Seignan Days 6-23 Part Five – Failed Fish Friday

There is a regular market in Sérignan; something we have enjoyed cycling to on previous visits, where we have fond memories of buying Megrim to cook, and eating in the oyster bar. And having checked that Friday was one one of the market days, we set off, secure in the knowledge of having done this before.

As we set off on our trusty folding bikes, we passed the nearby Aire, now much improved and run by the Camping Carpark firm. The pitches have been clearly set out; they all have electric; and, access to black/grey and fresh water, whilst still outside the Aire, is also much improved. These Aires have variable costs that are seasonal. This was just over €15 when we arrived and just over €17 when we left.

The ride to town is a very pretty one at this time of year, passing loads of fields full of wildflowers alongside the acres of vineyards…

...with much of the ride running alongside the river Orb…

However, as the title signals, we were thwarted in our attempt to buy fresh fish, as Monsieur le Poissonnier clearly enjoys a three day weekend…

With the temperatures continuing to rise, we didn’t really fancy staying for a sit down lunch and then cycling back, so we grabbed a quiche from one of the boulangeries, ate it in the shade of some trees in the nearby park, and decided to have a quick wander around before heading back. We think we may have posted this bit of inspiring graffiti before…

… but this one is new to us…

… some of this street art might be inspired by the annual comic strip festival in Sérignan (Bande desinée) – another thing we knew nothing about either in spite of its 31 year history…

This aerial street decoration was different crocheted pieces last time – now with its little windmills whirring away…

The decision to do our fruit and veg shopping from one of the nearby stalls en route back to the campsite was an easy one to make. These are a real bonus, as some of the produce they sell is grown on the adjacent land – so super fresh, tasty, and zero food miles! And the prices are not a great deal different from the supermarché either!

Returning to Evie without fresh fish turned out to be not such a big deal, especially when we discovered that the local mini-market sold one of our Sérignan faves – refill rosé – and more besides, which disappointingly our campsite used to do but now doesn’t! A more than adequate compensation for our failed fish Friday!

S&J 03.06.26 

Sérignan Days 6-23 Part Four – a trip to the Regional Museum of Modern Art

Ever keen to ensure that Mr B’s cultural capital continues to expand, Mrs B was particularly excited to discover that the little town of Sérignan is home to a regional Museum of modern/contemporary art – the Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain (MRAC). And it’s taken our third, more extended stay to realise this! (It’s been there since 1991 and in its current beautifully designed building since 2006) The museum has its own permanent collection, plus a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions; three of these when we visited.

Cunningly preceded by a lovely lunch in the central tree-lined boulevard, we opted for seiches grillées. We were going to wait for sepia a la plancha in Spain, but just in case we didn’t get over the border (you never can tell with the way we travel) we couldn’t say no! We both feel the same that it’s a much under rated dish back in Blighty, given that cuttlefish are a common sight around the coast. And they were cooked to perfection!

On our way to the MRAC we passed the Town Hall, with its proud display of the 1^st Article of the French Constitution, reminding us not only of the absence of one in Blighty, but how our oft mentioned admiration of French civic pride also extends to public displays like this!

It’s surprising that we’ve never noticed the museum before, as it’s literally a stone’s throw from the parts of town we have circumnavigated on loads of occasions! It’s a very striking building from outside…

and the integrated use of coloured glass is even more striking from inside…

Featuring French and international artists, we enjoyed a couple of the short films on display – the first by Brice Dellsperger, a humorous take on Dynasty from the 1980s featuring two trans actors…

… and the other, Morgestraich, by Clémont Cogitore which features players from an annual plague-mask type carnival in Basel…

Here are some of the displays we liked best…

...with Mr B particularly enjoying the ones he felt were more interactive, although Mrs B did point out they were perhaps meant to be more of an immersive experience…

...particularly this one room that was given over to a pair of high-end decks running at a very slow speed, sometimes in reverse…

It was only when she later found Mr B stood in front of a couple of pretty obvious ventilation grilles rather than the art to one side, that she realised that perhaps letting his enthusiasm have some free reign might help with his cultural voyage in the longer term…

We passed a very pleasant and informative couple of hours at MRAC (€5 each and no additional charge for being non-EU citizens) and as we left, we were given a leaflet of other sites in the region that we may well be visiting, so perhaps it is as well we had those seiches after all…

S&J 03.06.26

Sérignan Days 6-23 Part Three – Camp Babley

The process of setting up camp for what will likely turn into a longer stay, seems to follow a familiar pattern for us. At first it’s just chairs and table, this time with our new smaller and durable mat we got for occasions when the pitch surface isn’t up for walking around barefoot. 

This is the basic overnight pitch...

Then, as it becomes clear we are going to be staying, out comes the bigger mat, so Mr B has his own yoga one to move around wherever the shade can be found in the mornings; as well as the solar lights and flagpole, of course…

Next is usually the unloading of the bikes for shopping (Freddy and his very handy baguette carrier shown here)...

as well as the trolley and beach loungers, parasol for specific shade, the washing line…

Unusually, we haven’t put the awning out in any of these, as we have enjoyed the big open skies, and the pitch was providing enough shade from the trees. Except, by the time we had been on the pitch for over a week, the sun was getting higher, hotter (33c) and we cracked, grateful after all for that additional area of artificial shade…

Daily life revolves around very basic activities in places like this: and most days include going to the beach to read, swim and walk… And, as we reached a time when the southern German States were on school holidays, we became very grateful that we had chosen the site we had, as can be seen by the relative levels of beach activity on our site…

...and the one next door when we took our daily walk after the arrival of loads of younger German families…

The hotter weather also meant we had some unexpected guests – with an invasion of ‘les fourmis’ – teeny tiny little ants! Discovered by Mrs B when she reached for the daily baguette, safe, or so we thought, in its linen bag and hung up out of harms’ way, she pulled the bread out of its paper wrapper only to find it covered in 100s of petits fourmis – eek!

With Mr B on ant-hunting duties, we thought we had seen the last of them, until a few hours later we found them in most of the food related drawers, with confident convoys moving in all directions! After removing and cleaning all the drawers, and implementing Mrs B’s preferred natural approach to the deterrence of ants, using essential oils, all seemed to be well. But we had clearly been lulled into a false sense of security, when, the very next day it became clear that les fourmis had just been biding their time, returning in their thousands this time (or so it seemed!).

Abandoning all efforts to use a natural method, Mr B reached for his chemical/biological warfare pack (a recent purchase in France when we realised our trusty bottle of Spanish ‘stop-em-dead’ had run out). Untested until now, it seems almost as deadly, and after a couple of hours of death, destruction and copious post-war clean-ups, we now think we free of ants; save the odd straggler of course...

Most days sees Mr B doing his yoga entirely outside Evie. Whilst travelling on the road he does it inside, which is not ideal, for either of us! This view from his yoga mat shows why he enjoys the outdoor version so much more!

One of the reasons we have headed to the south is to enjoy the warmer evenings where it’s possible to sit outside well into the evening, eating, drinking, putting the world to rights, and sometimes continuing our long running Scrabble wars, which continue to see Mrs B triumph more often than not!

Staying for a little while in one place also means we get a chance to chat with locals in the shops and other visitors to the site, with German folk frequently being the most sociable. This is partly because Mr B has a habit of wishing all and sundry a good morning/evening/day or ‘Bon Appetit’ as he wanders around from one campsite job to the next, often disappearing for chunks of time; and partly as German visitors currently make up the vast majority of campers at Beauséjour.

So you can imagine our surprise one evening over dinner, when the occupants of the German motorhome recently arrived in the pitch opposite, seemed to be talking in Russian; a language Mr B has the unusual distinction of having studied at school, and Mrs B has an ear for, it seems! Not that Mr B’s Grade 9 (the lowest of three degrees of failure – those were the days!) was going to stand him in good stead though!

Unable to resist, it wasn’t long before Mr B and our new neighbour were chatting in German – and yes – we had indeed heard Russian being spoken, as the family had moved to Germany from Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is also somewhere we had been thinking about recently, as our fellow campervan travellers Sue and Steve are currently in Uzbekistan and recently travelled along the shared border! What a small world it is...

Admiring the very swish A class Hymer that Paul, Valentina and their kids Dani and Mischa were travelling in, it transpired that Paul works for Hymer (pronounced Heemer we now realise) and the family has the van on trial, which might also explains the unique number plate!

We also look forward where we can to eating out when we settle somewhere, and this site has a great restaurant (Chez Milou – still the same staff and basic but delicious menu) within easy walking distance, where Mr B always gains an extra level of ‘glow’ after doing his best to order in French…

And, after a delicious helping of sole, hake and awesome skinny fries, as we were walking back to Evie with the sun going down and a slight wobble in Mr B’s step, we could just make out the faint sound of that elusive owl in the distance…

S&J 03.06.26

Sérignan Days 6-23 Part Two - Birdlife and the sorry tale of les Hirondelles…

As we settled into the ebb and flow of campsite life, one of the first things we noticed was the fabulous variety of sounds from the local birdlife, so many more than the ubiquitous wood pigeons and magpies we hear at almost all the places we stop. And this time, thanks to our friends Paul and Sue in Arran who are great lovers of birdlife, we were well equipped with the Merlin App, which meant that apart from Blackbirds and the very distinctive Scops Owl which we could identify, we were able to work out the identities of the many other birds that accompanied us throughout the day, and sometimes night. Nightingales sure are early risers, hence their name. It’s the boys who sing, we learned, looking for a mate.

But first, to return to the sad tale of the barn swallows. Once we realised that all the routes in and out of the sanitaires had been blocked with uPVC windows and self closing doors, we wondered what the impact on the migratory Hirondelles would be, returning as they frequently do to the same nesting sites each year. The nearby and extensive wetlands of La Maïre provide an abundance of insect life, not just the mosquitos we were very aware of, so it’s no wonder there are so many birds! And after their up to 6,200 mile migration from sub-Saharan Africa, where were our swallows going to nest?

There are plenty to be seen and heard, so it didn’t take us long to find where they were nesting on the site – on the outside of the sanitaires, in the rafters and eaves that project out from the roof, and a couple with chicks in the reveals of the blocked in windows – phew!

Of particular interest to us were a couple of nests at the entrance to the block, one each side. 

But imagine our horror when we saw that they had been removed…

… and then rebuilt…

...only to be destroyed and rebuilt again.

There would appear to have been a change of heart by the family that own the site to ‘modernise’ the sanitaires – but at what a cost to the birds. And the experience for the humans using the block is diminished too, as what was once a lovely airy space to shower and faire one’s toilette, is now humid and mosquito rich without our little Hirondelle hunters to keep the population down and the airy windows and doors kept open. For us, the new fittings and shiny tiles are no substitute for their open and inclusive predecessors.

So, what to do? Fired up by indignation and believing that surely Hirondelles must be protected, even in fond-of-small-bird-shooting France, Mrs B did a bit of digging and liaison with a certain other Mr B, now a long term resident of France. Turns out that in France although Hirondelles are indeed protected, nests are allowed to be removed for ‘reasons of hygiene,’ which may explain why these had been taken down from the entrance, but not why the nest over the washing-up sinks has (thankfully) been left alone. It’s obviously down to someone’s personal judgement. We immediately felt a little better too, when we spotted a nest, with chicks, in the entrance way to reception that all guests have to pass under as they register to stay! This one has been protected with a wooden slat, so we felt a bit better for the future of our feathered friends after seeing that - and so we live in hope that the existing broods will be left in peace to raise their young …..

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all”

Thank you Emily Dickinson!

All of this was also a good lesson in the dangers of assuming, we realised. 

In the interests of not wanting to get the wrong end of the stick, or the broom that had taken the previous nests down, Mr B had a chat with a staff member in reception who was of the opinion that the nests were indeed protected, surprised that any had been knocked down, and happy to escalate the issue to management… 

Currently the twice re-built nest at the entrance to the sanitaires has been left...

The next day, Mr B returned to reception and met with the big boss. Who told him that no, their staff did not remove nests. When Mr B showed before and after photos, the response saw the boss retreat to his office, exclaiming that they weren’t actually nests, just the beginnings of a nest, which were removed in order to encourage the birds not to fly into the sanitaires. Thinking ahead for a change, and of any possible return visits to Beauséjour, Mr B decided not to pursue any further questions regarding when is a nest not a nest...

To end on a more positive note about the abundance of birdlife, just a couple of days into our stay, and our serenade over dinner outside Evie was provided by Swallows, Blackbirds, Golden Orioles, Nightingales, and Greenfinches over a 45 second period! To which we have since added Sparrows, Scops Owls, Redstarts and Great Tits on a regular basis. At this rate we may be able to do some bird sound recognition without the help of the Merlin App. And, although we have not managed at the time of writing to take any snaps of the rarer Orioles and Nightingales, we have at least seen them in the trees and in flight!

Mr B can now be found wandering the site at dusk, convinced he has heard another type of owl, but has not yet managed to return with an ID...

S&J 02.06.26

A soujourn at Beauséjour – or, a rest at la Maïre, (aka back to Sérignan – again!) Days 6-23 – Part One – the background story...

There’s something about ‘go-to’ or ‘special’ places when you’re on the road. We usually set off with no firm idea of the specifics of where we’re going, or for how long we’ll stay in any location. But experience has shown us that there are a few places where the pull is often strong enough to persuade us to stay for a while. Which usually means somewhere coastal, a nice beach, good swimming and plenty to do by way of walking/cycling and eating out. And the length of stay is often nothing more sophisticated than a decent run of weather and living a very relaxing lifestyle!

Which is how we found ourselves yet again at our favourite campsite on this stretch of the coast south of Béziers, Camping Beauséjour. It’s an ACSI site at the top of the current price range - €27 a day, but we like the vibe, enough we decided, to not save €6 a day by going to the site next door. (A good call as it transpired – more later!)

Having experienced a frequently cold and wet transit across France, it was a real treat to be heading towards the Mediterranean in the sun. We haven’t been here for three years, and the changes are interesting. The beach area where the campsites are located (about a 30 minute cycle from Sérignan town) has been given its historical name of la Maïre – named after the huge wetland that lies between the sea and the river Orb, which snakes its way around Sérignan to the sea. 

We have recently learned that after WW2, groups of families would set up camp for the summer in the dunes that back onto the beach, building a variety of huts and support structures that eventually spawned seasonal shops, ice deliveries, and fish sold from the beach. There was even a chapel built by a local priest in the 1950s to save the souls of the children! This seasonal community apparently lasted until the 70s, when it was replaced by campsites, and the beginning of the current outdoor leisure lifestyle that now predominates. 

Sérignan has many parallels with another of our special places, Oliva, in Spain. There’s very little by way of urban development along the immediate coastline, and the long, sweeping beaches are backed mainly by campsites and nature reserves. So it’s nice to imagine that in some small way (ignoring the 1000s of campers and day trippers that flock to the beaches, just like us!) we are almost continuing a tradition of a beachside lifestyle; for a little while at least.

Being the creatures of habit we are, given the choice of loads of vacant pitches, we chose one we had before! We like to think it’s because having walked the site a few times now, we know the pitch delivers enough shade to remain pleasant as it gets hotter, and enough sun to dry the washing that we will inevitably be doing. It’s also close to fresh water, so Mr B’s adventures with his lime green collapsable watering-can don’t become too onerous, and not too far from the sanitaires – which we love, with their resident Hirondelles (barn swallows) swooping through the shower and toilet blocks to and from their nests high in the rafters. And for the inconvenience of the odd bit of bird poop, they do an amazing job of keeping the mozzie population at bay! We are in a nature reserve area after all!

Except, as we wandered over to the showers after setting up camp, we were disappointed to see that all the ventilation gaps (roughly 24” x 18” oblongs that are regular features of the circular wall) have now been been double glazed, so access for the birds to nest indoors is no more. (More of this later.)

Our first foray onto the beach, however, reminded us immediately why we love it here. Great long expanses of golden sand as far as the eye can see, complete with huge amounts of driftwood spread across the shoreline. And although there are urban developments on the horizon, a daily walk still leaves plenty of beach yet to be walked!

Rather than capture the day-by-day life of the Bableys at leisure, the rest of the entries for Sérignan will reflect themes or events as they happen – hopefully this will make for a more interesting read!

S&J 29.05.26