A busy Sunday

So the job this morning was to clean down the woodwork up in the attic in preparation for doing the 'traitement' spray. A quick hoover down to remove the dust and dirt I thought. Wrong! It soon became apparent that a number of wood-destroying critters (in particular the capricorn beetle lavae) have made their home in the beams. As I pulled away pieces of loose top layer, a mass of wood dust would descend and I soon saw the extent of the infestation on two beams in particular. Fortunately, as I removed the powdered layer I came to good, solid wood which indicates that we have caught it just in time. Hacking away the infected wood was filthy, time-consuming work but very necessary if the treatment is to work. We also decided today that we would do the other side of the attic as well, as neither of us relishes the idea of having to repeat the exercise at some point in the future. Let's get it all over and done with in one push. So tomorrow we will set about pulling off the rest of the pine pannelling, removing the old insulation and inspecting the woodwork - can't wait :-(

This afternoon, we at last got out on the bikes again :-) The weather was perfect (clear blue skies, 20+ degrees) so we did a little outing that we had to abort on a previous occasion when Andy got 2 punctures on his bike. Starting just 20 mins from Pissou, it is a lovely 36km (return) route, gently uphill, initially following the course of the river Salat and then the river Alet up to a very pretty little spot called Serac from where the Col de Latrape (5.9km, ave gradient 7.2%) winds it's way up and over the hillside before descending down into Aulus (we will be attempting that one soon!). Here, you are in the shadow of the Guzet Neige ski station and the quite spectacular Cirque de Cagateille which we hope to explore soon. This time, no punctures, so after the briefest of stops (we really must stop for refreshments next time!) we headed back down the valley, me drafting in Andy's slipstream, reaching over 50kph at times :-) The whole outing had taken us just 1hr 25mins but we had had a good blast on the bikes and everything seemed to be working as it should with no aches or pains.

So tonight, we have guinea fowl on the menu cooked in a traditional Catalan style. Mmmm.