last days in Belesta...for six weeks

I've tried to fit in a few of the things I love about being here into the last four days. Sunday was market day at Esperaza and I enjoyed the lively atmosphere, wide range of food and buying enormous, juicy peaches and nectarines. And as with most towns in France, it sits along a lovely river. In this case, the Aude.  French rivers almost always look so gentle, and yet when this river flooded in November last year, quite a few people died.

then it was off to another vide grenier, at Axat, a place i had never been to before, and which turned out to be lovely, if devoid of anything worth buying.

 I decided to take the even more scenic mountain drive home, through the pays du sault, a plateau in the mountains. Passing a village I had visited in May to see the ancient Roman bridge, I spotted the most delightful little chapel, with very intact frescoes on the walls. No idea how old they really are, but they sure looked medieval to me.

 Despite the time of year, I pretty much had the road to myself all the way home.

On Monday I managed to squeeze my bike into the tiny Peugeot 108 I'm driving. I did have to tie the boot down with rope but thr bike got there safe and sound. There being the beginning of the voie verte that goes from just outside Foix, to Saint Girons. A lovely ride through forest to begin and then in the open to get nice views of the hills and mountains in the distance. The whole thing is forty kms, so 80 there and back. I had high hopes of doing the whole thing, but after a steady climb for the first five kms I began to reassess and in the end i turned around at 25 kms. so a fifty km ride. On the way home I drove through Foix and got the most wonderful view of the chateau. It really does look like something out of a fairytale.

 
 Yesterday was rainy and miserable so I devoted it to giving the house a good clean and today I finished the attic ceiling, which I am pretty happy about. I spent three hours mostly lying on my back, holding the boards up with my feet while I nailed them in. By the time I was done the sun had finally come out again and I thought I should go for a last stroll through the woods along the river and have a quick dip in the freezing water. Just what I needed. I feel very lucky to be able to walk ten minutes down a forest path to reach such a lovely place.

 

a couple of days in La Trimouille

Most people who read this will know that my first foray into French property was in La Trimouille, 12 years ago, now. For 8 years I had a tiny little terrace house in the village, before moving to a farmhouse 15 minutes away at Le Passedoux for two years. So for ten years I spent at least 4 weeks a year there. As a result I have made a few friends that it is worth the 500 km drive to visit when I can, now that I live so far away. 
On Thursday morning I set out at 6:30 in order to avoid much of the record heat that was forecast for the north of the country. In Belesta, it was actually only 15 when I left, but it rose to 34 later in the day. In La Trim it got to 42. Incredibly, there was only 25 % humidity, so despite feeling like i was being baked in an oven, it was a lot more bearable than a Brisbane humid summer day. It was an unusual heatwave this week, in that the north of the country was a good five or more degrees hotter than the Mediterranean coast. I woke today to steady rain and a maximum of only 17 all the way back to Belesta. Quite a turn around in temperatures. Hopefully the rain is enough to top up the rivers and lakes around here.
Just past the Toulouse toll booths, on the way up, I picked up a hitchhiker. It is still relatively common here, to see people looking for a lift and i have given a few people rides over the years. twice it has been school teachers at the end of long hikes, getting back to their cars. So it is not something only the desperate undertake. It turned out I had picked up a sixty(?) something woman from the Netherlands, who was on her way home from three weeks at a new agey sort of festival near saint Giron. She had gone with her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. They had hitched the whole way and now she was doing it on her own to get home again. She said she had never done anything like it before!` It helped the time pass, chatting to her as we drove north, before I dropped her off in Limoges. Unfortunately, it appears her new agey ness has veered into conspiracy theory territory and in what I pointed out to her was quite an insulting thing to say about Buzz Aldrin, the day after he had given a speech about the moon landing, she let me know she thought the whole thing was fake news! I feel like i might have steered her a little way back from the edge of craziness by the time she got out of the car.
I was greeted to a wonderful lunch when I arrived in La Trim. My good friend Ellen, had put on lunch for me, and another friend, Will. Delicious.

I always feel like people in France eat a lot more seafood than in Australia, but maybe it's just me who doesn't eat much of it at home. While I have been here the last two weeks, I have eaten almost only fish- cod, salmon, bar, and trout.

in the evening I went to a quiz night at one of the ubiquitous English bars where expats gather to play trivia. The heat had driven all other team members away, so there was just another friend, John, and I. I liked the feeling of being back there after two years away. In fact, I had begun the La Trim team's run of success there. this night though, we had to be content with second. We actually got announced as winners, but we realised the bar owner, Kieran, had miscounted our score. We owned up. The highlight of the night turned out to be Kieran streaking around the main square, as a result of a dare to do with selling the bar, which he had done that day. It is in the village of Chaillac, 20  minutes from La Trimouille. Despite it being full of expats and a healthy french population, there is only one divey bar in La Trim now, and no restaurants. 
Friday involved an exhausting round of visiting as many friends and acquaintances as I could. One visit was actually to someone I had never met before but Ellen was keen for me to meet her new friend, who has a gallery built into the walls of the medieval keep of the now vanished castle. Her back garden is the top of the keep. An amazing secret garden, with views of the village rooftops and the countryside, with vestiges of medieval wall poking up here and there. I loved it. And the No Brexit poster in her window. Nice annoyance for all the hyopcritical, pro-Brexit ex-pats who live there. Which is apparently most of them.

In the evening, the highlight of my visit was a performance of opera in a Medieval church in Montmorillon. I am always pleasantly surprised at the amount of cultural offerings there are in rural france, with performances of all sorts of things throughout the year- music, dance, theatre, comedy, opera. Once I saw the national jazz orchestra play led zeppelin. on this occasion, a children's choir, four opera singers, and an ensemble of string and percussion players performed for two hours. It was generally lovely, if a little long. The setting was amazingly beautiful.

what's it like having a holiday house in Belesta?

Wonderful would be one answer I could give to that, but why so wonderful?
For a start the scenery and architectural history. It isn't hard to find a lovely view or a medieval looking chapel or ruined castle somewhere in the vicinity. Two days ago, I took a drive up to les monts d'olmes ski resort, the closest one to the house. It's a 35 minute drive and in the late afternoon I decided i'd go up there and take a short walk to lac fage belle for a dip. I'd been up there in February when it looked much nicer with all the snow everywhere, and a water level about three metres higher than now. Nevertheless, it still looked gorgeous and the water was perfect for a swim. I was expecting it to be chilly, but i was able to do a couple of laps without feeling cold.

Another thing that I love is visiting the local markets. Tuesday is the tiny little Belesta one; meat van, fruit and veges and a cheese stall and that's it. Friday is Lavelanet, where I went yesterday. Lots of variety of fruit and veg stalls. all full of excellent produce. The nectarines and peaches I bought are exploding with juice. Eggs, meat, cheeses of all sorts, bread, a man sharpening knives, two tea stalls, spices, paella, vietnamese snacks, moroccan food. I love it. And you can be fairly sure that most of the local produce is organic. Apparently the Ariege, the local department, has the highest rate of organic farming in the country. it seems they never switched over to modern fertilising, herbicides and pesticides in the first place. And of course, the prices of so many things are so cheap compared to Australia. Saturday, a bit further away is the excellent market at Saint Girons, Sunday it's Esperaza and Monday, Mirepoix. That might be my favourite for the location. set in the medieval centre of the town. you can wander around looking up at the carved beam ends on the buildings and see all sorts of visages.

 Vide grenier(empty attic) visiting is also a good way to spend some time, browsing through other people's bric a brac for some bargain decorations for the house, or some books to fill the shelves, or to pick up some home made jams or biscuits. And I have become fond of the sausage/frites/ beer restauration on offer. A little point of similarity between Australia and France- the love of a bbq'd sausage.

being in a touristy area means there are lots of evening options, with lots of nice restaurants and bars to visit. We, John and I, saw an amazing band at the craft brewery bar at Puivert last Saturday night. Who knew you could reproduce the sounds of Jimmi Hendrix's Voodoo Child on an electric cello? The trumpeter and saxophone player were pretty incredible too.

And I like being able to potter around renovating, however badly without it costing an arm and a leg. A full timber 40m2 timber ceiling cost me 120 euros. And I like being able legally to do my own basic electrical work. I am almost completely finished my attic conversion now and am pretty happy with the outcome. see what you think.
from this...

to this...

And of course, there's all the quaint medieval villages and castles, ruined and intact, that litter the countryside. Today, driving back from the Mirepoix market, we stopped off at Camon, a 'plus beau village' and took a brief look at a chateau that is still someone's home, as well as seeing the ruins of leran castle in the distance. Driving between all these lovely places along plane tree lined country lanes makes it all that much more pleasant.

 On Sunday, the tour de France came through the village, which of course, is a huge thing here and it was fun to be standing in a crowd of locals and tourists, cheering on the riders, although they were here and gone in the space of seconds. I had no idea the caravan of tour vehicles preceding the bikes was such a big thing, but it was really fun, with all the sponsors having trucks and cars with people throwing promotional caps, shirts and all sorts into the crowd as they drove through. The local boulangerie must have made a mint. I went in for croissants at 9 and they had sold out. There was a queue out the door. But it is a very good boulangerie after all. Definitely the best millefeuille I have ever bought and there quiche lorraines are pretty delicious too.

Not so pleasant is the coming canicule, or heatwave. Luckily Belesta is only forecast to reach 34 but La Trimouille, where I used to have a house is forecast to be 42 tomorrow and Paris is forecast to be 41 on Thursday. I despair at the lack of action to do anything about the impending disaster of global warming. I feel like we are sleepwalking into the apocalypse to be honest. Imagining the south of France as an extension of the sahara is not a pleasant thought, but the way things are going, I am afraid it is quite likely. Most of France is in drought now and rivers around here are barely flowing. On a personal level, I really must stop coming here in summer. It is just too hot these days. Plus thirty degree temperatures in July and August are the new normal in much of France now, with regular trips into the forties.