See you soon Caroline! Chapter 16. The Argeles Camp (Part 1)

Chapter Sixteen:

The Argeles camp (Part 1)

The following morning, the Weaver family were up early – or what they thought was early.
However, they had forgotten that France was an hour ahead of Britain, and although they had set their watches to French time, their body clocks had remained on British Summer Time. They were surprised to find that it was already nearly nine-o-clock!

Mr Weaver was keen to visit the camp at Rivesaltes as soon as possible, and was somewhat irritated to find that his daughter did not share his enthusiasm. “After all, that’s the only reason we
came here!” he exclaimed.

“Yes Dad, I know!” she answered. “And I want to go there too, we all do! But as I told you yesterday, it’s much better if we wait until Pierre’s friend is available, we shall find out so much more
that way! Especially as we’re not too good at French!”

He sighed. He always seemed to be outmanoeuvred by the rest of the family! However, there might be some sense in what his daughter was saying.

“So what do you suggest we do today then?”

Mrs Weaver thought it was time they had a look at the town of Argeles and suggested so. “After all, we had a pretty quiet day yesterday” she said.

It was already getting quite warm, and so appropriately dressed for a hot, sunny day, the family set off along the promenade towards the centre of the town. To their left was the flat wide expanse of the beach. Already families were setting up sun-breaks and making themselves comfortable in light-weight reclining chairs, ready for a day of sun-bathing and relaxation.

On the other side of the promenade there were hotels and houses with gardens bursting with colour. Blue, purple, and orange seemed to predominate, and neither Mr nor Mrs Weaver knew the names of these exotic shrubs. There were magnificent palm trees too, giving a welcome shade from the already burning sun.

Further on they entered a section of the path which passed through an area of pines, here it was much cooler and there was a pleasant fresh smell from the trees.  A large colourful notice board
attracted their attention. They struggled to understand the French until Simon spotted the English translation thoughtfully provided below!

“It says that the pines were planted here about a hundred years ago to stop the sand from being blown away. But at various times many of them have been destroyed for different reasons – during
the war for example. Now they are being protected.”

Now that they were getting towards the more populated area, there were rather tatty children’s playgrounds with giant plastic animals to clamber over, and the inevitable bouncy castles. Caroline
thought that once upon a time she would have loved that, but now it all seemed rather tasteless and out of keeping with the splendid beach and distant mountains. She found herself wondering what Pierre thought about the tourists and their pleasures. Did he find them intrusive she wondered? Then she remembered that he earned his pocket money by working in the bar, so he couldn’t be totally against them! But somehow he didn’t seem to fit in to this foreign holiday atmosphere, he was so proud of his Spanish (or was it Catalan?) roots, that she doubted whether he really enjoyed the summer, and was probably glad when they all went home and peace descended on the town again!

“So what do you think, Caroline?” asked her mother rather sharply. Evidently Caroline had missed something with her day-dreaming!

“Sorry! What were you saying?”

“I said ‘What about a ride on this?’”
Her mother was pointing at a picture of a sort of road train – a number of trucks with seats and pulled by a vehicle rather crudely disguised as a railway engine. It reminded Caroline of Thomas the tank engine, and she wasn’t particularly impressed.

“It’ll give us a chance to sit down” her mother went on, “it’s shady, and it’ll be cool as its all open to the air. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need a sit-down! It’s one way of seeing the town without having to walk in this heat!”

Indeed, it was getting really hot, especially as they were now out of the shady pine trees. Caroline realised that she was going to have to make a decision, so she quickly agreed to the idea.  Simon had spotted a wooden building  just ahead which seemed to be the booking office for what appeared to be called the ‘train-bus’. Fortunately, the man behind the counter spoke English as did most of the people they had had to deal with so far, and they were soon the possessors of a family ticket for the full tour which would last an hour.

“You want the orange train, and it will be here in ten minutes” explained the man in the ticket office. In fact it was nearly twenty minutes before the train arrived and disgorged a load of holiday makers before allowing them to climb on board.

It was an interesting trip. They bounced along the roads at an impressive speed for such a small and vulnerable vehicle, and Caroline could see that her mother might be regretting her choice of amusement! They paid a quick visit to the port with its quota of posh yachts, and then turned inland to an old quarter of the town which Caroline realised was probably the original village. The rest of the journey was past innumerable camp-sites, all much like their own, all with their own pools and restaurants so that their customers need never leave the camp to find food, shelter or entertainment. ‘But that wasn’t why we are here’, thought Caroline. ‘We are here for a purpose, and that was to discover the truth behind Grandad’s faded picture and the writing on the back!’ What a lot had happened since she had first picked that off the floor in Grandad’s living room!

But she was day-dreaming again! Mum was saying something about the trip - she was disappointed about something apparently. “What did you say?” asked Caroline.

“I said ‘It’s a pity there is no commentary on what we are seeing’. I was hoping we would learn something more about this place.” Caroline remembered that Pierre had offered to show her around some time, but decided not to mention that just now.  So she just replied “Well, you probably wouldn’t have heard anything anyway. With so much road noise, it’s difficult enough to hear each other speak!”

“And it would have been in French!” pointed out Dad.

“I do like to know something about the history of a place” said his wife. “What was this place like before all the visitors started coming? And what was it like here in the war I wonder?”

They all agreed that these were interesting questions to which they would like answers. Caroline thought she knew where these answers might be found, but she kept this information to herself! She smiled as she thought of Pierre, and what she would tell him of the morning’s trip when they next met.

In the event, they got off the trip before it ended. Dad had recognised the avenue they were bouncing down, and realised that in a few moments they would be passing the entrance to ‘Le Sud’ – their campsite. So when it stopped a few yards further on, they got off and strolled back to the camp entrance. By now it was lunchtime, and feeling too hot and weary to prepare anything themselves, they made do with a quick visit to the bathroom, and then wandered over to the bar for something to eat and drink.

Caroline looked around, rather hoping that Pierre would come and serve them, but it seemed that he was not on duty, and they ordered their snack from a young girl, who rather surprisingly, did not seem to understand English, and their order was accomplished by pointing to the pictures on the menu board.

Lunch over, Mum announced that she was going for a lay-down, while Dad had another attempt at making the espresso coffee machine to work. Not that they needed any, they had just had cokes in
the bar, but he had a fascination for gadgets and didn’t want to be beaten.

That left the two teenagers to themselves. They were both of the same mind, and within minutes were changed into swimming kit and headed for the pool.