"Down by the riverside"... Down by the lakeside actually, with lots of fish!

Following our relatively unsuccessful trip to the beach, we decided that perhaps we needed to find a new sunbathing and paddling spot.  Liza had heard about a lake where both of these things were possible from a friend, so on a Thursday afternoon, Liza, Jenny and I embarked on a trip to find it.  Worryingly, Liza originally told us that it was at the very end of tram line two, but by Thursday had discovered that it was actually two stops before the end of the line at Via Domitia.  Nonetheless, Jenny and I didn't question Liza's mystery tour, and blindly followed her off of the tram at Via Domitia.  Following the instructions that Liza had received via text, we knew that we needed to cross a bridge from the tram stop, but after that we were a bit lost.  The instructions merely said that at the other side of the bridge, we needed to ask for directions!


The bridge was pretty easy to locate since it was the only one we could see and it was at the end of the tram station platform, directly in front of our faces.  The bridge brought us to a car park for a huge sports centre, that was full of cars but distinctly lacking in people to ask for directions.  Helpful.  We spotted a friendly looking lady not so far away, which sparked a thirty second debate that went a little like this;

"Shall we ask her?" "I don't know, we could ask her?" "But she might not know where the lake is!  She might just think we're strange English girls wandering around looking for a non-existent lake!"

Finally, Liza bit the bullet, marched over, and asked the friendly looking lady where the lake was.  It turned out that the lake definitely did exist, and she knew exactly where it was.  She explained that it was about a fifteen minute walk away and would be quite simple to find.  The friendly looking lady then became even more helpful than we had ever anticipated and offered us a lift!  Apparently she was heading that way anyway, and had three spare spaces in the car.  With a chorus of "merci beaucoup" and "vous êtes très gentille" we graciously accepted her offer and clambered into the little white three door car.  She explained that it was her husband's car and she didn't normally drive it which is why her driving might not be entirely up to scratch.  This filled me with the utmost confidence, given that the French aren't exactly known for their road safety, but I couldn't exactly complain - she had just offered us a free lift.  All in all, this mission to sunbathe was proving a lot more successful than our last trip to the beach.


A short, three minute journey and we arrived at the lake in one piece.  She pointed out where we would have been able to go into the park if we were on foot, and thus, where it would be possible to leave from.  As we were in a car, however, she dropped us off at a slightly more official, gravelled entrance to the park, with instructions that we needed to go "upstairs" to get to the lake.  She had attempted a little bit of English for our benefit which was sweet, and we could only assume that by "upstairs" she meant "up hill".  So, we headed off up the reasonably small hill that lay ahead of us, and sure enough, at the top we were greeted by a beautiful view that looked out across the lake and the park surrounding it.

Once we reached the water's edge, we decided to walk round around the lake to reach the grassy area on the other side.  We could just make out a few people sun bathing over there, and decided that they must have the right idea; the rest of the lake seemed to be edged with gravel which wouldn't exactly make for a comfortable sunbathing spot.  It probably took about less than ten minutes to walk to the other side of the lake, and although it wasn't exactly an unpleasant walk, I think we all breathed a joint sigh of relief as we settled ourselves onto our towels, bikinis on, facing the sun.


Liza had been told by her friend that it was absolutely fine to swim in the lake, and as a few of the other French sun seekers there seemed to be having no problems with diving in, we thought we would follow suit. Well, when I say swim, I of course mean paddle.  Jenny and Liza were aiming to swim, but swimming really isn't my thing.  I paddle, and that is all.  However, Liza and Jenny soon came round to the idea of paddling upon discovering that the lake is actually filled with fish!  Jenny had a definite aversion to the fish but Liza took a shining to them.  I remained fairly neutral in my feelings towards the fish; they were quite small, slim little things, but they did have a habit of getting a little close for comfort if you stood still for too long.  Liza was delighted by this and very quickly settled herself in the water, before proclaiming herself to be 'Liza, friend of the fishes' as they all started gathering around her.


Once Liza had satisfied her fish loving tendencies, and Jenny and I agreed that we were quite done with paddling, we dried off in the sun before gathering our things and heading back to the tram stop.  We guessed at which way we would need to walk to join the road, and decided to continue walking around the lake and then veer off into the park, rather than walking back the way we came.  This allowed us to stumble across a waterfall on our way out, and also discover that even when the weather doesn't allow for sunbathing, it really would be worth coming back simply to walk around the park.

Sure enough, the walk really did only take about fifteen minutes back to the tram, and from there it was only half a dozen stops back to my stop, Charles De Gaulle.  I must admit, the novelty of living in a city has fast worn off for me (I can handle small towns, like Egham, but you give me a population of more than about 20,000 and I start to get itchy feet), and it was comforting to discover that there's a little green patch of tranquillity a stone's throw away from all the concrete, for those days when the cars and quarter of a million people all start to get a bit much for this country bumpkin.