My four months of the French Pyrenean idyll is drawing to a close.

Only a few more days and I head back to Edinburgh, my house in Strathdon and work !

I had a few doubts about what I was doing here, but not many. It has truly been one of the most sensible things I have ever done, giving me that bit of challenge and also realising a long held dream of spending a length of time in France, it people and culture.

Before I become too maudlin, just a quick recap on the last week or so, since Nick and Shelagh left.

Last Friday was the opening of the new art gallery / space in Quillan. I got an invite (there was free wine) and put on my best jumper for the glitzy event. All the top people in town were there – the wine man, the butcher, the baker and the mayor, who said “Bonsoir” to me.

At the weekend there was a boule / petanque tournament on and the there were literally hundreds of (mostly) men tossing balls around.

And on the sunday was a local producers market, which did have the usual locally produced wine, cheese, meats and honey etc .. but it also had donkey rides, talks on animal welfare (though the demonstration chicken didn’t look too happy about it), and …. line dancing (and some of the unhappiest line dancers I’ve ever seen).

And yes, Pin the Tail on the Donkey ! Always a big draw.

During the week I clocked up more steps, doing my usual walks and on Thursday managed to get up high and tick off the last two quilles (you may remember that Quillan is named as it site beneath 3 quilles – hills – and I climbed the first one when Nick and Shelagh were here)

On Wednesday, I caught up with a couple of French ladies I’ve become friends with – Diane and Brigitte – for a walk new to me ! It took in Bernard’s house, who showed us round his garden, and also took us past a very good cherry tree which was cropping enough to feed the three of us.

We returned with a wonderful view of the town cemetery, the main bridge and the main quille ! That day the temperature managed to hit 28C – and 33C in town. Even so, most of the French were STILL in jumpers and coats.

Since then, and depressingly so for my last few days, it has been cold and raining (really raining a LOT). So, I’ve been tidying up and starting to get ready to pack up for my journey home on Tuesday (I start back at work in Monday 3rd June). Last night was supposed to be drinks in Le Cochon Volant, but it was shut due to family illness. Going to try again tonight, after some food with my quiz team (James, Louise, Jim & Teresa).

This is (probably) my last blog – so hope you’ve had fun reading and keeping up with my adventure. And hopefully it can help you decide on an adventure of your own.

Just before I start, and before I forget, I went to my last quiz here on Tuesday. AS it was my last time I got to name the quiz team – We were The Five Fine Fannies and we came (a slightly disappointingly) third. The prize was the usual eclectic mix of GB goods like marmite and tea bags, none of which I miss.

Also on Tuesday, and more sadly, the last of my visitors left and I am now on my own !

Nick (aka Uncle Nonsense) and his lovely wife, Shelagh (aka Mrs Boyle) had come over for a full week’s holiday. As mentioned before, they were staying in Jacqui’s house, overlooking the Aude and they spent quite some time on the balcony.

Tuesday 7th May: After arriving late on the Tuesday afternoon, I gave the usual town tour and then we ate at Asily, the town’s Vietnamese takeaway / restaurant and had their excellent Nem Crevettes (Prawn Spring Rolls).

Wednesday 8th May: This was a day in town. We walked over to Cavirac in the morning, returning by the difficult climb over the hill. In the afternoon we walked over to Ginoles and walked passed the new house built by Olga, whose son and daughter-in-law work in Edinburgh with Nick and Shelagh !

Thursday 9th May: This was a touring day. We headed into the Pyrenees and initially followed the same route I had been on with Guy a couple of weeks before.

We climbed up to Chateau Usson as before, but then we walked round the hills to the town of Rouze and its excellent water feature.

We stopped for lunch of sandwiches and oranges in a glade high in the mountains and then drove through the mountains, skirting the border with Andorra.

We ended up in the ski / spa town of Ax-Les-Thermes. This is somewhere I would recommend to anyone for a short break. IT’s easily accessible through Toulouse. You can get a train every hour from there – I think the trip takes about a couple of hours. The town is on the very edge of the Pyrenees with a ski-lift in town, but it also has working hot springs footbaths dotted around the town. There are also many “artisan” food shops, other spa facilities and nice bars.

Friday 10th May: This was another day in town. Initially we headed up to the local 12th century chateau (a ruin), but then decided to follow the walking trail that starts there. This ended up in us climbing the highest of the three Quilles. (Quillan is named for three “quilles” or hills that hug the town. Climbing this practically killed me (but what a good view).

In the afternoon we walked over to Ginoles again and just missed some heavy rain (and no sight of Olga in her garden).

Saturday 11th May: My foot (left) is very sore from the previous day’s exertions . You might think this best thing to do would be to rest it, but no ! After a quick run round the Saturday market, we drove along the Pyrenees to a region that is famous for “grottes” or caves and cave paintings. We were going to Les Grottes de Niaux which has the best (open to the public) pre-history cave paintings (mainly of bison, horses and angry goats).

This required a walk underground of about 2km – despite having a bad foot I was not the least able person on the tour – there were many infirm, wobbly old people so that I felt good. The tour took 2 hours and no photos were allowed.

After that you would think we would rest, but no. We went on to Montsegur, a cathar castle stuck on top of the highest possible hill. I literally crawled up the near vertical slope and in order to get back without dying, I didn’t stop at the top for a look round the ruins (once you seen on ruin you’ve seen ’em all).

We had drinks in Le Cochon Volant where we sat next to the couple who run the town boulangerie, and had a mainly French conversation with them – his father was a baker, his grandfather was a baker, but his son is not a baker 😦

Sunday 12th May: I can’t remember what we did !

Monday 13th May: For the guys last full day, we headed over to Le Lac de Montbel, just 20 minutes away and which I’d seen from a distance when we had gone to the vegetarian farm at the start of May. This is a man-made lake (from about 1985) and its colour is stunning.

Sadly my old foot wasn’t able to complete the route and Nick had to run on to get the car to retrieve me.

A final meal in La Galerie topped off the week and then after some last faffing around the town on Tuesday, Nick and Shelagh sped back to Edinburgh (where the temperature was the same as here !).

I now have less than two weeks here.

I’m in between visiting friends – for the last time.

Last Tuesday, Alison heading back to Scotland and Guy arrived on Wednesday (from Nice).

Before he arrived, last Wednesday (the 1st of May and a National holiday) was “De Ferme En Ferme” – just like Open Doors when houses are open to look round – this is when farms are open to the public, and some also provide food that they have produced.

I went with Louise, James and their friends Cat (over for a holiday) and Susan (an american who has made her home here) to a VEGETARIAN farm – a bit of a rarity here. The farm was situated near a little village called MontBel – and the above picture is taken from there – you can see the snow capped Pyrenees in the distance, and a very shallow transluscent blue lake. The only thing spoiling this is the bouncy castle park in the bottom left of the lake !

At the farm, we sat near a pond full of VERY noisy frogs and enjoyed a lunch of vegetarian specialities – lots of boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage and mushed tomatoes ! It all tasted way better than it sounds 🙂

Later in the day Guy arrived and over the next few days we ate (at Le Cafe de la Gare and La Galerie and Cafe Terminue) and walked – both around town and we also headed up into the Pyrenees a bit to Chateau Usson near the Ski Lift town of Rouze (no snow there – just rain).

Guy left on Saturday morning and now I’m getting ready for my last set of friends arriving later today.

I only have THREE weeks left here – and I’m starting to feel a little bit sad. It’s got to the stage where I now know quite a few people – and when I walk through the town square there is always someone – english-speaking or french – that I know and can have a drink with.

Also, today I should be able to pick up some new shoes (from Amazon) – I had hoped that my caterpillar boots would have lasted me for the whole stay, but they are now dead and a new pair is waiting for me at the post office (which keeps very odd and short hours).

Phew !

What a busy few days to close out April and take me into my last month here 😦

My friend, and colleage of MANY years at both S&N and Heineken, Alison arrived on Saturday for a short stay (at Jacqui’s house).

Her visit coincided with the Flower Festival, La Festeval des Enfants, a mountain bike event and (opposite) the burning of the effigy to take us from Winter to Summer.

And at the same time, many brits who own property here started returning to (sadly) give this place more of a feel of an english town than a french one.

Saturday morning started much as usual – I went to the market and picked up fruit, veg and cheese for Alison’s stay. But then about 10.00 the “marching band” started – this was simply an oompah band of about 10 brass players (dressed in brown fur) accompanied

by about half a dozen people dressed as the scariest clowns possible, and then all fronted by a small child in a very odd costume. They then went VERY SLOWLY through the market and carried out several circuits of the town throughout the day- we’ll come back to them later.

When Alison arrived, we dropped her stuff off at Jacqui’s house (look back to posts from MArch to see more about that) and then went over the railway lines to the Flower Festival.

This consisted of a flowers (obviously) for sale, a MASSIVE pool filled with live trout which you could then pay to fish (and then if you were lucky to catch a fish you then dispatched it on the bench at the side) – by the afternoon when we were there all the stupid fish had already been caught and the clever fish were left and were ignoring the bait.

There was also a mobile petting zoo – with lambs (awwww 🙂 ), goslings (awwww) and a ruddy big turkey.

Back over to town (over the railway tracks) and the oompah band was still going.

The band had now been joined by lots of little (local) children all dressed up in fancy clothes and now led by the scariest old person in a black and white person – the children were armed with BAGS AND BAGS of confetti and if you were standing still you got a handful hurled at you. There was alos a pram being pushed – no idea what was in it though.

We had dinner in La Cafe de la Gare, which was okay and then we went for a few beers at the Cochon Volant to find that a pile of sand had been put in place in the square with an effigy stuck into it. This was to be burned at about 10.00 to symbolise the passing of winter and the arrival of summer.

Not ones to stick to a timetable, the french oompah band reappeared at about 10.30 for an incredibly SLOW procession up the main road into the square – joined again by the strange child.

And then – after a disembodied speech from an ethereal voice (possibly the mayor, but who knows), the effigy was lit – and then ….. EVERYONE DANCED AROUND IT. (I have videos) – to the strange music of the oompah band.

The Inbetween dancing around, the dancers would stop and bow to the burning effigy. All this went on until the effigy was nothing but a glowing, scary skeleton.

That was Saturday !

On Sunday, there was a (slightly disappointing) car boot sale, and also a strangely empty mountain bike challenge – all set up to hold at least 500 participants but we saw only a handful of people, so I guess they all did quite well.

Alison and I went for walks both up into the hill beside Ginoles and also across to Cavirac.

On Monday we met up with a couple of ladies from my “french” walking group – Brigitte and Gianna and walked over to Ginoles talking in french for most of the time.

Brigitte has also named one of the donkeys “Douglas” so that when I leave here (at the end of May :-() she can still visit Douglas (and feed him carrots)

Sadly, Alison left yesterday (on a series of bus, rail and air transports) on one of the nicest days so far. My friend Guy is due to arrive today just in time for the weather to turn less nice.

I only have 5 weeks to go …… 😦

The days since my friends left have been mostly quiet and also the weather could, at best, be described as blustery. You’ve had much better weather in the UK.

Good news is that we came SECOND in last week’s quiz. It was again packed – 14 teams of expats – the ranks having been swollen by a large number of “brits” with holiday homes here. We were happy to come second as the first prize was (apparently) a gift voucher for a restaurant no-one likes.

This photo is of a woman in the boulangerie with TWO dogs (you can only see one) in a pushchair !

The woman was british and kept saying she wanted her bread “sliced” even though the assistant kept asking her if she wanted her bread “tranche” (there’s an acute accent on that last e).

There are a lot of british cars about, and on Good Friday, when walking I passed 4 groups of walkers and only one of those groups was french – the rest all British.

So it was Easter. The really nice thing is that the Easter “art” the primary school children put together is shared out with the local shops who display it in their windows. The boulangerie also ran a “Guess the Weight” of a large chocolate cockerel they’d made.

And on the Easter Monday – when I had been told that all shops would be closed  – the shops were actually open (in the morning only) as the town hosts as annual charity (motor)bike rally. Lots of noise, petrol and bearded people.

And there were a lot people in fancy dress – by the looks of them those fancy dress outfits had been around for a long time.

Yesterday, it was supposed to rain (at 12 noon !), so I headed off on a new walk for what I thought would be an hour or two (and then be home before the rain started). However the sun just kept shining and I ended up walking for about 5 hours – more than I wanted and a lot of it was UP. During the whole walk I only met one jogger and one mountain biker. I did hear other (english) voices, but they were in a car ahead of me.

From this Saturday I head into a coupel of weeks with lots of visitors (and I now have less than six weeks left :-()

You may remember that David Kenedy was due here in April. Unfortunately David wasn’t able to come over then, which was a real shame. David was the inspiration of one the characters in my book “Beverley Beaver and the Angry Snatch Tree” (sadly unpublished) due to his skills as a fandancer – possibly one of the most talented living fandancers in Burntisland – and would have appeared on “The Great British Fan Dance” if the BBC had ever come up with the idea.

However, Alison H arrives on Saturday (with only one eardrum) and then Guy arrives (driving from Nice) on Wednesday. So I’ll be giving many tours of the town and going to the wine shop more than usual.

Just to wrap up, a few more pictures – two dogs that pestered me yesterday (and then fell asleep by my feet), the emergency services who ran some youth training for “What to do when your canoe gets out of hand” a two cats that live in that hole.

And finally

So last time I ended with the very sad and emotional moment when most of my friends, after a lunch where the chicken nuggets were late and not very good, left Carcassonne for Edinburgh. Below is Ros bidding farewell next to a VERY large goblet of RED WINE !

However, I took up the offer from Alex, Cat and Alexander (who had driven from Scotland to the Alps, taken a flight to see Rome, skied and then driven to me) to go with them for a few days in the Languedoc to stay at the french home of Cat’s aunt and uncle.

From Carcassone we drove down to the coast past Narbonne, and via Pezenas to stay in the little town of Herepian. (There are acute accents in that town’s name, but I can’t figure out how to get them into my character set).

We stopped off in Pezenas – and all I can say is, what a nice town. Its centre retains all the character of a french market town, and there are a tonne of side streets filled with artisan stuff ! In the artisan mirror restoration shop we met a dog called Sardine, and in the artisan hatters shop Alexander tried on many (very expensive) hats. And in the artisan wood carvers shop, Alexander bought a wooden mini crossbow, which came with an arsenal of three corks (which were soon added to).

Madame La France

Inside the hatters

An artisan’s shop window

Alexander and I also managed to get very wet running up and down a water feature.

Just as the weatehr was changing and getting dark, we left and headed to Herepian – but not without getting hit by a few corks first 🙂

In Herepian, we found the bijou french home of Cat’s aunt and uncle – its in a cul-de-sac off a side road, off another side road off the main road. We managed to find a great place to eat called L’Artichaud which had chairs made from old airplane cabin seats. We drank wine and beer.

On the Wednesday, we briefly stopped off in the rather well to do Lamalou-Les-Bains, a spa town with a large population of people in wheelchairs and an abundance of shops specialising in prosthetic limbs. We bought stamps and had a coffee.

From Lamalou, we ventured down the road to Olargues, a semi-hill top village with (again) lots of little windy (and empty) streets.

The village had the usual 11th (or 12th century) cathar stuff and a a bit of a ruined thing at the top. We did have lunch there as well.

Jumping dangerously

Waiting for the bus

The obligatory cat

The bridge at Olargues

The thing at the top

You must already be thinking – “What a busy day” – Well it just goes on !

From Olargues we stopped off for a (VERY) long walk up a gorge – Les Gorges d’Heric. Thankfully off season and quiet as I can imagine it will get very busy in summer.

Despite getting a bit of a downpour it was beautiful walk, and I got to use my new stick.

In the evening, we headed back to the same restaurant – the chocolate mouse was VERY disappointing. Beforehand we stopped off at a convent (now a hotel so no nuns sadly) for a drink and a nose round.

Local craft beer – Alaryk – VERY tasty

A nun’s toilet

Trompe l’oeuil

And then on the (grey, dismal and sad) Thursday I was dropped off at Beziers train station. Normally SatNavs are set to find the quickest or shortest routes, however Cat seemed to have hers set for the “Most roundabout route that also goes through poor areas” as we went through Beziers – didn’t see anything worth reporting 😦

It was a quick 10 minute ride to Narbonne wher eI then changed for Carcassonne (where teh very heavens had opened and I, without a coat, hat or umbrella, got a wee bit wet.  I then caught the 1€ bus back to Quillan and as the bus came into town, the rain stopped and sun came out. Home 🙂 !

After two long, lonely and frugal months I’ve had visitors !

Last Saturday – Norman, Michelle, Scott, Fiona, Charles and Ros fly in and Alex, Cat and Alexander drove over from their alpine ski holiday for a long weekend.

Everyone arrived during the Saturday afternoon – staying in the “Modern Boulangerie” a four story building with a roof terrace on the next street from me – it used to be a boulangerie, but now is an airbnb property with 6 twin-bedded bedrooms – and some very steep steps up to the roof terrace.

The Saturday was a day of tours of Quillan, trips to Le Tonneau to fill (many) plastic bottles with the local wine (at €1.87 a litre), drinking of Blanquette de Limoux (the local sparkling), gin and tonics and the local craft beer, before heading to La Galerie for an evening meal

Outside Le Tonneau with Ros

Norman makes friends with Mavis at Le Cochon Volant

Fiona and Michelle enjoying the moment.

Filling up on wine (again)

On Sunday, after a bit of local shopping for bread and wine, we headed to Rennes-Le-Chateau for lunch. This little town is perched on top of a hill with stunning 360 views – which I don’t have any photos of 😦 as my phone crashed again and I lost my images.

We had a really good lunch and Norman made friends with the waiter who cut up his fish for him. Afterwards we went to Alet-Les-Bains, another old rambling French village, for a stomp around and then finally we went to Le Labyrinthe Vert for a march through lots of moss.

Le Labyrinthe Vert

Alet-Les-Bains

Sunday night was a simple collation of bread, cheese and wine and gin and blanquette.

On Monday we went on a walk to Cavirac for a picnic (and the weather turned out really nice) and we walked back over the high pass back to Quillan and no-one died.

At the top

Having coffee

Who’s a fanny ?

Getting a haircut and a hoover

I also managed to squeeze in a haircut chez Scott et Charles. I didn’t get offered a coffee or a biscuit or a magazine, but I did get hovered.

Monday evening was a bit of a disaster – we headed to Axat where there was supposed to be an open restaurant, but it was closed (naughty TripAdvisor) and so was everything else. So after several beers in the square, Scott et Charles headed to the Spar and magicked up a wonderful pasta meal – and for some strange reason Michelle bought Reglisse ice cream – LIQUORICE !!!

On Tuesday, we all packed up – including me as I was going to go with Cat, Alex and Alexander for a well deserved holiday in the Languedoc – and headed to Carcassonne for a break neck run round the citadel, and then lunch (nice toilets shame about the chicken nuggets) before we parted ways, hugged, cried and drank our last red wine.

Coming Up: The Languedoc and fashion choices for FMac.

Before I properly kick off, let me just blow my own trumpet and let you know that last night an amazing thing happened in the Terminus Bar – We won the expat pub quiz !

After coming a disastrous 8th last time, this time we pulled out all the stops and came first – out of 14 teams. Our prizes includes – a VERY large jar of pickled onions (which we gave away), a large box of Yorkshire tea bags, a candle (!) and a box of biscuits (which I had for breakfast).

I think it was all helped by several carafes of vin rouge.

At the end of last week I bumped into a guy called Tim, who is in the Friday painting group I have “modelled” for, and a lady called Diane (I think that’s her name) who were out walking. They invited me to come along for a walk on the Saturday.

As it happened Tim did his back in and couldn’t make, so I ended up joining a little group of Diane (originally Italian, and moved from Marseille to retire here), Brigitte (who I had met weeks ago at French conversation), Laurent (French and did not say a word) and Claudine (a Belgian lady who had just finished work a teacher in Cairo, where one of her pupils was the son of the Heineken Regional Head for the Africa Region).

We had a jolly walk – mostly in French – up into the green hills behind Quillan and fed some horses. The main topic of conversation was mostly about the price of carrots – the cost of carrots at the Saturday Market was more expensive than the supermarket !

Saturday coincided with the first day of the “Trail de Quillan” – a cross-country run event and the Saturday was mainly for fancy dress (my first nun !) and children dressed as super heroes 🙂

And then the group suggested we meet up again on Sunday for another walk ! And despite my brain being exhausted from stringing loads of French words together, I was happy to go along with that.

Sunday was the main cross-country event, and town was full of healthy fit people, and music stage, compulsory drummers and food stalls.

I have no idea who won – but I do know that there were drones above the town and the race was live streamed on facebook.

The afternoon walk took us to Cavirac, my usual walking destination, but we did go at breakneck speed. Diane at one point broke off into a run – I later found out that she used to professionally run for Italy and now at over 60 she still enjoys the occasional sprint. I then referred to her a Madame La Gazelle, which she liked. She also had a curious urge to collect plants (there are a lot of wild leeks – poiree – which she pulled up vigorously and stuffed in her rucksack – along with large bunches of rosemary.

Despite going to well-known Cavirac we stopped at a café I didn’t know about which is attached to an Italian run Auberge – I believe the “owner” is a spiritual person, and “members” volunteer to run these auberges. I had a Heineken beer 🙂

Having coffee

For the walk on Sunday, we were joined by Olga, a Russian lady whose son (and wife) is just completing his postdoc in Genetics at …. Edinburgh and he lives in Gorgie ! Olga didn’t speak much French so we at least could chat in English. An Englishman (I think another Tim) also briefly joined for some of the walk – and he used to own a hunting lodge in Glen Clova !

Sadly, since then the weather has taken a bit of grey turn – it rained this morning (Wednesday) and more is forecast for the weekend when the first of my visitors arrive. However, I have got in several bottles of the local fizz (cremant de Limoux and blanquette de Limoux) which should help and I have been making ice now for three weeks in readiness for some serious gin action.

Finally, I mentioned in an earlier blog that I’d had a close encounter of the otter kind. I have now seen an otter (the same otter ?) three times now. Well there is an article in the local magazine all about the local otters and the varieties that can be found. I am going to try very hard to get a photo before I leave at the end of May.

Today I went to Perpignan (at last you cry) – more of that later.

So what’s happened in the last week. Well here is quick bullet point list

• Tuesday Quiz – We came a dismal and shameful 8th out of 11 !!!
• I came face to face with an otter. It swam down the river and then popped up on the rock immediately in front of me. I said “Bonjour” (as you do in France) and it jumped back into the river and swam away. I could not photograph this event as I was worried that any movement on my part would startle the animal
• I took the hard route back to Quillan from Cavirac on Sunday over the high mountain trail. It wasn’t any easier than the first time I did it.
• The boulangerie has been shut ALL WEEK for an “End of Winter holiday” – however I discovered that the Tabac also sells very good bread. I have avoided the Tabac up to now as it is also a deli – which means its full of nice stuff that I don’t need or can’t afford.

Green everywhere

The garden of a posh house

A rather nice Magnolia

For these are my mountains …

Also, last week went round with Louise (and James and Jim and Teresa) to see the house of a lady called Jacquie. I’ve been asking around for a place for friends to stay for a week in May and Jacquie (who I met at the quiz night) has had to go back to the UK for a family thing and her house is available. It used to be (many, many years ago) a dressmaker’s shop and home and it still has an attic (and cellar) worth of old fabric and buttons.

Boxes of old buttons

The bathroom mirror and me !

The view from the bedroom bacony (and Jim)

The shower is VERY unusual in that it is sunken into the floor. You have to step into and then DOWN !

I have also asked Jacquie if her house is available any time in April for other of my visitors as the outside space is really nice.

Speaking of visitors – yes, I am finally soon to have them 🙂

• Sat 6 – Tues 9 April = Norman, Fiona, Scott, Ros, Charles, Alex, Alexander, Cat & Michelle (phew !)
• Sat 13 – Tues 16 April = The amazing Mr Kennedy. He’s keen to go to the “The Dansant” in Belvianes.
• Sat 27 – Tues 30 April = Miss Alison H – and we have to figure how to get her to Rome from here !!
• Wed 1 – Sat 4 May = San Fran Guy !
• Tues 7 – Tues 14 May = Professor Gilbert (a.k.a. Uncle Nonsense) and the wonderful Mrs Boyle.

This coming weekend is the “Trail Quillan” – https://www.trail-quillan.com

I will not be taking part (as its all sold out)

So, today I went to Perpignan. There is a bus from Quillan to the Gare SNCF in Perpignan that runs 3x daily (except on Sundays, festivals and some other random dates)

It only costs 1€ and takes about 90 minutes. The only downside is that it leaves here at 07:50 – which meant I had to get up (relatively) early – just as the sun was rising.

The bus goes along some roads carved out of the mountains and then, as it gets closer to Perpignan, the landscape flattens out and filled with vineyards. It is also Catalan in makeup, and all towns have both French and spanish (or catalan ?) names. Perpignan is Perpinya !

I had hoped and planned to spend the day in Perpignan – and get a bus from the station to the coast and the beach – however, it was VERY windy in Perpignan and I decided not to have my towel flapping on the beach and to keep my visit short.

I did manage to spend about 2 hours taking in the Castle of the Kings of Majorca (it was shut), the Cathedral and some town squares. However, I will be back when it is slightly warmer (and less windy). The Gare SNCF (which shares space with the bus station) also had some of the least pleasant toilets I’ve yet come across.

View to teh snow capped Pyrennees

Outside the cathedral – disappointing !

A side street

View across the river

Also, it was surprising to see such warmer climate plants in the city – not that far really from Quillan.

A big cactus

A tree !

Lots of trees

A culvert (is that the right word) ?

And I still need to find a hairdresser !!!!

My hair is getting BIG 😦

The welcoming entrace to the castle

A pregnant lady walks up a dark alley

Digital Jesus !

It doesn’t feel like a long time since my last post, but I’ve been fairly busy and the weather has been fairly good.

On Friday, I was again a sitter for James’ art class. The people in the class are really nice and chatty – and I think they are improving !

Saturday was market day as usual – I’ve had a few requests for more photos of lettuce – so I’ve slipped in a couple below –

plus the beds and mattresses I could also choose to buy from the market.

After a quick walk along the river – it was the first day of the fishing season and there were literally hunners of fishing people (both ladies and gentlemen) all wader-ed up in the Aude.

One of HUNDREDS !

Later in the afternoon, I went with James and Louise to watch firstly the Scotland rugby game – in the Le Glacier pub. Then we moved on to Le Cochon Volant to watch the England game. The pub was actually busy – for the first time this year with about 20-30 british (i.e. English) people.

The pub was invaded by a black kitten, which despite being thrown out several times, kept coming back.

A young couple chatting

The kitten enters …

On Sunday, Louise and James kindly forced me up a hill.

We went about 5km out of Quillan (and very much up) for a trek up a hill (a LOT of up was involved) to a cave where there were sadly no bats. We had a lunch of cheese filled croissants over looking Quillan – the weather was a bit gruff and blowy.

An old roman road

Quillan

Going into the cave …

In the afternoon I went again to Le Cochon Volant to watch the France (poor France) and Ireland game. The pub was very quiet – but there was a nice couple of Australian doctors in – Richard and Claire-Mary – with their two children, who were taking a year off work in Brisbane to live in Quillan. They’d been there since August and still enjoying it.

This is in the Pharmacie window

Health & Safety – I must remember not to fall into this at night.

Having a rather nice beer

p.s Thanks to Davie C for the (hand-written) letter !