The sun's gone down on January and the weather has been kind to us the last couple of days....

Yesterday (30th Jan) and today we've eaten multiple meals sitting outside bathed in warm sunshine...we keep lounging outside at every opportunity. The novelty of this in mid winter hasn't ebbed yet. Maybe we'll get over it in a while...we'll see!

We're on the northern side of the Pyrennees, spending a few days exploring the Basque region of France. We decided that it looked interesting, and so far it's rewarding us with warm sunshine and interesting places. It's a hard life .....

We're both down to one layer of clothes, and gradually exposing more skin to the sunshine. The tollers have started to lie in the shade some of the time, and dive into streams on walks. It's pleasant without being too hot for us, but if there's a significant increase in temperature...well we may head for the mountains rather than our current plans to continue southwards next week.

Many of the tourist attractions are closed for the winter, so it's obviously very popular in the summer, and so far we've only seen one other English motorhome, plus a few French and a couple of Dutch. The reports of massed English motorhomes down here seem to be exaggerated ...maybe they are even further south.

At present at St Jean Pied de Port, a historical town on the old pilgrims route, overnighting on the village Aire beside the Sports centre. The French are so welcoming to Motorcaravans compared to the English. A walk in the morning beside a mountain river should be interesting - to see if the tollers think it's hot enough to swim in meltwater!