Family

Mum arrived on Friday to spend a few days at Pissou. It has been a lovely few days, starting on Friday lunchtime after I collected her from Carcassonne airport and we stopped off in Mirepoix on the way back to have lunch with Pat. I love the 12th century covered arcades of Mirepoix with their amazingly detailed wooden sculptures. You can't help but wonder who carved them all those centuries ago.We have been blessed with wonderfully warm, sunny weather over the weekend and I spent my Birthday afternoon on Saturday on the terrasse with mum preparing apples for scratting before passing them on to Andy for processing through the press to extract the juice for our first cider efforts.The result was 2 x 10 ltr containers filled with apple juice onto which we sprinkled cider yeast - they are now happily glugging away and I am eagerly anticipating my first swig of cider in a month or two's time!

Saturday evening we had a lovely meal out at the Auberge de la Grotte in Bedeilhac which is up and over the Col de Port. It was a later night than we had anticipated which resulted in a slow start on Sunday. The Fete du boeuf was taking place down in Massat, but due to general weariness we ended up spending the day pottering around Pissou, weeding, clearing and planting bulbs and wallflowers that mum had given me as a birthday present and which now hold the promise of colour and scent from early Spring onwards. Just what Pissou needs! It had been a productive day.

Yesterday, I took mum up to the Col d'Agnes via the Etang de Lers where I knew she would find flora that would be of interest. En route, she took a rather fetching photo of a cow!
The views from the Col d'Agnes towards the high mountains which border Spain never fail to impress visitors. I snatched a photo of mum in photographic action.All too soon, it was time to take her back to Carcassonne airport today for her flight home. Hopefully she will have absorbed some of the peace and tranquillity of the area and the batteries will be somewhat recharged!

On the way back from Carcassonne this afternoon, I stopped off at Pat and Kevin's and had a short (20km) VTT mountain bike ride with Pat near Varilhes which was a stretch of the legs and nothing too technical or steep. The weather appears to be deteriorating now that mum has left, but hopefully we can get in some more VTT, running or higher level walking action this week regardless.