Toulouse and some observations

We headed up to Toulouse this morning. An IKEA trip was required, so we thought it would be nice to spend some time in Toulouse while we were up there, go to the Victor Hugo market and have lunch. The market was excellent. We bought duck hearts, gésiers, mousse de canard, head cheese, some Toulouse sausage..... yum!

Toulouse is a lovely city, with plenty of little squares and impressive architecture. We were drawn to the Place du Capitole by the sound of music and chanced upon a Catalan youth 'troupeau' playing 'flabiol' and Catalan drums, with accompanying dancers riding hobby-horses. They were superb!I fancied lunch in the sun (20 degrees in Toulouse) in one of the restaurants on the square and spotted one that had an interesting 'plat du jour'. We sat ourselves down, only to be told by a brusque waiter that he had no 'plat du jour' left (this was at 12.30), but that we were welcome to eat at their rather more upmarket restaurant adjacent. No thank you! We moved on. We stumbled across a nice little restaurant in a quieter situation in Place Saint-Sernin, took a seat and waited. 10 minutes we waited, without even the courtesy of an acknowledgement from the waiter who was clearly overwhelmed with the lunchtime rush. We left, frustrated. We satisfied our stomachs with a very nice chicken salad baguette and a bottle of water from a boulangerie. The conclusion is that the recent reports on the BBC and other newspaper reports about the dire straits in which the French restaurants are now finding themselves are based upon nothing more than hot air! Pretty much every restaurant that we passed in Toulouse city centre on this Thursday lunchtime was rammed, heaving, packed to the gills! I'm sorry, but the UK reports amount to nowt but overheated hot air! Just the same as reports that UK Expats who have been living in France are returning to the UK. Anything for a good 'story' ......?

Out

The weather is decidedly temperamental at the moment. The clear skies and sunshine of a few days ago have been replaced by dark, stormy skies, rain and cooler temperatures.We have been cracking on with work on the house while the poor weather is upon us, making good progress and have now crossed lots of small cosmetic jobs off the 'to do' list

However, this afternoon I chose a rain-free spell to take the pooch for a run along the route forestiere up at the Col de Port. The snow had pretty much cleared from the track although a few big drifts remained on the more sheltered sections, but they were consolidated and firm so didn't cause too many problems, although they obviously slowed my progress. It's good to see the landscape down the valley at last turning from the wintery grey and brown of the past 5 or 6 months to a more vivid green as the grass pushes through and the trees come into leaf
It was a good run, short at 8kms but my body seemed to respond well to my requests for it to work harder on the 2km long gradual incline and I was back at the car in under an hour feeling like I could have carried on, which is not a feeling I have experienced recently. Some gentle stretching this evening and hopefully I won't have any repercussions in the morning. Pat and I have a 13.5km trail race pencilled in for the 17th May which I am really hoping I will be fit enough to enjoy!

Red tape and frustrating bureaucracy

France is renowned for it. They excel at it. They would win gold if it was an Olympic sport. But you have to accept it, work with it and be gifted with limitless patience when dealing with it. Let me explain .. are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. Our health cover ran out at the beginning of the year and since then we have been waiting for our new health care provider to send us at the very least some form of acknowledgment that we are in the system and ideally new 'cartes vitales' or a new 'attestation' in the post. It's nearly 4 months since the cover should have been set up and we have heard nowt, zilch, nuffink. Eventually today I received an email that confirmed that yes, indeedy, we had been in the system since 01/01/2009 but that we needed to go to any social security office and use a terminal to update our 'cartes vitales' with the new provider's details. Great! Result! Oh, but less haste.....! The teminal at the CPAM in Foix revealed that completely incorrect details of the 2 'beneficiaries' had been uploaded to my card. So another phone call is in order, more waiting and hopefully, hopefully all will eventually be in place. You gotta love 'em!

Otherwise, the past two days have been glorious, with an ambient temperature of around 24 today and 'in the sun' temps of well into the 30s. Gorgeous. When we got back from Foix, I took the pooch for a short run along the Peguere route forestiere and up onto the road, where at last the winter snows appear to be melting.
I was therefore able to complete the circuit rather than having to return back the way I had come. We encountered a troupeau of goats and then some sheep on the way along the top which made Taff's day :-) Although everything felt heavy and I was lacking in energy, it was a much-needed stretch of the legs and I pushed myself on the gradual ascent which will hopefully have done me some good. However, my body has been behaving in weird ways since I had the trapped nerve in my back problem. Muscular aches and pains after minimal exertion, waking up feeling stiff and achey ..... strange stuff

Tidying up

With the alternating very hot/very wet spells of weather that we have been having recently, the grass, weeds and thankfully also the veg in the potager have all been going rampant. So today, it was time to awaken the lawnmower and the strimmer from their winter slumbers and put them back to work. Pissou always looks so much neater and tidier after the grass has had a haircut and it is particularly good to be able to tackle the grass/weeds that surround the potager before they get out of control this year. Just by way of comparison, this jungle photo was taken in May last yearand then after I had scythed the plot of land on which the potager now sits for the first time and before the first pass with the lawnmower...and before we dug part of it over for the first time in October...and this is how it looks now..
I am sure the site will look even more impressive in the summer once the veggies are ready for harvesting. It is particularly pleasing to be able to put redundant but very fertile land back to good use. I have taken advantage of the forecast for a couple of days of warm weather to sow some Italian mixed salad leaves, the second round of both beetroot and rocket and also some coriander. I have also dug over the remaining section of land in the potager into which I will be planting on the chillis, capsicum and tomato modules in due course. Progress is good and I am just hoping that the rather lively mole community does not decide to wreck all of our good efforts! Traps are in place, one has been caught, but we need to double our efforts.

Delivery

We were up bright and early this morning to receive the delivery of timber and boards for the new terrasse at the back of the house. I submitted the necessary paperwork (including some very professional-looking architects drawings created on a free CAD package!) to the Mairie yesterday and if we have not received any communication from them within 30 days then we are free to proceed with the project. However, the Maire did not foresee any problems whatsoever with clearance for such a small project, so we spent the afternoon clearing the rest of the wood at the back of the house and preparing to dig some big holes that will eventually take the concrete and upright posts. The earthworks in themselves will no doubt take longer than expected so it's good not to have any time pressures.

It has been dry today and the Méteo has promised me the return of M Soleil tomorrow - I may celebrate by having a bit of a jog with P&K whom I haven't seen for far too long!

How much?!

Still it rains. It was torrential for pretty much the whole night last night and has continued throughout the day. According to our neighbour Claudine, the equivalent of 2 months worth of rain has fallen in 24 hours. The streams and rivers are full to bursting.

Tomorrow is set to be clearer. It can't be any worse!

My comfort food today is therefore going to be raisin and walnut bread which is currently on its second rising ... yum!

Wet.... very wet, muddy and wet!

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and the potager is now a claggy mudbath. Thank goodness I have cloches to protect my emerging veggies. I had to take the car down to the garage in Massat for a bit of a service and general check over first thing this morning, which meant making my way back up to Pissou under my own steam. Fortunately, it was late morning before the rain started, so I had a very pleasant albeit somewhat heavy-legged jog home along back roads, paths and mule tracks. It was good to stretch the legs and get some fresh air. However, by 5pm when I was due to collect the car, the weather had closed in so I donned full running waterproofs and meandered my way back down to Massat along different tracks and paths to this morning. It was mudsville and very slippy on some of the descending paths, but the outing was somehow exhilarating in the rain and I felt much better than I did this morning! Anyway, the car is fine with no problems highlighted which is good to know :-)