Summertime... and the living is..

.... not bad actually! Mid October and I was out on the terrasse in my shorts and strappy top this afternoon, with an air temperature of 20 degrees but an actual temperature that felt considerably warmer! Wonderful!

Anyway, I am ahead of myself as usual. Do excuse me. Back to earlier happenings. I had arranged to pick up my mate, Pat, from Espies this morning at 11.00 to do a walk/run route that I have had my eye on for some time now. Her hubby, Kev, is in the UK at the mo and they had their elderly dog, Sam, put to sleep on Thursday, so she has been feeling rather miserable. I thought that an outing 'up high', in the fantastic weather that we are briefly experiencing would provide a bit of a tonic. So we parked up at the Col de Port and headed up the zig zags on the other side of the road, Taff accompanying us, and reached the top in just under 25 mins (quickest time yet, I believe). We then walked/jogged/ambled along the edge for around 4.5kms from where we enjoyed amazing panoramic views, not only of the Pic de la Journalade, but of Mont Valier and, on the other side, the plains of the Languedoc. Pat very kindly agreed to pose with the pooch so you can at least get some kind of an idea of what it was like.
It was the kind of day when you just want to drink it in, absorb it and store it up for times when life is not quite so good - do you know what I mean? Unfortunately, water was an issue and both the pooch and I were in danger of suffering from dehydration so we decided to turn round and head back down to the Col de Port. What a fab way to spend a couple of hours covering only 8.7km but with ascent of 470m - very worthwhile!

For tea, we had a very healthy Seafood risotto using the shellfish that we had bought in St Girons - very scrummy and plenty left for tomorrow's lunch :-)

Market Day

Saturday sees one of the best markets in the area take place in St Girons, a 25 minute drive down the valley from here. It always has a tremendous selection of local fruit and veg, tons of local cheeses, saucisson, honey, bread....... a veritable Cornucopia where we are spoilt for choice. We duly filled our basket with quality produce and, once shopped out there, made our way to Intermarché down the road at Saint Lizier to stock up on other essential dry goods. This is one of the few shops that remain open between 12.00 and 14.00 hrs - and how blissfully quiet it is at lunchtime - an ideal time to shop! They have an excellent fresh fish section there and we bought all kinds of bits and pieces with a view to making a bouillabaisse this evening, although things don't always go according to plan. A trip to Bricomarché next door followed where we bought a 'poèle à pétrôle' heater mainly for heating the attic when we have visitors in the colder months ahead.

The big discovery of the day however has been the wholefood/environmentally friendly shop that we discovered in St Girons. It has been a concern since we moved in that the cleaning products that we use are not doing the 'good bacteria' on the hill much good. We are not hooked up to a mains system here and ALL of our waste is taken by pipes away from the house and is jettisoned off down the hillside where it is washed away by rain or absorbed into the hillside. So today, we were able to secure supplies of very reasonably priced environmentally friendly toilet cleaner, washing up liquid and washing tablets which will ease our conscience somewhat. We were also able to stock up on dried goods like pulses, rice and muesli. I think we will be frequent visitors to that shop!

This afternoon, with the return of some good weather (been 18 degrees, sunny with clear blue skies today!), Andy decided it was an opportune moment to take a look at the chimney stack to try and find out where rainwater was managing to seep in and trickle down the chimney breast in the attic, threatening to damage our newly installed insulation and plasterboard. So he got his harness on, roped up, secured himself to a tree, self-belayed and got onto the roof to take a look. The good (I think) news is that there are very few spots where water can get in, but mastic was applied wherever there appeared to be even the faintest possibility so hopefully we shouldn't have any more 'dripping' occurrences in the attic and future visitors can sleep comfortably!

Culture, dahlink, culture!

I finished Graham Robb's book last night and have now become enthused with a desire to find out as much as possible about our immediate area (the Massatois valley) and, further afield, the Ariege region generally. It is an area rich in culture, history, heritage and tradition which also has a fascinating linguistic background which (as a linguist!) I am keen to explore. All of these factors obviously go towards making the people who they are so by understanding their past, I hope to understand them more fully in turn. So my quest started this afternoon when I popped into the little 'papeterie' in the village where I picked up a copy of 'l'Histoire de Massat' by J-M Servat which covers the history of the valley from the 18th century through to the early 20th century. The book refers to the 'Editions Lacour' website on which I have found many more interesting books on the region which I may well acquire in due course! I also picked up 'le dialecte de la vallée de Massat - grammaire, dictionnaire et méthode d'apprentissage' which looks like heavy but fascinating reading! I spoke briefly with the bloke in the shop who said that the dialect is dying out as it is no longer taught in the local school and families are using it less and less at home. It is a real shame.

On my way back up to Pissou, I popped into Espies for some bread and took the opportunity to tackle Françoise about her quite thick accent which I had rather romantically assumed to be 'from the area' only to be told ''ben non, je suis de Montpellier d'origine!' Montpellier is along the Med coast so Françoise is obviously an 'import' to the area. I was however heartened to know that even Gil the boulanger has difficulty understanding her sometimes!

The other thing that has resulted from my reading of 'The discovery of France' was a rekindling of my A level passion for 'le Grand Meaulnes' by Alain Fournier written in 1913 (I have ordered it today from Amazon!), a book referred to by Graham Robb..... "His tale of boyhood longings set in the rural Bourbonnais, gave a tantalising sense of 'la France profonde' as a distant but familiar place, a little world full of simple things that spoke of another age: the stove in the freezing classroom, the clog-wearing pupils who smelled of hay, the gendarme and the poachers, the beaten-earth floor of the general store, the silence in the countryside". This work was one that I adored as an A level student. I somehow imagine our little part of the world to have once been not dissimilar to the summary so concisely outlined by Robb and I am impatient to read more!

Rain, Rain .... at last gone away

Since Jackie and Steve left on Sunday morning, the weather has been awful. We have had torrential rain and temperatures below 10 degrees. But guess what... we don't care! Our little house is snug and cosy and warm when the elements do their worst. We get the woodburner going and snug up on the settee to read our books. Mine is currently 'The Discovery of France' by Graham Robb which is a fascinating take on the history of France since the 17th century. I haven't read anything like it since I did my degree some number of years ago. Great stuff.

This morning, when I awoke, I glanced out of the window expecting to see us surrounded yet again by low cloud but was greeted instead by clear blue sky, snow on Mont Valier and a fantastic cloud inversion down the valley. Just beautiful.
Andy was not feeling fantastic this afternoon, so I took the pooch back up the zig zags to the Cabane de Roses (see post of 22 September for the last time I did it). I reached the cabane in just under an hour last time, but today I was there in 41 minutes! The cooler temperature probably helped and I tried to stretch out as I went, so I was altogether more comfortable on the run. Must make it a more regular thing!

Visitors come, visitors go

Steve (Andy's dad) and Jackie left yesterday morning after spending 4 days here at Pissou. It was lovely to have visitors again and Andy really enjoyed coming up with culinary delights which certainly succeeded in tickling the tastebuds! I think the favourite dish (at least as far as Jackie was concerned!) was the wickedly rich chocolate pud, which was simply divine, but they also enjoyed a yummy rabbit in cider recipe and a special pigeon dish on their last evening. Mmm! I also introduced them to another local aperitif called Hypocras which is very much an acquired taste but which Jackie took to very quickly! It actually goes very well with lamb apparently so watch the recipe blog for some interesting new recipes!

The weather held out for their stay so we took the opportunity to introduce them to one of the very important tasks for us, which is the recovery of wood for the wood burner. A small fruit tree had fallen onto a power/telephone line just above the house and although it is not on our land, we decided that we should do the right thing and remove it so that the line is not pulled down when the first snows arrive. So Andy and Steve donned chainsaw gear and set to.

The tree yielded a good supply of both large and small sections of wood which have certainly bolstered our supply for the winter. Claudine is back next weekend so we will take that opportunity to clarify what other wood we can recover from the surrounding area.

Whilst it was still fine, we drove up to the Col d'Agnes, 20 minutes from the house, from where you have amazing views of the mountains which border Spain. The clouds were accumulating rapidly on the high tops, but it was still spectacular and I think Steve and Jackie were suitably impressed!
Whilst they were at Pissou, it became apparent that we did indeed have mice in the house. This was confirmed without doubt when Steve was using the little boy's room and a cheeky mouse appeared from under the door! What can you say! Andy also spotted one scuttling across the living room floor one evening so we decided we had to take action. I bought four traps from the shop in Massat and Andy melted some chocolate onto two of them and wedged a lump of cheese onto the other two. 24 hours later, the trap in the bathroom presented its first victim to us and then yesterday, we caught another one in the living room. I had been talking to Gil, the boulangerie about the meeces and he happened to mention that he has a snake who is quite partial to the odd rodent. So I duly presented yesterday's victim to him in a plastic bag, for which he said the 'serpent' would be most grateful! We have talked about getting some kittens which would turn into evil mouse-killing machines in due course but I think we have decided that they would be too much work in the short term. So that idea is temporarily on hold.

I bought a tray of greengages (prunes Reine-Claude) from St Girons market on Saturday with the intention of making some plum jam. Jackie ploughed in with stoning the fruit (9kgs of it!) and I used 2.5 kgs to produce some very tasty greengage and almond jam. The rest of the fruit, we bagged and froze for use in cooking during the winter. I also made some apple chutney on Wednesday which we have to leave for 2-3 months before we can eat it - darn! But the wait should be worth it. Today, we will hopefully be making the sloe gin from the sloes that we collected last week. Next, we hope to gather some big juicy chestnuts from the woodland below us - I love this time of year!

The weather appears to have deteriorated somewhat, with heavy rain and very low cloud. The forward forecast is looking decidedly dismal, so time to get on with the indoor jobs, I reckon.

Just a normal day....

.... ish. We have visitors arriving tomorrow (hi Jackie and Steve!) so we 'popped' down to St Girons at lunchtime to do a supermarket shop. We had intended to have a civilised lunch in St Lizier before doing our shop, but the cafe that does ace sandwiches was shut! Our plans to eat out at lunchtime seem to be thwarted each time that we venture out. So we ended up (yet again) with a yukky sandwich from Intermarché instead :-(

We left the supermarket to be welcomed by a temperature of 27 degrees according to the car! What is going on?! By the time we had made our way back up to Massat, it had mercifully cooled down to a bearable 22 degrees.

Today, we also collected more apples and also the sloe berries that we discovered yesterday. I will be starting work on the chutney tomorrow and may also make a tarte aux pommes or quelque-chose.

Yesterday, we started to recover some of the rocks/stones that Claudine's workmen had left in a pile outside her new back door. I decided that I needed some physical activity this afternoon, so spent an hour lugging the rocks from the pile that we had created there, up to the area outside our rear 'window', a distance of only 10 metres or so but it IS uphill and some of the rocks were very heavy... honest! It was nice to feel like I had actually exerted myself for a change!

Then this evening, we heard the stag in the woodland again - rather too close this time!

I could hear him making his way through the woodland, so he can't have been more than a couple of hundred metres away! The pooch was not happy!

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Ok, we are still waiting for the mists (although low cloud we have had aplenty), but the mellow fruitfulness seems to be going in the right direction. We raided the apple trees around Pissou this afternoon and this resulted in a basketful of fruit for which we now need to come up with some ideas! A rabbit with apple and calvados dinner this evening is the first step and I think I may wander into chutney territory before the end of the week too. We can always par cook and freeze whatever is left....

Just before lunch, we ventured back into the woodland across from the house (the guns have been quite for a few days, so we reckoned it would be safe!) in search of the elusive shroom and found a few paltry specimens which made us seriously wonder about the credibility of some of our neighbours who insist that there are girolles and ceps aplenty to be had in them there woods. This afternoon, we followed the advice of I can't remember who, who insisted that there were plenty of ceps to be had up in the woodland above the Col de Port. So, reenergised by lunch, we headed the 10 minutes up the road to the Col and from there off into the woodland. The pooch thought all his Christmasses had come at once.... TWO outings in one day! We found plenty of specimens, particularly as we got higher up into the woodland, away from the well worn path but still no ceps. Doh! But at least we had had some exercise and we saw some really pretty crocus like flowers which seem to have sprung up all over the place, but which I thought were usually a spring flower....?Our other discovery of the day has been some sloes around Pissou which we will be collecting tomorrow and which we hope to transform into sloe gin before Christmas

Other news of the day;
Had a call from Claudine following my text asking whether she had indeed received my email about the wood, to which she answered yes and indeed she had replied! Time to check the spam folder :-( Anyway, no problem for us to 'recuperate' (a bastardised, overused anglicisation of the well used French word 'récupérer' meaning to recover and use) the wood on her land which is great news! I am so pleased we have asked permission and can quite categorically say to Josette or anybody else who may question us 'yes, we have for permission from the landowner to take it'! Looks like our winter log pile fears have been allayed.

Claudine also told us we could take some of the big stones which had been piled in a heap where her builders had opened up a new doorway to the rear of her barn conversion. These big stones/rocks will be invaluable when we come to reinforcing the wall of the barn which is currently just standing in parts on the hillside with no foundations! Nothing unusual in this part of the world! She will be back at Pissou on the 13th so we are looking forward to having a good chat with her then.