Carnivals, bikes and computer games

Sunday 3 April

In the south of France, west of Marseille, is the large Golf de Fos.  This whole flat, marshy area is called the Camargue, famous for gypsies, wild horses, bullfights and flamingos. On the west of Fos Bay there is a canal leading north/westwards, about half way along is our Navy Service Marina, and at the end is the town basin of Port Saint Louis du Rhone.  There is a large marina there and it is the spot where boats wait to pass into the first of the locks into the Rhone River.

Ulla told us there was a carnival in the town this afternoon, so we finished our work and walked in at 2.30.  I wore my new sandals which rubbed a bit.  We found the carnival behind the Port Saint Louis marina.  It was sweet, very small, there were a few fun floats and some good music, gypsies and clowns on stilts and lots of people in fancy dress. Stupidly, I forgot to take my camera.  Later, we tried to get our ‘moules frites’ (mussels and chips) but, being Sunday they were just closing for the day.  We walked home again and I made a Spanish omelette for dinner which we ate with Parma ham.

We need to find a second bike.  With only one, we have to walk everywhere which is silly. For reasons best known to himself, Mike decided we should only bring the one bike at a cost of £18.50 on Easyjet.  Helmut wants to sell his nice aluminium bike for €130, and that’s too rich for us.  I suspect any second hand bike is going to be more than the £18.50 we saved by not bringing our own, but I’d better shut up about that.

I found a few good books in the marina office, but Mike had neglected to do so and was bored tonight.  He wanted me to play chess, but I was more interested in my book, so I introduced him to the addictive pleasure of computer games.  I set up the chess game - he lost the first to the computer but was excessively pleased with himself when he won the second game.