We walkers of Laroque got our snowshoes out again today (well, in my case, I borrowed some), and went for a much more local sortie, just above Montferrier and en route for the local skiers’ playground, Mont d’Olmes.
How different from our last walk. Instead of wide open snowfields with distant views, we had woodland walking and bright sunlight casting blue shadows across our path.
Instead of gentle slopes rising and falling before us, we had an upward slog; unremitting, tough. Micheline and I, discouraged and tired, failed to reach the top, and missed the prize: a frozen lake with snow-clad views in every direction. Most of the party stayed with us and kept us company. Though our views were less exciting than those of the intrepid climbers, our picnic was the better one. We low-achievers had wine, home-made cakes and hot coffee with us to supplement our bread and cheese.
And the journey down was completed in record time. We arrived home as our gardens were gently baking in the last of the hot afternoon sun. More of the same is forecast for several days: there won’t be much snow left this time next week.
Sunlight through the trees
Walking through the forest
We liked pretending large doggy prints were marauding bears
The walk continues
Wide open spaces once more
Glistening snow.
Whose prints are these?
White snow, blue sky.
Tree shadow
More tracks.
Buried info. board. The snow’s really deep.
We should be looking up at this signpost, not down.
Lunch spot.
A bit of fun at journey’s end. A snow castle. Montségur. We didn’t make it though.
It’s 7 o’clock. I can’t see me having a late night. We’ve had a day of ‘raquettes’ – snow shoes. Gosh it’s exhausting. You strap great oval saucers of plastic, webbing, and toothed metal to your feet and spend some minutes feeling like an ungainly baby taking its first uncertain footsteps across the endless wastes of the living room carpet.
Booted and spurred
But equilibrium returns, and without these cumbersome contraptions, how else would you walk across the undulating white snowfields of the Plateau de Sault, with views of snow-sculpted hillsides nearby, jagged snow-crusted peaks beyond? How else could you enjoy the sound of the satisfying crunch and crack as feet break through the crisp crust of the surface snow. Thank goodness for that icy layer. We found our 5’ long batons, plunged deep below the surface, wouldn’t touch the frozen ground beneath.
And with a bright blue sky, a hot sun enabling us to walk wearing T shirts and summer hats, what better way to spend a February Sunday?
That’s the road we arrived on: signs half-buried.
We set forth.
High peaks of the Pyrenees in the distance
Ever onward…
The mountains glimpsed through the trees.
Lunch spot. Time for home made sausage, cakes ‘maison’ and wine.
There’s a blog I read. Its author is a writer, a teacher, a mother, probably not in that order. She loves people, words, conversations. She’s enthusiastic, encouraging, and loves life. She might be exhausting to live with: she’s exhausting to follow, because she’s constantly throwing out challenges. What, she mused recently, makes you joyful? Well, Renée Schulz-Jacobson, this is what.
It’s hanging out the washing. And bringing it in at the end of the day. How sad is that?
All hung out for the day
Every day, these simple acts raise my spirits. We dry our washing out on our roof terrace. From here, we can see the nearby peaks of the Pyrenees, covered in crystal white snow for half the year.
Zooming in on the cock over the water
Across the river just beyond our house, a neighbour keeps hens, and I enjoy watching them fossicking about for grubs and cabbage stalks. Sometimes the heron swoops along the river while I’m there, and lands near the weir to look for breakfast or supper. The morning air is cold, fresh and energising. Actually, at this time of year it can be ****** freezing, in which case I’ll run down and warm myself afterwards by the wood burning stove.
It’s the evening though, when the washing is dry, sweet-smelling and ready for folding and hanging (carefully done, so there’s no need for any ironing) that I’m happiest here. I’ll listen to the birds chattering and singing. I’ll check up on those hens again. But best of all, I’ll watch the sun setting.
A subtle sunset
The sky will turn from vivid blue, through rusted orange and citrus yellow, to navy blues and bruised purples. The snow on the mountains will change from sparkling white to ice-blue and then the subtlest shade of grey. Suddenly, the sun will drop from sight behind the trees, and for a few minutes longer the palette of colours becomes moodier before giving over to shadowy moleskin grey. Then the stars appear and later, the swooping, chirruping bats. I’ll be back indoors by then, my mood invariably lifted by the simple pleasure of watching as the sun puts on its daily and ever-changing show.
The banner headline on this morning’s regional paper, La Dépêche du Midi, told us what we already knew. There’s been twice as much rain this month as is usual. Of snow, we’ve seen hardly a flake.
Driving back from Foix yesterday, we saw meadows that have become mini- lakes. Even more fields glistened with water as the water table has risen to the very surface of the soil. It’s made the month a somewhat gloomy one, even though the days have been pretty mild. The mountain peaks are snow-capped, as expected, but the white stuff barely creeps down the mountainside and with all the low cloud and zilch visibility, it’s sometimes hard to know where the Pyrenees have disappeared off to.
Our regular yomps into the countryside have been a bit curtailed. Walk after walk has been rained off, and when we do go, we choose our routes with care. If we don’t, we’ll be lugging kilos and kilos of glutinous heavy clay with us as it clings to our boots and the bottom of our trousers.
Boots – with added mud
Roll on the 2nd of February, Chandeleur (Candlemas), the day when Winter decides whether to stick around or push off. Last year, it was icily cold, and Winter stayed and made his presence felt with several weeks of constant snow, ice and bitter cold. This year, he‘s looking much more half-hearted about it all. We blame ourselves. We invested in snow-tyres and snow chains for the car. We clothed our olive tree and a few other plants in white dresses of horticultural fleece.
Our olive tree all wrapped up for winter
So Winter laughed in our face. We daren’t change the tyres or undress the tree though. We all know what will happen if we do.
There’s snow on them there ‘ills: but not a lot. As seen from our roof terrace
Did you do French at school? Probably, if you’re English. You had all that stuff to learn about not usually pronouncing the final letter, that ‘choux’ (cabbages) is pronounced ‘shoe’. Perhaps you battled to remember when to use accents, and whether they should be grave (`) or acute (´) or circumflex (ˆ)? With any luck, you learnt some everyday phrases to use on everyday occasions.
And that was fine for the school trip to Paris and later, that nice holiday in Normandy.
Where you’ll come unstuck though, is down here, and across wide swathes of the southern parts of France.
You’ll be OK if you visit an attractive town some 25 miles from here, Limoux. It’s pronounced just as you’d expect, to rhyme with ‘choux’.
Limoux, Pont Neuf
But last week, we went walking near a little village a few miles north, Hounoux. It doesn’t rhyme with ‘choux’. No, you must pronounce every letter – sort of ‘Hoonoox’.
A snowy day near Hounoux: Thanks Anny, for this photo
Driving there, we passed very near another village, Roumengoux. It doesn’t rhyme with ‘choux’ and ‘Limoux’. It doesn’t rhyme with ‘Hounoux’ either. Instead, the locals call it ‘Roumengousse’.
Here, we spend our daily round with people who don’t talk standard French, as taught in all good GCSE textbooks. They’ll go to the baker’s tomorrow (demeng) morning (matteng), to buy their bread (peng). Then later they may work in their garden (jardeng). In the evening, perhaps the Music Centre will put on a concert, with one of the local ensembles (angsambles) centre stage. Très bien! (byeng).
There’s a sort of energy and vigour in the local speech patterns I find very attractive, as local people give full weight to every syllable in a word. So rather than Laroque, it’s Laroqu-e. I’m quite relieved it’s nothing more complicated than that, and that in any case, everyone round here is quite prepared to listen to standard French, or even Franglais.
Charity shops. Staple of the British High Street, and a really important source of revenue for many charities. Some parts of English towns seem to have few other shops these days, and on my visits back to Harrogate and Ripon, that’s where you’ll find me, stocking up on piles of second-hand books at bargain-basement prices. And not just books. I have a classic lovat green Loden coat, much admired by whoever sees it, current selling price anything up to £500, which I found in St. Michael’ Hospice Shop in Harrogate for £10.
So here in France, I miss charity shops. Emmaüs, the international charity focussing on poverty and homelessness concentrates in its large, warehouse-like shops on quantities of furniture and household goods, and a bit of everything else too, but they’re often away from the town centre. Our local one in Lavelanet is daunting in size, shabby and a little unappetising.
Secours Populaire here in Laroque, as in many towns, provides a lifeline for families in difficulty. It sells donated clothes and other goods, but it doesn’t advertise itself, and is mainly appreciated by those whom it sets out directly to help. The branch here is in an upstairs room, and is staffed for one afternoon a week only by a cheery team of volunteers who see no need to market the service they provide to a wider constituency, or to go in for careful artistic displays of the goods on offer. It’s clearly not a shop in the ordinary everyday sense.
It was a bit of a shock then to realise a few months ago that the shop that was being refurbished up near the cross roads was going to be a Red Cross Charity Shop, ‘Vestiboutique’. It opened with a ceremony reported in the local press, and has been trading on 4 afternoons a week.
It’s a great place. As in England, there’s a mixture of donated goods, and ends-of-line donated by clothing manufacturers. As in England, the shop window and the stock within have been displayed with taste and care. In the backroom, donations are mended, cleaned and pressed if necessary, before being put on sale. Everything second-hand is either one or two euros, the ends-of-line goods very little more. The day I first went, I found some cheerful trousers, an elegant high-quality pair of ankle boots probably worn only once by their first owner, and a new fleecy hat for winter walks: I parted with 7 euros.
The two members of staff were happy to talk. They’re not volunteers, though they’re not paid much. They were excited to be part of this new development. This shop is the only one in the region, and was sited in Laroque to provide a service in an area of economic difficulty. Trade was brisk they said, and already the shop was much appreciated locally. I told them about the huge variety of English charity shops, from international charities like theirs, to shops for charities seeking to combat disease or support animals, to hospice shops. They were astonished, and couldn’t really imagine the picture I was trying to paint in their minds. Though there are parts of France – Paris for instance – where you’ll find more shops like this, there are no streets like say, Commercial Street in Harrogate, where about a third of the shops now seem to be charity shops. Vestiboutique, for the time being, is unique in the Pays d’Olmes.
Over in a tiny village in the Couserans today for a huge lunch – Azinat – with friends, we came across this sight:
It’s an alambic – well two alambics actually. We knew that, because we’ve seen plenty of these historic pieces of machinery on display in villages throughout the area. We even know what they’re for: every autumn, villagers still look forward to the annual visit of the alambic man whom they pay to transform the juices from their apples, plums or whatever into the most potent hooch you can imagine: up to 50% proof. These alambics showed signs of having been recently used: the tractor next to them still had its engine running.
We retired to our restaurant for lunch.
Three and a half hours later, the meal over, we sauntered over to where we’d spotted the alambics: huge copper contraptions encased in a battered wooden frame. They were functioning! Three large rubicund men, the types you can meet in the countryside anywhere, any country, were supervising hooch production, and were very happy to explain everything.
Checking everything’s fine
Well, I can’t be sure I’ve got this right. It’s something like this though.
A fire under the first cylinder heats the juices that are poured into it.
The all-important fire. Note the wheels on which the machine originally travelled
The resultant steam is forced up through pipes, which are cooled by water. The vapour condenses into alcoholic liquid. That doesn’t sound quite right to me: I never was any good at science.
Copper lid – parked for the moment.
Anyway, it’s the result that counts. We met a Dutch couple who’d brought along their plum juice to be processed. 135 litres of juice. And their eau de vie was now almost ready for them to pay for and take away. Their 135 litres had become …. 10 litres.
Here’s the hooch
They didn’t yet know what they were going to be charged. But they had been told they’d have to fill in a lengthy document for the tax office, and pay a suitable levy for this astonishingly potent product. We know for a fact it’s strong stuff. There were the dregs in a large plastic container. They invited us all to dip a finger in and taste it. We did. And I promise you – just licking a fingerful probably put us over the limit.
We felt as if we’d witnessed a real piece of history. When these men retire, are there young people around who will follow in their footsteps?
This alambic’s probably good for very many more years
Winter has arrived. How do I know? Although the nights are cold, the afternoons are still for going walking or tidying up the garden wearing a tee-shirt, beneath a duck-egg blue sky. So until the other day, I thought we were clinging on to autumn.
But on Thursday, the Orange Man arrived. This is exciting enough news for it to be worth phoning a friend. Every year, once winter kicks in and the orange harvest is well under way in southern Spain, a huge container lorry arrives in Lavelanet. It parks up at a disused petrol station on the main road into town and becomes an impromptu shop.
The man with the lorry, the Orange Man, speaks only Spanish, and sells only oranges. Not singly or by the half-dozen, but in large 10 kilo boxes. 10 kilos, 10 euros. What a bargain. These oranges, though sometimes a little knobbly and in irregular sizes, are the juiciest and tastiest you’ll ever eat, and it’s no wonder that whenever you pass, you’ll see someone pulling up their car and opening the boot for a case or two. Our Spanish friend won’t have to stay long. In a few days the entire container-load will be sold, he’ll return to Spain …. only to return when he’s loaded up again.
When he departs for the last time at the end of the season, we’ll know for sure that spring has arrived.
Autumn colours beginning means it’s harvest time for foragers
I’ve written before about the ‘au cas où’ bag: the carrier you always have with you on a walk, ‘just in case’ something tasty turns up and demands to be taken home and eaten.
Well, at this time of year, it isn’t really a case of ‘au cas où’ . You’re bound to find something. A fortnight ago, for instance, Mal and I went on a country stroll from Lieurac to Neylis. We had with us a rucksack and two large bags, and we came home with just under 5 kilos of walnuts, scavenged from beneath the walnut trees along the path. A walk through the hamlet of Bourlat just above Laroque produced a tidy haul of chestnuts too.
Yesterday, we Laroque walkers were among the vineyards of Belvèze-du-Razès. The grapes had all been harvested in the weeks before, but luckily for us, some bunches remained on the endless rows of vines which lined the paths we walked along. We felt no guilt as we gorged on this fruit all through the morning. The grapes had either been missed at harvest-time, or hadn’t been sufficiently ripe. They were unwanted – but not by us.
So many vines: there’ll be unharvested grapes there somewhere.
The walnuts we’re used to in the Ariège are replaced by almonds over in the Aude. You have to be careful: non-grafted trees produce bitter almonds, not the sweet ones we wanted to find. But most of us returned with a fine haul to inspect later. Some of us found field mushrooms too.
Today, the destination of the Thursday walking group was the gently rising forested and pastoral country outside Foix known as la Barguillère. It’s also known locally as an area richly provided with chestnut trees. Any wild boar with any sense really ought to arrange to spend the autumn there, snuffling and truffling for the rich pickings. We walked for 9 km or so, trying to resist the temptation to stop and gather under every tree we saw. The ground beneath our feet felt nubbly and uneven as we trod our way over thousands of chestnuts, and the trees above threw further fruits down at us, popping and exploding as their prickly casings burst on the downward journey.
As our hike drew to an end, so did our supply of will-power. We took our bags from our rucksacks and got stuck in. So plentiful are the chestnuts here that you can be as picky as you like. Only the very largest and choicest specimens needed to make it through our rigorous quality control. I was restrained. I gathered a mere 4 kilos. Jacqueline and Martine probably each collected 3 times as much. Some we’ll use, some we’ll give to lucky friends.
Now I’d better settle myself down with a dish of roasted chestnuts at my side, and browse through my collections of recipes to find uses for all this ‘Food for Free’.
I think these chestnuts represent Jacqueline, Martine and Maguy’s harvest.
* Two lines from an English hymn sung at Harvest Festival season: ‘Come, ye thankful people, come’
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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