All we like sheep have gone astray
Sheep visited me this morning, poking their noses up against the glass door of the kitchen as I was eating my breakfast. They milled around outside, chomping on the lush grass on the overgrown lawn in front of the gite. Their shepherd had taken them on a little jaunt.
They are not the brightest of animals, sheep. A little later, their master had put them back in their field next to the gite, but two little lambs had squeezed out between the horizontal bars of the gate and were now running back and forth along the barbed wire fence, squealing for their mother on the other side. The shepherd swung the gate wide open, and tried to direct them back into the field, but of course they ran in the wrong direction. When he managed to send them back towards the gate, instead of running around it and into the field, they trapped themselves between the gate and the fence. Then, as he approached, they ran around the gate but right past the opening towards the road. I did my good deed for the day by cutting them off, and together, we got them back to their mothers.
As I walk along the valleys, I see them everywhere, white dots on the green patches on the mountains. Jean Louis and Maite had 40 acres of land in the valley but more up in the hills. And the farmers' fields are not always contiguous so the sheep are always being moved around.
I was walking along the D349 for most of the day, a minor road, but with a little traffic, when suddenly an enormous flock of sheep, 200 or more, barrelled down the road towards me, tumbling and stumbling, and turning just in time into a neighbouring field. I waited for the dog or the shepherd to appear. None. How did the sheep knowwhere to go? Another mystery. And as they rumbled through the gate, some of the lambs would frolic ahead, and lose their mothers, and somehow find them again, and then, when all had settled down, bunt them in the udder to get the milk flowing. And they all stood there, looking at me, well, sheepishly.
This was a shaggy sheep indeed!
The dags on the bags of the shags of the sheep
Give cheese for the teas of grandees at the Keep.
I don't know why the word "sheepish" has taken on its more common meaning of "shamefaced". There's nothing shamefaced about sheep. Perhaps there's a Biblical allusion there somewhere. "Capricious" on the other hand clearly reflects the whimsical nature of the goat, and "bovine", the slow-moving, cud-chewing characteristics of the cow.
It was an easy day, walking more or less west on the south bank of the Nive, and passing eventually through the Pas de Roland, along with the river and the little branch line which links Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port with Bayonne. This line was was recently electrified, but was unhappily washed out in the recent floods.
At Itxassou, I left the river behind me, and cut across to the little town of Espelette. I had expected another lonely village like Bidarray, but no, this was a pleasant, lively little place, lined with white shops and houses and thronged with tourists. This was not a modern town, but not an old one either. I noticed that one of the houses was dated 1819. The only older feature was the chateau which housed the Office de Tourisme and the Mairie.
Espelette is famous for its piment, a mild chili pepper used to flavour most of the meals in the region. And the curved streets were lined with shops selling the products which were made with the pepper.
For supper, I decided to treat myself to the Menu a 20€. Warm, goat cheese salad, followed by chopped veal in a piment sauce with roast potatoes, and then fromage de brebis. It was a Basque meal. Delicious! And a nice quart de rouge with the level generously above the 250 cc line in the flask. Cost? 2€.30.
Now I promise you that this is my last word on the subject, but at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port for a quarter litre of plonk, Chateau Pilgrims's Bane, the cost was 6€. Pilgrims, I among them, were being sucked in by the sign "Pilgrims Menu 12€" (only two courses by the way and no choice, but a nice salad for an extra six euros) and then cheated by the price of the wine.
Now Espelette was also a tourist town. Why wasn't the same thing happening here? Because the tourists were French and they wouldn't accept this nonsense. At Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port the gullible pilgrims sheepishly pay. There, I think I've finally got it out of my system.
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