Fete de Castandet

Another year, another fete! The local fete is always held on the weekend nearest the 14th July. On the Saturday evening our friend Helene invited us round for aperos before the evening's events along with Corinne, her daughter,Florian, her son, Gerry, a mutual English friend, and his daughter Eva. It was very hot so we were all able to have a swim in Helene's pool before relaxing in the garden. We then went to the village square where the evening's event was to take place. After a drink at the bar N decided that he was going to leave but I stayed as Helene woould take me back home. The highlight of the evening was an inter-village competiotion between 2 teams of young people, one from our village and one from a neighbouring village. An arena had been set up with tiers of seats around and the competiotion took place in the arena. If any of you can remember the old TV programme "It's a knockout" please try and imagine something similar but with the added attraction of "vaches landaises" - the large, horned cows that are used for the local "courses landaise" !!It was a hoot and I was sorry that I didn't have my camera with me. Try and envisage 2 teams of 4 trying to play football with a large cow trying to charge them! And that was only one of the "games" that was part of a couple of hours of the competition.
The next day there was a proper course landaise in the arena and I had intended to go along with Helene, Florian and Corinne but it was very hot (38C) and I chickened out at the thought of sitting in the sun for a couple of hours.
Monday was the last day of the fete and we were all going to the large meal which celebrates the end of the fete. Gerry and Eva called in here en route and we met up with Helene and family at the village hall. Helene had secured seats inside but we had found seats at a table outside as it was so hot in the hall. After some discussion, when we were adamant that we were staying outside, everyone decided to join us and relinquished their seats in the hall. It seemed, as the evning went on, that we would have been much better off if they had stayed inside as Gerry and Helene spent most of what should have been a pleasant relaxing evening jumping up and down searching for and screaming at their respective childres!