Sand blasted by the seaside

Bar, Harry, Jill and Geoff arrived at 09.30 to join us for a trip to a bird sanctuary, a walk around an etang and lunch in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. Personally I find the Camargue a bit boring. It is very flat, as you would expect the Rhone delta to be, and unless you are interested in ornithology, then it is not the most exciting place to visit. I'm actually quite good at orni, but not too good at thology. But hey, give it a go and see what happens. We arrived at the Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Gau and everybody started covering themselves in anti mosquito stuff. Now forgive me for stating the obvious, but why are we all heading into an area where we will be eaten by bugs and have to cover ourselves with deet? Surely looking at all the pretty birds is safer and far more comfortable, with binoculars, from the safety of the car. But no, what do I know? The bird sanctuary bit was actually very interesting with, guess what, loads of birds and other wild things. The flamingoes were very pretty close up (out of hundreds, it was the only bird that I recognised) and Jan was interested in the coypus, because we have them in our garden. That is until I told her that they are related to rats. I think I said the wrong thing! Anyway, I enjoyed the bird sanctuary bit. The walk around the lake was far less interesting. The wind was quite strong, not unlike one end of a wind tunnel, and the waves lapped gently around our ankles. I suspect you're getting the feeling that I'm not a great walker, and you'd be right. The only walking I like is the few metres from a car to a restaurant, which is a nice link to the next bit of my story, because we then arrived in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer for lunch.

St Maries de la Mer is quite famous. It has an interesting history, is featured in Alistair Maclean's book, Caravan to Vaccares and there are two huge gypsy festivals there every year. Much more importantly, we visit the Brasserie Le Belvédère (0490 97 92 87), right on the sea front, for Moules and Frites (9 euros). The restaurant is run by Davide, a tall, dark, long crinkly and greasy haired, latino type, who Jill fancies. I can sort of understand why because he is charming, pretends he remembers you from a previous visit and gives you a free liquor at the end of the meal. In fact, come to think of it, I quite fancied him too! (You tart - Ed.)

Lunch over, we wandered around the town with the wind whipping the sand, in an exfoliating kind of way, into your face. Great! It's a nice little town, especially when all the sensible people stay at home because of the weather, so, wandering aimlessly with your face pointing to the ground, out of the wind, you don't bump into too many people. I think you're getting the picture? The fortified church was rather gloomy inside and the internal stone work looked like it needed a good clean. In fact, they looked like they needed a good sand blasting, just like the external walls.
(For goodness sake, stop moaning - Ed.)

Back into the car (yippee) for the short ride to Aigues Mortes, where we leave the others, because Jan and I need to get back to relieve Max. Or, more to the point, let him relieve himself.

***

Because I stuffed my face at lunch time, Jan rustles up a plate of fairly low cal kedgeree for dinner. One of my favourites. Yum.