Summer Continues
We’ve had a spell
of more reasonable weather with somewhat lower temperatures and a
persistent breeze but that has ended this week. We are now back in
heatwave territory. My son Carl (photo below) has been with me for 10
days and will be for 10 days more and I have been showing him around,
when I can get him away from his computer. We’ve been for scenic
rides and had some good meals and yesterday went to Avignon. Because
the festival is on, which is rather like the Edinburgh festival, I
didn’t attempt to drive into Avignon but drove to Carpentras and
took the train from there into Avignon. The train is a new and
welcome addition, the opening of a previously closed branch line,
which takes about a half an hour to get into Avignon and costs just 6
euros. It was as well I did as all car parks in Avignon were showing
«full» signs when we got there.
Apart from that we
have been enjoying pizza and mussels and chips evenings in the square
in front of the Bar du Pont. We also went to the crocodile farm
outside Bollène as Carl wanted to see it although I wasn’t too
enthused. It turned out to be much better than I expected. It’s
name is presumably to attract the tourists and it does have over 300
crocodiles and alligators but it is also a centre for research into
reptiles more generally. There were tortoises and snakes too and
even some birds, apparently on the basis that birds share a lot of
DNA with crocodiles and have common ancestors in dinosaurs. Slightly
unfortunately most seemed comatose when we were there but the trip
proved interesting nonetheless. I experienced a surreal urge for
some dance music to get the reptiles moving.
One thing that
struck me was translation into English of details of the exhibits.
The English was generally of a fairly poor standard and had some
words that won’t be in any English dictionary. The one that stood
out was «conspecifics» which I took to mean something like
predators; anyway they were something that the species displayed were
in danger of. Also, the translator was apparently unaware that the
noun prey is both singular and plural. It’s yet another example of
the French apparent arrogance with respect to translations. The
translator was presumably qualified in some way but clearly had a
fairly poor grasp of English. Why on earth the French don’t get
translations checked by a someone who is a native language speaker
I’ll never understand. It would be so easy to do that the French
attitude seems a form of arrogance. Some years ago I went on a
crusade to find bad English transaltions on the Internetn and get
them changed. Maybe I’ll try to restart that.
The Tour de France
this year passed Mollans at the end of my road so I went to see the
cyclists pass. My son-in-law said he would be watching it live and
told me to wave as the cyclists passed, which I did, but I don’t
think the cameras in the helicopter overhead caught me. Tough.
Anyway, I chatted with other villagers watching there and took a
photo of the break-away group in the front, for what that is worth. At least, this year, witnessing this
was easy: I didn’t have to get in place three hours beforehand
because all surrounding roads were blocked off.
