Swimming In The Sunshine

No, not me! It's February, in France, and I'm not that much of a dingbat! The water must be about 5°C!

No, it was a beautiful day, so I decided to take the dogs for a walk to a local lake at Castera-Verduzan. During the summer this lake is quite a tourist attraction. All across France there are man made lakes, comlplete with man made beaches. Most French people would probably not even cnsider driving hours and hours just to go to a tourist filled beach on the Med or the Atlantic, as the distances in France are massive. Well...they are when compared to UK anyway. I know I have quite a few readers from the US, and even Australia and the distances within those countries are incomparable to countries in Europe!

So anyway, these lakes are chock full of tourists and locals during the summer, and are to be avoided at ALL costs! The doctors always say they know when the lakes are open because they have a high percentage of ear infections to treat. Nice eh! Check out the website here.

During the winter, no one goes to the lakes except dog walkers. You can walk all around the lake, which makes for a lovely walk as I hate going somewhere and coming back - I like circular walks. It's not very long, maybe about half an hour if you walk fast, but the dogs love it as they get to swim, and so get about 5 times the exercise that I do.

There's a river that runs alongside the lake, and must feed it too. It's weird because the lake itself isn't running water, but when it gets refilled they must divert the river into it somehow. It's been quite high and fast since the storms at the end of January. Funnily enough the dogs aren't interested in it at all, but then there's a great big lake to take their attention and if you've got a tennis ball they won't pay attention to anything else!!
We left Murphy at home, obviously, and my dad took him for a very little walk to get his leg moving. It's still healing well, but he's now turned from being a very sorry for himself dog to a recalcitrant patient! He's obviously getting better because he's being naughty! I think he's frustrated, and he chewed his bandage off this evening!

Isla brought her bike with her because, as well as all the water sports stuff, they also have a bit for rollerblading/skateboarding/biking with ramps. She's been desperate to try it out for months, but normally there's not enough space in the car with three dogs and three or four people. So, as it was only the two of us today we took the bike, and she had a great time!