Beauty in high and heavy things
Arnaoutchoc (40), Lit-et-Mixe, Mimizan, Gastes, Parentis-en-Born, Biscarosse, Biscarosse-Plage, Pyla-sur-Mer (33)
Most of the national radio stations in Britain have imaginative names such as Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3.
Radio 2, which by day occupies itself with inoffensive pop music and "personality" DJs, by night has jazz and country programmes and even one dedicated to the arts. I once made a documentary for it called "The People's Art". By that we meant unselfconscious art by people who write poetic ditties in death notices, trim their hedges into ostriches, decorate motorcycle helmets and paint incomprehensible graffiti on other people's walls.
I remembered that when I passed two water towers. The rest of the ride to my night's stop was just an exercise in getting there, and my evening among pine trees beside the beach wasn't improved by the rain. But just before I turned off for the road to the sea, I passed the first decorated water tower and soon after the mist cleared next morning I passed the other.
The first, I thought, was as lovely as it was mysterious. I'll let you see the picture rather than try to describe it.
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Why is that woman gazing down like that? What is that expression on her face? Is she a beauty parting the waters? Or is that a look of reproach? And why?
Decorating water towers is a small but appreciated hobby in France. But only water towers. Why, I don't know. I came across another one later on, reaching up like a concrete thumb between the road and the bike path that followed it. Again, I'll have to let you see it.
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The woman-in-the-sky was art. But what about this one? It's appealing, and a lot better than unadorned concrete. But who did it? An avant-garde artist commissioned by the water company or imaginative graffiti artists who left their design glistening in the dawn so it would amaze but puzzle those who followed?
That bike path runs, in theory, all the way from Bordeaux to Spain. I say "in theory" because odd bits are missing but, yes, those exceptions aside, you can ride away from the traffic for days. I met a heavily-laden woman doing just that. She was coming the other way, a fairly ordinary bike heavily laden, a little red and white flag drooping over her tent roll. Polish, she was. In a mixture of French and English we exchanged travellers' tales, but she had many more than me because she had started in northern Germany and was headed down to Santiago. You'll remember I told you that the Compostelle trail is multi-headed but that the Pyrenees form a common obstacle.
"I think I cross where it is flat," she said. "I hope. Today it is easy. Later perhaps not." She gestured with her hand to indicate a headwind - she had the breeze firmly behind her - and then again to suggest a long rise.
"It is 30km up, they say. But it is not hard."
I asked how long she had to go. Another month?
"No, I hope two weeks. A little more maybe. It depends." Again she gestured headwinds and hills, a common language whether you speak Polish, Portuguese or any other language stating with a P (I wish I hadn't got into that now...)
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