Diary 15. Yse et Enjoy - Kindness of a Stranger

We awoke to the view of the sunny shores of Grand Lac Sud in Biscarrosse, after an unsettled night listening to the pouring rain. Our usual routine began, we made breakfast and cups of tea, opened up the side door to let Bailey out and let the fresh air in, while soaking up the serenity. 

No sooner had we began to open the Park4Night app on our phones, did Bailey make her usual squeak to let us know that another dog had approached and she was on her back declaring that she means to harm. That's when we looked out of the van to see a beautiful Australian Cattle dog trying desperately to play with Bailey, who was still on her 5 metre lead to stop her from getting into trouble.

The dogs' owner appeared a little way away, and asked us something in French. Of course, we are trying to understand French better, but when spoken quickly, and also from far away, we haven't got a chance. She came a little closer, and Matt managed to communicate that we are English, etc (it gets boring and embarrassing having to say it to every French person we meet). She then replied in perfect English "Can your dog play? May I let her off her leash to play with mine?". Bailey adores a game of chase, so we confirmed, and that was how our day of adventure began. 

The dogs were getting on well, and the lady, who's name was Yse, was happy to help us translate a piece of paper that had been left on our windscreen, possibly telling us we shouldn't be parked there. She assured us that she didn't believe it to be anything sinister, and that it was nothing but a polite notice, just as we had hoped. Lovely. She then asked a few questions about the van, about where we were travelling to and from, and if we had explored much of Biscarrosse yet. She held up an invisible microphone and said "Yse, Radio Biscarrosse!" as a delightfully funny way to break the ice on asking potentially personal questions. We laughed and said that we hadn't even seen outside of the yacht club we were parked at yet. 

"Oh so you haven't seen Lac Nord? Come with me, I'll show you the way if you like, it's beautiful" she said. Ashamedly, at 11 o'clock in the morning, we were still in our pyjamas, and had to quickly excuse ourselves to hurriedly get dressed and look mildly less like vagrants. We expected that she would walk with us a small way, show us the path to take later on, and want to go about her business of the day. Boy were we wrong! We ended up going on a 14km hike along the pathways which run alongside the shores of Lac Nord, the Canal Du Littoral Des Landes, L'petit Etang et Biscarrosse up to the south point of Lac Nord. 

We spoke about all sorts of things with Yse on the walk, the dogs, our travels, our previous life, her job, her children, the list goes on. She even gave us both a little French lesson, which was very lovely and useful, especially as she is an English teacher herself.

The forecasted rain held off, and the day was sunny without being roasting hot. By the time we made it to Lac Nord, all of our legs were hurting, and after a well deserved sit down, we headed back. Even Bailey was tired, which is almost unheard of, and Matt had to carry her for a little while on the way back. We spoke of our respective plans for our, now very late, lunch, during which, Yse invited us to her house to cook. 

We've said that on this journey, if there is a safe opportunity to say yes to an offer, that we will accept it. So, accept we did.

After what felt like days to our collective 14 legs, we made it back to the van, and jumped in to grab a drink while Yse collected her car. She offered us a lift but Matt decided to follow her in the van so that we had everything accessible to help make a dinner for the 3 of us, as her husband was out. 

When we got there, no time was wasted on Yse's behalf in making us feel at home. She even offered for us to wash our dirty laundry in her washing machine. We did our very best to make ourselves useful in preparing dinner, but as a stellar hostess, there was nothing for us to do but chop some vegetables, and so we did it as carefully as if we were preparing for the Queen.

We ate our delicious meal, Aperitifs, Moroccan Cous-Cous and cheese for afters. We laughed very much about how differently we would have prepared the meal. My common go to for Cous-Cous is Feta cheese, diced apple, sultanas and generally whatever else is in the fridge. Yse had to stop herself from rolling about the floor in laughter at the thought of apples and cheese in a Cous-Cous. I asked if it was not usual in France then to have apples and grapes with a cheese board. Queue confused looks and more laughter! We found out that this is very much a strange English thing to do, and is near unheard of in France, though she assured me she would give it a go to experiment! 

After dinner we made sure we were good guests, and cleared the table and stacked the dishwasher as some small act of thanks. Then, Yse offered for us to use her shower. We did the British thing and smiled, said thank you but it was honestly okay. Well, this was the wrong answer, as we found out when Yse ushered Matt into the shower room to show him how it worked. The shower was one of the most glorious shower's I've ever had. We had showered a few days earlier at the swimming pool, but with no cubicles and washing through our swimming attire, obviously we weren't exactly lemony fresh. After this trip I certainly won't take warm showers, hot baths and constant running water for granted! 

When we were clean enough for her to be able to bare sitting close to us (sorry Yse for being stinky at the dinner table!!), she showed us on the computer a few places that we should stop at on our way to Spain. She showed us places her and her husband had often visited and picnicked at, and it made us very excited to know of places to stop, rather than potentially missing huge swathes of interesting French culture and arcitechture. 

We went on our merry way, clean clothes in one hand, full bellies and a warm fuzzy feeling from the kindness that had been shown to us by a complete stranger. I was adammant that we needed to do something for her. At dinner, she served us a glass of wine each, from a region called Graves, and mentioned in passing that it was the best wine. That's it I thought, a bottle of wine which we know she enjoys. 

The next morning, we woke up early, and headed to Dune Du Pilat, an amazingly gargantuan (that word is for you Yse!) sand dune which separates a vast forest from the Atlantic Ocean. After all the walking the day before, I really struggled to make it up the stairs to the top of the dune, but it was worth it. C'est magnifique! We decided we would take a picture of the 3 of us enjoying the view, attach it to a postcard and leave it to accompany the bottle of wine we had bought, hoping it would be a thoughtful thank you. 

We raced back to her house to get there before she arrived home from work, as we wanted it to be a surprise. As I walked through the gate to place the bottle discreetly in the porch, Enjoy the dog came racing over to me wagging her tail furiously. It was exceptionally hard to leave her behind after that, so I risked a quick petting and some kisses before we scarpered. 

We received a lovely message from Yse that night, letting us know that the bottle of wine was just what the doctor ordered after a long Monday at work, and we knew that we had imparted some small part of our grattitude to her. 

To be shown such kindness and generosity from a complete stranger was amazingly unexpected, and meant we had a beautifully unplanned day walking through gorgeous scenery with a local. We truly hope that moving forward, we will be able to show such kindness to others. Today, I started that by lending our charging cable to a gentleman in the McDonalds we are currently writing and uploading in! It's small, but we all must begin somehwere. 

J x 

P.S. Since writing this post, Yse has told us that she will be sharing our blog with her English students as an example of non-fiction writing! How exciting! So, hello to Yse's students if you're reading this! Feel free to interact with us to practice your English whenever you like. 

M, J and B xxx