Saturday 16 April
Despite the inconvenience, I have settled well into life on board again. That horrid Mistral has come to an end and though cool again the days are sunny and bright. The sky continues to give me endless delight. We are obviously near a military airbase as we see and hear a lot of aircraft, in particular helicopters and very noisy Mirages in groups of four.
And Mike? Well I haven’t seen him this happy in a long time. We listen to French radio and I try to follow all the chatter, but it’s not always easy. We’ve lost touch with what’s happening in the rest of the world again.
Monday 18 April
This weekend we took it easy and had a break from work. Yesterday, Sunday, we went to a local bullfight. It was the first of the season, so not very well attended, in spite of the lovely sunny day. I loathe the very concept of bullfights, but was assured by numerous people that bullfights here are quite different from the Spanish variety. The bull is not killed, or injured, and in many instances he ‘wins’ the battle. Rows of soft thread (cotton or wool) are wound round the base of each horn with a single thread passing between them which holds a rose in the centre of the bull’s forehead. The toreadors, who hold a sharp sort of comb in their right hand, must remove the rose and all threads within a set time period. If they don’t succeed, the bull wins. Obviously, they have to get up close and personal with the bull and the potential for serious injury is very real. There are six young toreadors (all men) with a further four older, perhaps retired toreadors, who act as distracters and set the bull up for a side streak by one of the youngsters.
It was very entertaining and happily no one was hurt badly. Some of the young men hurt themselves jumping over the rails and on a couple of occasions the bull managed to get a snappy bite of a flying foot, always well protected by a shoe.
But perhaps there’s something wrong with me – I just couldn’t really enjoy it. There is no doubt in my mind that the bulls hate the whole thing. He comes out initially looking so beautiful, big and black and proud, very feisty and aggressive; he charges around for a bit, lowers his horns and does that pawing the ground thing so typical of bulls. Then the toreadors enter the ring and start taunting him and to begin with he joins in the spirit of the thing and charges them. But as time goes by he gets tired, more and more bewildered and then enraged. The bulls do get hurt; the combs the toreadors hold are sharp metal and do sometimes scratch the bull’s face – one bull’s eye was badly scratched and bled horribly. But it is largely self-inflicted. The angrier they get the more they fling themselves at the rails trying to nail a toreador. One flung himself so hard he broke his nose and tongue and bled profusely from his mouth for the rest of the session. The rails are low enough for the men to leap over, but the bull’s leap after the man often causes him to land on the rail and he tumbles painfully over into the outer ring (which causes a mad scramble of bodies). They get so mad they attack the boards in the rail, lifting them with their horns and scattering them all over. One poor chap, brighter than the rest, knew exactly where the exit door was and, ignoring all the toreadors, either just stood and stared at it or kept charging that portion of the rail. He just wanted out and we felt for him.
It was interesting to note that the bull does not charge the men who just stand, waving their arms and shouting at him. He will take stock and stare but he doesn’t charge. Then a youngster comes out from the side and streaks in front and past the bull who turns away from the stationery figure and chases the runner.
Mike and I were walking in a field in Wales a couple of years ago when a young bull walked slowly up towards us, then put his head down and started a charge. There wasn’t a tree to be seen for miles. Mike told me to keep walking and he stopped and faced the bull off. To my surprise (and enormous relief) the bull stopped his charge and stared back at Mike. Eventually, Mike turned away and slowly followed me. The bull just watched.
They were selling mementoes outside and I bought a silver bull’s head key ring for Mike’s birthday – he’s a Taurean.
Today Mike’s working on the engine whilst I do laundry and the blog.
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