A long way

When LoJ and I first got together we didn't imagine that we'd be here - still living together! - in the Languedoc forty years later. We've come a long way from that night in East Oxford and we want to celebrate, so we've come to Sommieres, just over the border into the next department from home. We've wandered around the beautiful narrow streets of the old town, we've taken a lot of photos, we've looked at the river and the Roman bridge across the Vidourle, which luckily isn't in flood at the moment, and we ate a delicious Lebanese lunch in the market place. Back at the hotel LoJ had a swim in the pool - I'm waiting to see if the water warms up a bit tomorrow! This evening we'll see what delights the rather special restaurant has to offer.

I first came to this town as a teenager. The writer Lawrence Durrell lived for many years just across the river from our hotel tonight. My father knew him in Egypt long before I was born and we all came to see him and went with him to the course camargaise, the local form of bull-fighting where the bull isn't killed but young men compete to take rosettes from the its head. Our very nice room (a lucky upgrade) is decorated with these rosettes and pictures of the course.