Last day at Les Amandiers, and it was a beauty, the sun shining all day long. We decided to stay local, moving between beach and camp site. David proposed that we revisit one of his childhood pleasures and to take a long swim round to a secret beach to the North of L’Ouille. I agreed readily –  he had me at “long swim”, never mind “secret beach”.  A part of me was struggling to get used to the idea of David volunteering to swim in cold water but I kept quiet about that. So we kitted ourselves out in wet shoes, snorkels and masks and slapped on the factor 30. However, having waded knee deep, a gust of cold wind hit us and David looked at me in alarm – “That water is c-c-cold! Do we really want to do this?” For a moment I was tempted to chuck in the towel. Or rather go and snuggle up in a towel on the beach. But no! We had come too far – there was no backing out now. “We’re doing this!”

A few squeals and winces later we were in. Not so bad when you’re in. The pebbles shot with streaks of silver (mica) which sparkled in the sunlight. Clusters of rocks appeared to our left, studded with sea urchins. Plenty of fish. Some of them quite large. Now we were coming round the headland, passing a jagged rock festooned with cormorants and/or shags drying their wings, unperturbed by our presence.  We were approaching the secret beach – but clearly the secret was out.  A couple with a kayak were already there. Boo! Fortunately they were just leaving. We waited for them to go and then waded ashore. David pronounced it much smaller than he remembered. Out of the water, I shivered as a gust of wind chilled my skin. Fortunately there were some large sun warmed slabs of rock to lean against.  We briefly debated swimming round to the next bay but decided against it. Probably wise as the swim back was into the wind, which slowed us down.  Arriving back on the beach, there was a small but definite sense of achievement.

In the evening, we went to the modest on site café for a Paella evening which had been advertised in the camp shop. They cook the Paella in a huge dish and share it out between everyone. I don’t usually eat Paella as I don’t eat meat and it tends to be cooked in chicken stock, even if you avoid the lumps of chicken. However, we’d decided it would be a good thing to do and give us a chance to practice our French.  Sure enough, we were the only non-French people attending. As the Sangria was passed round, David abruptly started to introduce himself to the couple at the next table. They looked slightly surprised –  then responded warmly. We spent the rest of the evening chatting away to this retired couple from somewhere near the Swiss border and another, younger couple with a baby who were on our other side. Sadly I can’t remember any names but we did find out quite a bit about them. As the evening wore on, I found the French coming more easily, as they Sangria and wine flowed. The retired man sitting next to David shared a carafe of Rose with him and held forth at length about the state of Europe and Brexit – I couldn’t follow more than half but he was definitely pro-Brexit. We left at the end of the evening with another small but definite sense of achievement. We had ventured out of our comfort zone and spoken French all evening. But God, it’s exhausting! And I suspect much of my French is Franglais. More practice definitely needed.