I spent Easter weekend at Didier's parents', a wee place hidden among the hills and fields between two wee Iparraldean towns about 20km from Bayonne. In many ways it reminded me of my grandparents' small ranch in central California (in the middle of nowhere, lots of oaks and fields everywhere, not much to do except eat, sleep, and go for walks; after a nice relaxing weekend you're ready to go back to civilization) except it was greener, Basque-ier/French-ier and animal-ier.
Almost all the outings over the weekend involved animals, and I discovered I am some kind of animal whisperer! I say, they obey! It was pretty awesome, for a city girl such as moi.
On our first outing, I called some dotted-about-the-field sheep over to come see me, and they did, en sheepy masse:
Salut les moutons!
Given that they were sheep, getting them to come over was probably pretty easy and not really a
skill. Later we came across this horse, who we dubbed Marilyn Zaldia due to her stylish, peroxided mane and curvaceous rump. Innit she gorgeous? She shadowed us from her side of the fence as we walked along. After a bit of talking to her and her shaking her mane at us, I asked her to run, and she did!
Quelle coquette!
D and I had a little coffee and chocolate snack on the terrace, with a view of one of the nearby wee towns in the distance--consisting mostly of a church, the
frontón, and a factory--comme ça:
Café, chocolat et une vue magnifique
Off in the distance were some trees, where some big birds of prey (we think it was a peregrine falcon) were flying about. We asked them to come over, and one obviously heard us--he winged his way towards us, pretty much buzzing us à la Tom Cruise in
Top Gun, then settling into some trees not too far from the house. Very graceful our falcon friend was, and
fast.
Next to the house was a paddock where six cows stood/lounged around doing their bovine thing. One cow, though, was a little more attentive to what was going on around her than the others. We watched her a bit, and then I waved her over, and--you guessed it--she came to say hi. I don't know from cows, so I had no idea how she was feeling: Was she being friendly? Was she sad? Happy? Lonely? Did she have something to say? (She was rather moo-y, chattering up a bit of a storm every now and then, especially when a dog got in her field: she seemed rather excited and trotted over to the dog, but the dog left and the cow mooed in what seemed to me plaintive manner, la pobre.)
Sad (or just placid?) cow
Slideshow of outings (includes non-animal photos) to be had in my
Chez Didi set.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the très yummy food that was eaten. Standouts were
axoa, a (possibly-only-north-of-Pyrenees-)Basque minced veal stew, which I will be making once I get some piment d'Espelette, and homemade foie gras and grilled lamb (among other green things) for Easter lunch. All was very yummy, but also very rich and meaty.