The end of the year

Well, the year has ended with a cracking ride out on the roadie with P&K. It was the longest outing for quite some while, clocking in at 77km with 3 hrs 20 mins in the saddle. The route included more ascent than on previous occasions over there and took in Lavelenet, Belesta, a nice steady climb up to the Col de Babourade, a cracking descent into Puivert and then a gently undulating ride on quiet roads back through Chalabre, Camon and various other pleasant little villages. There is very little respite from the pedalling on routes such as this one, so a good work out is assured! Click on the image for the route profile.

Happy New Year!

Raquettes

Some form of exercise was called for today. Two (or has it been three?) days of slovenliness and overindulgence can take their toll We still have Cat 3 avalanche warnings in force in the area, so we took the easy option. Instead of a ski tour we popped up the road to the Col de Port and donned the showshoes for a quick ascent of Pic d'Estibat. The snow was coated in a crisp, icy layer thanks to the very low overnight temperatures which made the steep climb far less arduous than it would have been in soft, deep powder. The view when we reached the top was, as usual, stunningly beautiful.... Pic de la Journalade was coated in it's winter finery......and ornate patterns created from wind-scoured snow decorated our path
Instead of joining the masses heading towards Pic de la Journalade, we headed off to the right towards Turon Ner before cutting back down into the forest and returning by the forest track. The steep descent tested my snowshoe/pole technique but we arrived back at the car unscathed. Hopefully this glorious weather will continue for a while longer and more outings on skis or snowshoes will be possible.

Dinner

The venison had been marinading in wine, stock, garlic, spices and vegetables since Sunday and had already been slow-cooked on top of the wood-burner for a good few hours before it was returned for it's final heat-through in preparation for it's much awaited consumption. It did not disappoint. The beautifully lean meat literally fell off the bone.It was accompanied by the wonderfully spicy 'blushing pears' that I made at the end of August and homemade beetroot and orange relish. Roast potatoes and celeriac mash added the final flourish. What a feast!

Félicitations au chef et à sa sous-chef!

Joyeux Noel!

We were expecting to celebrate 'le Réveillon' with our neighbour Christine yesterday evening. But she knocked on the door at 21.45 with the promised bottle of Champagne and a yule log only to say that she was utterly exhausted, having been up since 05.30, worked for most of the day and was due up again at 05.30 on Christmas Morning (she works in the health service doing home visits)!! She was heading straight to bed, so we promised to keep the Champagne until she can come round at the weekend, relax and enjoy it.

Christmas Day dawned bright and clear.... unlike my head (and Andy's too). Somehow we managed to consume rather too much wine yesterday evening. But all the same, I was keen to have an outing on the skis as I have never skiied on Christmas Day before. By the time we got our act together and left the house, it was midday and the clear blue skies were being greedily gobbled up in front of our eyes by an ominous bank of cloud which was building rapidly. The temperature guage in the car indicated 6 degrees as we approached Guzet and the idea of spending 4 hours skiing churned up mushy snow on busy pistes somehow did not appeal. So we returned to the house and had foie gras on little toasts followed by mince pies for lunch and then oysters mid afternoon. Mmm. The venison is back on top of the woodburner and we will be tucking into our main dinner later on this evening.

Bon appetit :-)

Mincemeat

It has been a couple of years since Andy last made some mincemeat for Christmas. The last batch was yummy with the blueberries from my brother's plantations adding that 'alternative' touch. Today's batch again contains blueberries but also dried cranberries, apricots, fat juicy sultanas, raisins, almonds, hazlenuts, home made candied peel, apples, suet, spices, lime zest, a banana, brown sugar and a damn fine glug of Armagnac and also some malt whisky.We now have 3 kgs of mincemeat, most of which will be jarred tomorrow and left to mature for future Yuletide celebrations. I will however be making some mince pies for consumption this Christmas - yum :-)

Out with the dogs

Pat and Kev are looking after Flea until the end of the month. She is a lovely little border collie whose home is normally the b&b in Biert, just along the road from Massat. She has met Taff before and they got on well, so I took him back to meet her again today and to enjoy a bit of a run with P&K. Pat had a VTT route in mind that we could run and which should have been around 14km. It was a route that they had not done before so it was new territory. Usually there are little signs which act as waymarkers but we very quickly lost them, which suggested that they had been removed by somebody in the area for some reason. So we made up a circuit based on nothing but instinct. Fortunately, it is not the kind of area in which you can get too lost! It was a clear day and the sun was wonderfully warm. It was lovely to feel it on my face again after what seems like an age. Kev was experimenting with his walking poles. I have been considering learning to run with poles myself, as I believe they come into their own on steep ascents and descents when they assist enormously with your stability. I am planning on doing the Mont Calm marathon at the end of August 2009 which involves over 3000m of exactly that, so I had better start soon!

We soon arrived back at the car after covering just 11kms. Kev's achilles was playing up again and the dogs were pooped, so we called it a day and headed home for some lunch. On my way home, I had some tedious shopping to do but I returned home to find that Andy had put the top coat ofwhite paint on the stairs and landing wall and it looks so much cleaner. I can at last put up a couple of pictures :-)

Wood again

We have gone through quite a considerable quantity of wood over the past couple of months and the supplies that we have under cover are dwindling rapidly. We have had clear blue skies and slightly higher temperatures today, so we took the opportunity to head into the woods to recover some dead trees that are still standing and which are therefore comparatively dry. We recovered a car load which we then brought back to the house, logged and then stashed in the woodshed. We will see how long it lasts us. Fortunately there is plenty more wood where that came from so there is no danger of running out!