Seaside sun and scenery

We spent a pleasant day at the seaside yesterday - or the lagoonside, if you're pedantic, like me.  We used the old N9 for much of the way, and as with our trip to Perpignan last week, we noticed that there has been something of a crackdown on roadside prostitution.  We saw only one woman. sitting in her 4x4 at the roadside at right angles to the traffic, and for all we know, she might have been waiting for the repairers.  (Though I doubt it.)  For part of the way we were stuck behind a beat-up white van that was fluctuating between 60 and 90 km/h, and weaving all over the road.  Damned if I didn't meet exactly the same vehicle this morning on the way to the market town, performing very similarly.  When I pulled out to pass him, he was, of course, gassing away on his mobile phone. 

The car is thoroughly beastly.  Unrefined, skittish, inflexible and uncomfortable.  But it has rubber on its front wheels, and it doesn't use much fuel, so we'll thole it for our last week.

Sète, seen from Mèze

Mèze and Bouzigues are attractive ports on the Bassin de Thau, and are altogether more pleasant on a fine day at this time of year.  We had a good wander round, and even in late September I was wishing I'd brought a hat.  It was a bit too breezy for the restaurant to wind out its awning.  Not much French to be heard in the restaurant, but at least three Anglophone tables, one Danish and one Dutch around us.  The service seemed to be suffering from the sun too: it was exceptionally slow, and the top-up quart de rosé we ordered just didn't appear.  Anyway, I came home with a few ideas that may occupy some of my Thursday mornings at art class.