Saturday, October 08, 2011

The day birds flew backwards



J and I sat overlooking the beach in Banyuls-sur-mer waiting for the fête de vin to start. Waves crashed on the beach, the water thrown by the Tramantane howling overhead.

"Look," J said and pointed to the sky.

Birds trying to make headway into the wind were truly flying backwards. No matter how fast they flapped their wings, they went in the direction of their tails, not their heads.

It was a lovely start to the fête. Music announced the parade made up of children with grape leaf crowns, a band and donkeys laden with grapes. The harvest was put into tubs and the children stomped on them as they would have in the old days as the band played that old French song, "Down by the Riverside". A priest gave his blessing to the harvest, and unlike during last year's, the donkey's intestinal track made no donation to the event.

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