Summer Continues

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.