Playing away at Trégastel...

I've just spent the weekend at Trégastel.

Now, I know that this is not a rare event for me, when the day dawns bright and the skies are Breton-blue, the dog and I usually head for the Pink Granite Coast with Trégastel being our favourite destination and the beach facing the Chateau de Costérès our favourite playground...

But this weekend was different because I went alone and I stayed over.
For two nights.
In an apartment with this view...

No, really, this was the view from the windows of the apartment.
As I washed the dishes, as I cooked my dinner, as I made a cup of tea, as I wandered from the bedroom, as I sat on the sofa, this was the view.

Of course I was wandering towards the castle within half an hour of getting the keys to the apartment. I hadn't been to Trégastel for over a week and I had missed it.

I do wonder, sometimes, if the people in the castle (for rent, too expensive for me, alas, but I live in hope of managing to afford a week there one day), do the people in the castle see me hovering around, taking pictures, collecting shells, swimming in the channel that's warm and deep enough even at low tide, admiring the castle and smiling at the pink stones, and do they think, 'Gordon Bennett! That old bird is back!'

Do they view me as a suspicious person, a stalker of pink stone castles?

I am not alone, lots of people turn up to admire the view, wander up to take a closer look, it's a famous site in Brittany, this pink castle.

I didn't linger for long, the tide was turning and my way back was becoming wetter and wetter...

It did occur to me that one day I may become stranded by the rising water.
It's only a matter of time!

Once I'd said hello to the castle I headed into Trégastel to the aquarium. Being without the dog had given me the freedom to venture into places where I would not take him. 

The Rags and I joke about this place because everytime I go to Trégastel I send them a text and a picture and ask if they've heard of it which, of course, they have, they have also visited many times. 

I know, family jokes don't always amuse other people!

It's a very friendly place, the aquarium.

The staff are welcoming and so are the residents who often pause to make eye contact.

Have you ever been to a zoo and gazed into the eyes of one of the animals and thought, 'Wow! It looked at me!" and half-wondered if the animal was thinking, 'Yum, foodstuff!'

Well, at the aquarium the fish are as curious about the visitors as we are about the fish...

This guy seemed particularly taken with me.

But I suspect it was my shiny silver camera that had attracted his attention.

The non-fishy inhabitants were blissfully unaware of my presence...

I spent a great deal of time sitting on the floor and watching these guys mating.

One of the staff stopped to give me an impromptu lecture on the breeding habits of seahorses, how they are monogamous, how the third seahorse in the tank lost his mate last year and so is now loveless. We discussed the equality of the male gestating the young and giving birth, though I loved being pregnant and wouldn't have missed that time creating The Rags.

    

I'm old enough to remember when a trip to the seaside involved buying decorative sea urchin shells and dried seahorses. Now the seahorses are an endangered speices and are protected by law, but I doubt I'd want to take a dried corpse home anyway. 

While I was in the aquarium the heavens opened and it poured down, which was not a problem because my next adventure involved being immersed in salt water. Not in the sea, in the heated indoor pool at the Forum de Trégastel. 

Virtual visit here : http://forumdetregastel.fr/visite-virtuelle/

It was a little too busy for long-distance swimming, fortunately for me, I am very out of practice since last year when I swam daily at a pool near my home in Drayton.

But still good to be in the water and stretching my muscles.

And when I emerged after ninety minutes I decided I had earned a kouign amann which, if you are unfamiliar with these Breton specialities, is a cake. It's mostly composed of layers of flaky buttery pastry, very flaky and very buttery because in Brittany we do love our butter; and it may be either a plate-sized cake for sharing or a single serving, and there may be caramelised apples, there may be a thick layer of sugar crystals, there may be salted caramel...

I bought one from the eatery on the corner by the Forum, and had to ask for 'l'un des gateaux là-bas' (pointing), 'desolée mais je ne peux pas prononcer le nom en français..' 

Happily, the woman at the counter understood and I got my cake to take back to my apartment to enjoy with a nice cup of tea... 

while gazing at the now-watery view as the tide rose to surround the castle..  

I was tempted to swim in the sea.

I hadn't done so since last November.

But it was cold and grey and not too inviting, even at high tide.

So instead I sat on the sofa and worked on the novel I'm writing for which the pink castle is my muse and my inspiration.