An Exhausting Sunday

Sunday was quite a day for sport lovers!

England beat the West Indies the one day cricket match. Paul Casey won the PGA at Wentworth by one stroke. Andy Murray defeated Juan Chela at Roland Garros in Paris. The football Premier League finished its season with many happy and sad football fans around the country and Jensen Button won the Monaco Grand Prix. Our television remote control was getting quite hot with all the channel hopping.

One thing that we did do live was watch the end of the final stage of the Tour de l’Aude in Limoux. The speed that they all crossed the line was amazing. The German Claudia Hausler won the overall Tour and Nicole Cooke finished fifth. All the results can be found on the Tour de LAude site.

Les Estivales de la Malepère

For a small French village, Arzens is very active.

For the last 20 years, the village has held Les Estivales de la Malepère. This year it runs from 2nd until 12^th June and consists of a variety of deep, thought provoking lectures and discussions. On Sunday 7^th June there is a musical programme by the Chorale de la Malepère and a mixture of musical pieces by Henry and Marina.

Each lecture is free and begins at 21:00, except for Sunday 7^th June which starts at 16:00.

The full programme can be seen on Les Estivales web site.

Tour de L'Aude

For the last 10 days Aude has been hosting “La Tour de l’Aude Cycliste Féminin”. The 114 women started last Friday in Guissan and they have been progressing through the Département. Friday’s stage started in Saint-Hilaire and after 60 kilometers came through our village, Arzens, before cycling back into the Malepère hills. According to the timetable they were due to arrive at 15:43 but they were cycling so fast they came through 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Before they arrived, numerous gendarmes on motor bikes with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, followed by press and support vehicles drove through the village. The speed they were travelling at was amazing. There had been an intermediate sprint in Arzens and the girls were cycling as fast as they could to score bonus time points in this section. As they crossed the sprint line, the British Olympic Champion Nicole Cooke was 3^rd.

After cycling another 40 kilometers, they finished in Montréal. The winner was the Dutch girl, Marianne Vos, who was riding for the DSB team.

Nicole Cooke was 6^th. Once everyone had crossed the line, shirts of a variety of colours and bunches of flowers, were given to the winning riders.

At the moment, the German, Claudia Hausler, riding for Cervelo Test Team is just over 2 minutes ahead of next rider.

Come on Nicole!

Three Little Maids From School

We have just had a lovely weekend entertaining our daughter Sally and two of her best friends, Cassie and Louisa from Aylesbury High School. It has been fun wining and dining them and tasting some of the potential local varieties that might be going to the UK for Sally and Duncan’s wedding next year. The weather on Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous and they all managed a very brief swim, even though the pool had only just reached 21 degrees.