An Old Adventure

Its not often you can say exactly where you were and what you were doing on an exact day, years and years ago, but I know where and what I was doing today 30 years ago. It was Bastille Day, and I was in the small Pyrenean city of Foix; except there they were celebrating their local hero, Gaston Fébus, 14thC Count of Foix.

I was on one of the biggest adventures of my life (well it was for me). At the time I had just turned 27. The previous summer I had had a similar adventure by going abroad proper for the first time, using an Interrail train ticket I visited a friend in Gascony and went on to visit Rome and back to the south of France. This trip was building on my experiences of the year before and had a number of things I wanted to achieve at a major change point in my life. 

I had had my heart broken, and was doing a bit of a restart. I had been a landscape designer working for a council, but was about to go to Durham University to study archaeology as a mature student. Of course I was expecting that I was about to start a brilliant career in archaeology. I had also seen a TV dramatisation of Laurie Lee's book 'As I walked out one midsummer morning', about his adventures on foot in 1930s Spain. I fancied doing something similar, but going through a Francophile phase I wanted to do it in France, but liked the idea of being close to Spain. I had also been reading 'The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail', a very trendy book of the time, and I wanted my walk to include at least some of the places covered in the book. I was also a regular attendee of folk music events at the time, and particularly liked to dance at ceilidhs. And I found that there was the perfect combination of all these wants I could do in the eastern Pyrenees! (How I found this out in the days before the internet I don't know now! Probably the library LOL!). There was a Festival Folklorique et Traditionale every July in Foix! And from there I could spend a couple of days walking to Montsegur (another story to come).

So anyway! Today. 30 years ago. I was attending the festival in Foix, along with just about the whole population of the city! 100s of them seem to be involved with the main parade, and the rest were watching.

You will notice that I had no trouble seeing the parade, as I was so much taller than the majority of the locals. And you can see the parade was led by the iconic Pyrenean Mountain Dogs. I am sure there was a man in a bear suit too, as not surprisingly, even if they could of found one, this other local icon probably would of been not too popular if real! In fact the only Pyrenean Bears and the also iconic (again) Izzard (Mountain Goat) I saw were all stuffed ones in various hotels, restaurants, etc. and museums. And they all had a nasty snarl on them like they were all fierce and about to attack (even Izzard kids).

Oh! And 1st look at the local folk group 'Eths Autes' that I had already been talking to.

The parade continued with lots of locals of all ages.

More Pryenean Mountain Dogs.

More parading (and this is only a selection of the photos I took you will be glad to know).

And then 'Eths Autes' came around again! The musician here is playing an interesting local variant on the 'pip and tabor' familiar to those who know their Cotswold Morris. Not sure what you called the stringed box that he hit like a drum with his stick, while playing the tune on the tabor pipe, but I saw a number of them being played, whole bands of them sometimes, and several times I saw them in museums too.

And near the end of the parade we had a bit of excitement. A horse pulling a cart bolted!

By luck I caught the drama of the moment! The crowd opposite me parted, but driver soon got control again, and no one was hurt, but as you can see the people to the left of the picture that thought they might get hurt ran in panic, but those to the right obviously felt safe and (like me) stand by watching with curiosity.

LAter that day there was a out door civic feast for many (not me) to be followed by a bal (a ceilidh!), which I was keen to participate in. The meal was supposed to finish at 9pm. And me being the typical northern European turned up for the dance at that time. It was midnight before the dance started! It always takes me some time to get used to the laid back nature of the south.  LOL!