More August progress

Well after a week of temperatures of around12 degrees C, rain and low cloud, the weather turned last weekend and temps jumped up to +30 Degrees again.

Mushrooms!
Mushroom season appears to be here! Our neighbour from up the road, Josette, disappeared down into the woodland opposite Pissou the other day and returned a couple of hours later with a basket full of girolles - of course, she wasn't going to tell us where she found them, so we headed off next day on our own little exploration, basket in hand, in the hope of returning with some scrummy shrooms. But after a good hour of climbing up some steep woodland slopes, we returned with nothing :-( The vibe we are getting from the locals is that we need to be a bit further round the hillside before we start heading in an upwards direction! So more exploring to be done yet. watch this space.

Renovation progress
At the weekend, I set about the task of cleaning up the old beams in the barn ready for them to be treated with the insect 'traitement' which will kill any little critters which may have made their home in the woodwork. It was very dusty, hot work as I brushed the beams down, removing layers of hay and dust and it isn't finished yet. Next, they need to be 'mopped' clean ready for the first application of 'traitement'. Then we can get some kind of flooring laid and start using the space. Still waiting for a call from British Tom about the roof. Hopefully we wil hear from him soon.

Living
We finally got ourselves registered at the CPAM using our E106 forms which means we are now in the French healthcare system and many healthcare costs will be covered - hurrah! Some peace of mind there, anyway!
We also got the car insurance sorted out which proved rather more costly than we had expected. But while the car is still UK registered, we haven't got a choice. So our next step is going to be to get it registered over here so that we can benefit from the much more favourable rates that are out there.

Exercise-wise, we haven't done a great deal, although we did check out the climbing area around Auzat which has got some lovely little routes. It will be a good area for us to get the ropes back out and have a play. There is loads more harder and longer stuff in the area which we (and any visitors we may have!) can go at in the future. The CAFMA website contains loads of topos and access information for anybody who is interested. There is also a bit of bouldering up the Vicdessos Valley which looks interesting. The Escalade Ariege website has some topos.

In the meantime, we are already looking forward to winter and the first snows. We are in the process of getting ourselves kitted out with ski mountaineering stuff so that we can get up into the mountains to explore. This is the kind of thing that we have on the doorstep!;