Two walks

The weather has been beautiful, although it is raining today. We have been making the most of it by walking through the countryside on some of the way marked paths. We also took the cats for a walk. Amelie was perfect and trotted along happily,

with John whilst I dragged Spike with me until he lay down and refused to go any further so I ended up carrying him. Walking makes you realise how many amazing wild flowers are blooming at present. We really enjoyed walking alongside the river Bonnette and seeing the Cascade Petrifiante

or petrifying waterfall. (Actually it's not that scary ha ha). The paths are usually quite easy to follow being clearly marked with red and white blobs for the main walking routes or Grandes Randonees or yellow blobs and numbers for the smaller one or petites randonees.

After all that walking, lunch was indicated and we had wonderful seafood tabbouleh followed by milk fed pork and fresh strawberries with a quarter litre of wine and also with coffee all for 15 euros. Here are some pics so you can feel part of it all. I love the cowslips and violets, the cats were less impressed by the flowers,

and had to have a siesta in order to recover from their exertions!

Spring

What a beautiful day it has been. Spring has really arrived as you will see from the pictures of the pansies and the blossom which is everywhere. All the fruit trees are covered in white blossom and it reminds me of Robert Bridges' poem Spring Goeth All In White.

Spring goeth all in white,

Crowned with milk-white may:

In fleecy flocks of light

O'er heaven the white clouds stray:

White butterflies in the air;

White daisies prank the ground:

The cherry and hoary pear

Scatter their snow around.

I like to think that when we are next here the blossom will have transformed into cherries plums and apricots with pears and apples to follow. In the meantime it looks wonderful.

We have been making the most of warm weather and had a trip out to Cordes today. This is an incredibly beautiful hill top town a few kilometres from us. It is like a mini Carcassonne and is often very busy with tourists but at this time of year it is still rather quiet and very pretty. The hike up the hill is a bit heavy going but worth it for the view. It was market day and the beauty of the aubergines and peppers made me feel inspired to make ratatouille. This evening it is carnavale in Verfeil so I expect the music will go on into the night. At present there is a steady trickle of visitors arriving and an expectant air especially amongst the children who are in fancy dress. As I was writing this the samba band arrived and it was all very jolly and colourful, especially the lady in the flowery hat! Spike is adding to the general excitement by chasing flies and crunching them and trying to break into the new box of cat biscuits. He has also contributed to the white theme by opening and destroying a whole packet of cotton wool! Enjoy the pictures and the video.

Well we haven't been here since September and although a few things are different its good to see that a lot of things remain the same.

They are busy making the bridge in St Antonin all smart with a new railing but the lovely view of the river and the bridge is still the same and all the soft spring colours are beautiful in the warm sunlight.

There is a lot of evidence of damage done by the big storm in January. Many trees have come down and obviously a lot has been swept down the river as you can see from all the debris that has collected around the bridge supports.


All the animals are waking up and liking the spring warmth, this little dog was sitting happily in his window at lunchtime and loving the warm air.

The cats are pleased to be here although they look a bit cross here because the kettle was whistling and they really hate it.

We went for a walk by the river and saw this wonderful heron. It is lovely to be back and we feel so lucky to have the chance to live this second life.

Feast at Espinas

One of the final and most enjoyable events of the summer happened a couple of days ago we went to a big village feast at a place called Espinas which is just up the hill from us. Us and about 500 hungry French people all stuffing our faces. We were all together with the Lafon family who are our neighbours and have become like a family to us.

Here is a little video of us all enjoying ourselves. The singing lady is Sylvie who is a great person, always full of fun. The accordion music is very traditional.

Just so that you can enjoy the menu along with us here are some pictures of the food. We were stuffed.

We started with soup with beans and vegetables. It also had bread in it which seemed unusual to us but it is very traditional here. Then we moved on to pate, salad, stewed pork with capers, grilled sausage and lamb chops, white beans, cheese and ice cream followed by coffee and eau de vie. The wine was flowing like water and a great time was had by all.

The soup

Mirelle serves the salad.

Terrine not for the faint hearted!

Chops anyone?

Pass the wine!

Chin chin Mme Lafon et Mme Wallace-Jones

M. Lafon attacks the saussice

What a great evening!

Wine Tasting

Yesterday we went to the Domaine De Bouscaillous which is a great vineyard in the Gaillac region. We were royally welcomed by Mme. Causse the owner. She is half the attraction of a visit to this wonderful place because of her warm and charming welcome. She speaks English although we usually try to use French and her knowledge and detailed explanations of the grapes and the process of wine making help you to really understand how the wine tastes so good.







Here are the chais where zillions of gallons of wine ferment making a wonderful musty winey smell and Mme. doing her stuff.




Just a few of the bottles for sale, they include a sweet fruity white dessert wine, a deep rich red, a nutty spicy white aged in oak barrels and a light crisp white called perle which has just a hint of sparkle to it. They usually have a sparkling white too in a champagne style. We celebrated our wedding with it but sadly they have sold out for this year.



And of course they win lots of of awards.





Here is john doing his stuff, our dear friends Heather and Gus enjoying a sip, and a couple of sample bottles.

Check out more details here
http://www.chateaubouscaillous.fr/

and try to visit if you can.

Country Walk

This morning John and I had a wonderful country walk. We set off on a thankfully cool damp morning and walked about 12km all around Verfeil. It was beautiful and we had some amazing views of the village as we climbed higher and higher. "It's only a small hill" John trilled happily disappearing like a ferret up a trouser leg. About 2o minutes later uphill all the way we arrived at the top of the hill, well John arrived there and I was still puffing my way up. It was worth it though and there we were miles from anywhere in the middle of France. The views of the village were fantastic although it did look a long way way!

We have some amazing fields of sunflowers around the village and as we walked we saw lots of beautiful wild flowers and some quite varied wildlife including many butterflies a lot of weird red and black bugs and a scary looking spider. Walking is the very best way to enjoy the landscape and you certainly get up close and personal with the insects as my bites testify.

We also got a good look at the Seye which is the little river as in Verfeil Sur Seye.

The cows didn't seem to mind our presence and happily there was no sign of a bull. Phew

My trusty boots were very welcome as the path was steep and very slippery in places and I got terribly thirsty so the wild plums we found along the way were very welcome and refreshing.

We felt as if we had walked along way when suddenly the path vanished and we had to back track and hack through the undergrowth until we finally heard traffic and scrambled down to a little road.

We were glad to see the sign post pointing to Verfeil

and the cold Perrier was more welcome than you could believe. So far we've done three walks totalling about 30 kms cor, maybe I will go for that half marathon after all.

Albi, Bezique and being a French housewife

First of all Albi which is a stunning town and the Prefecture of the Tarn departement. It is about 30 miles from us which makes it our nearest town of any size and we love it. I have been visiting it since I was a small girl and have happy memories of sitting outside with my mum at a lovely tea shop in the Cathedral square and eating delicious strawberry tart. Its a really bustling university town with fabulous shops and an incredible cathedral. The enormous cathedral is dedicated to St Cecilia the patron saint of music and it has a very scary painting of the medieval idea of heaven and hell with all the sinners being punished in all kinds of nasty ways. Visit Albi here.



http://www.albi-tourisme.com/us/pagesEditos.asp?id=8D9CB513&idpage=133




We sat in the Brasserie Du Vigan and had lunch, wonderful salad and rose wine, whilst watching the children run through the fountain in the square. It was incredibly hot and they were having a wonderful time jumping in and out of the jets of water which squirt straight out of the paving.

After lunch we went to Eurodif which is kind of French Woolworths and we mooched around without really wanting to buy anything until....John saw that they were selling green felt by the metre so we bought two metres to transform our dining table into a great card playing surface. We've been looking for some for ages which may seem odd but there is a good reason!

We are hooked on a game called Bezique which seems complicated when you begin which is really enjoyable and addictive. You have to collect groups of cards like four aces which are worth 100 points, 4 Kings for 80 and so on a Bezique is a combination of either the queen of spades and the jack of hearts or the queen of clubs and the jack of diamonds and is worth 50 points unless you have a double Bezique which is two queens and two jacks. Oh I forgot to say that you play with two packs mixed using the cards from 7 upwards. A double Bezique is worth 500 points and Ive only ever had one. It was cause for much excitement. Anyhow the table looked great with its new green cover and we felt very swish, it also stopped the cards for whizzing in all directions especially as the fan had to be on full because it went on being hot. Here we are making like card sharps on our newly acquired felt.











After all the excitement of the Bezique... time for the real world again. Housework! A friend once told me that a real French housewife should spend all her time either at the market, in the kitchen or cleaning her house. I am trying to aspire to this ideal although our lovely neighbour Renee, aka Madame Lafon is trying to train me up the in correct ways and times to do things but she sometimes despairs of ever making me into a proper French housewife, I just can't manage to get lunch on the table on the dot of midday everyday and our shutters are never open the correct amount for the time of day. On the up side I have today cooked lunch, (home made aubergine fritters with spicy tomato sauce), changed the bed and hung the quilt out of the window, mopped and waxed the lounge and kitchen-diner floors, scrubbed the table, cleaned the sink, and done the washing.

This week I've also managed to hoover, clean the cooker, unblock the drain in the bathroom and I got up early twice to make lunch before the sun got too hot. I've also been market shopping, made soup from the leftover chicken and emptied the bins, taking the rubbish and the bottles down to the communal bins. In all these endeavours I have been assisted by John the wonder husband who has to clean the cat tray and is a dab hand with the ironing as you can see.







As far as holidays go to be honest it's all been a bit full on and you can't get any feline help. All they do is sleep because it's been so hot, see? Then theywake up and want to play in the middle of the night.











Happily it is much cooler today so I'm off to do some more chores before the temperature rises again. Maybe one day I'll make Renee proud of me. In the meantime, wine costs 1 euro a litre, our speech and drama results were great well done to all and thanks to John's hard work, I'm ahead at Bezique and I'm planning green apple and goat cheese couscous for supper so life is pretty good.