing late). I went upstairs to the flat, told Sharon what time it was and off we went to bed.
She did tell me later that she knew the correct time, she simply didn’t want to embarrass me.
Coming up – the mountains, the lake and the gorgeous beaches of Sete.
1 – Cars in those days were notorious for having radios stolen. These days, perhaps not as much.
2 – I then wrote a paragraph about the taxation of fuel that we have to bear in the UK – nothing changes eh? At the time, French petrol was up to 14p per litre cheaper than at home.
3 – I’ve been to Languedoc and experienced this many times since, but this was my first experience.
My even older Holiday Weblog 