Snow, scorpions and a sad farewell to Jamico

This last week has probably been the strangest week of all, and not really because it was our last week. At the weekend we went up to the ruins at Paracois (on La Fargassa land about a 30 minute walk from the main house) – something that we had planned to do since our first day but we had not quite got round to. The ruins are actually four tumbled down houses owned by the people at La Fargassa, but while they are interesting to look at, it is more the views from them that is worth the steep climb – beautiful.

Roc de San Salvadore

The Mediterranean sea

The next day we went up to the Col D’Ares on the French/Spanish border and saw some even more spectacular scenes. I have to say that it was REALLY cold, so we didn’t stay long, but think we managed to put one cold foot at least in Spain!

View over to France from Col D’Ares.

Monday was quite exciting because we woke up to snow. It kept snowing for most of the morning which Tegan was bemused and excited about in equal proportions - it took her a while to stop calling it smoke and work out that it was called snow. Normal work sort of ground to a halt as most of the outside work wasn’t possible, although we did get assigned a slightly bizarre task. This involved uprooting senacia plants (I have no real idea how you actually spell this) from the side of the road. These are wild flowers that are not native to France and apparently kill donkeys and other animals that eat them. I have to say that we had mixed feelings about the effectiveness of this job – if they are wild and sowing themselves all over the place then picking them by hand felt like a bit of a loosing battle. But, we enjoyed wombling about in the snow and Tegan seemed to be having a great time.

Chillin’ out by the road side

The way back……….

We got back to La Fargassa for a cup of hot coffee in the kitchen only to find that a scorpion had joined us too. I think it had come in to warm it’s toes out of the snow, but it wasn’t long before it found itself in a jar being carefully escorted off the premises. We had heard of scorpions in France and I don’t think they are all that dangerous, but can give a nasty sting so on that basis we felt that it needed a different venue to hibernate.

Andy carried on doing more senacia picking the next day while I was on chutney making duty – one more thing that I had never done before and meant that I was snuggy and warm in the kitchen. It did seem as though our warm weather had indeed deserted us at last and frosts started to become common. It was, we think this cold weather that led to the sad demise of Jamico, one of La Fargassa's old and much loved horses. He normally had the run of the place, but because of some reshuffling of four legged brown things (horses and donkeys – about 6 I think) who were ordinarily housed (or stabled, fielded – can you tell I am not an equestrian?!) in a different location he had to share his small stable with them. It was not really clear what happened but Jamico appeared to have spent a night not inside but outside of his stable and was in a very cold state the next morning. One of the WWOOFERS tried to get him to come down the hill from his stable into a warmer spot and somehow he couldn’t really muster the strength to cope with the hill and fell down it. The vet pronounced that “il est mort” and once the news had sunk in, we all started to prepare for a horse cremation. I have to say that I am not a keen horse lover, but it was really sad to see such a lovely animal die.

This event seemed to tinge the rest of the week with a sort of melancholie air, although we still carried on with the usual stuff. As usual we cleaned the living space and kitchen ready for baking day on Friday and took part in the pummelling of dough, mixing of ingredients and generally making a fantastic mess! Tegan was particularly helpful in this department (the mess making), although also enjoyed the sweeping and cleaning beforehand, especially where water was involved……..

I am not entirely sure how we actually managed to leave La Fargassa as we had so much stuff to pack up, and had been here for 5 weeks (the longest WWOOF yet) and customarily had spread ourselves everywhere. We did finally manage it though and said our farewells to the remaining team members (also due to leave to go to their respective places for Christmas). Andy and I had many discussions in this last week about our experiences of what we had learnt, and about the positives and negatives of this and other WWOOFS. Living in a community environment had definitely provoked some interesting thoughts on all kinds of levels about things such as “how hippy are we"?” – not very it seems compared to some of the people we have met! And on the way people embrace alternative lifestyles and the contradictions that many people show. There were many examples of this, a simple one being a clash of economics versus the environment where we were asked to collect holly to sell at the market before the birds ate all the berries as as this was one of their last remaining food sources for the winter! Or the method of bringing your child up where you basically let them do what they want to “find their own limits”. This seems only to apply to the proponent of this idea and their own child and not visiting toddlers when they start to pull Christmas tree decorations off the tree and then its “no don’t do that”! A lot of time we had no answers for our questions, and at least once we ended up wondering about the shape of a Pringle instead – a much more down to earth issue!

We drove from La Fargassa to the outskirts of Toulouse and stayed the night in a cheap hotel next to a shopping centre. Talk about jolt back to reality! We are now at my grandparents house in the Lot et Garonne for a bit of a rest and a Christmas break and as far as possible avoiding the seasonal crazyness. Tegan though has learnt about “Teggie presents” so it won’t be long before she picks up on what a mad time of year December has become!  

More raspberries and getting close to Christmas

We have realised that the time has come for us to start thinking about packing up again as we now have only one week left at La Fargassa before we leave to go to the Lot et Garonne for our Christmas break. The other WWOOFERS are starting to leave too or at least get themselves in the zone – two of them have been making some amazing Christmas presents out of wood. It is so amazing to see how things can be created from bits of log. We too have been inspired, but artistic talents with wood are a bit of an untried and untested area for us, so no one get your hopes up just yet!

The cold weather is starting to kick in, in the shape of a couple of frosty mornings, but amazingly we still manage to get hot sunshine between the hours of 11.15 and 3pm (we all wait for the sun to come up over the hill and are sad to see it go, so we all know the times quite well!). Still sitting round the campfire at nights, although I think my bum now needs a hat as it gets so cold!

The work this week has been quite varied, Andy has finished the work on corking the house, and we have almost finished our raspberries. Part of this has involved rerouting the irrigation system which has been quite interesting and we felt pleased with the results. We have also been doing some more pruning and are now uprooting some tenacious stinging nettles around the edges. This activity actually revealed a small nest that one of the chickens had made (outside the coup) with three eggs in it- all very exciting. Thinking of chickens, we also had a chicken cremation (this is a farm full of veggies by the way) as Delores the chicken went off to that chicken place in the sky earlier in the week.  Most of the chickens seem to have names including Houdini (no prizes for guessing why!) and Penguin (not a clue on that one!).

We actually weren’t around for said chicken funeral as we have been backwards and forwards to the garage trying to sort the car out. We have a new exhaust pipe and a back wheel bearing and now know that the drive shaft is also a bit ill. French car vocab slowly improving, car slowly deteriorating……………..

Tegan is all well and happy and excited by the fact that there is now a Christmas tree in the gite for her to pull the baubles off. This is often met by great cries of “NOOOOO” from the two 8 year old kids here who decorated it so carefully. She is actually more excited by the fact that the digger (once at the top of the drive way) is now down by the house so she can see it every day, and say “hello digger”. She is making great headway in blasting to bits any gender stereotyping at a young age and is very excited by all things mechanical. You’d never guess she is the daughter of an engineer….

Beautifully pruned raspberries!

Tegan helping with to dig a hole for the irrigation pipe

Pausing to play

Saving the lettuces and looking at the moon

We are now at the end of the third week of our La Fargassa experience and there is talk of winter in the air. Amazingly we have reached the first week of December before anyone has really had to consider the fact that there is in fact a fourth season in the year! Apparently this has been an unusually long summer and normally winter has arrived by now, but it seems we have been lucky. The full moon this week has brought on lots of comments about people doing crazy things, although I can’t say that I have seen that many. We have had some really clear nights though and some lovely views of the moon and stars.

The moon from La Fargassa (yes, I know you have all seen a moon before!)

We have stopped eating outside in the evenings now, although still eat outside at lunch time, and there are still a few of us that are by the fire outside at night. We have also spent a few nights inside by the fire in the gite where most WWOOFERS are sleeping as it is definitely more cosy. There is just something about a campfire thought that makes us want to stay outside as long as possible in the evenings before we have to say goodbye to the experience for this year. It won’t be long though, and we have had to move back in from the Pigstye and into the gite again as it is a lot warmer. The pigsyte was more self contained and meant that Tegan could be as noisy as she liked in the mornings. Now however, we have to try to encourage her to keep a bit quiet in the mornings as there is a meditation session that happens each day in the gite. Tegan in her friendly way walked through the meditation session the other day saying “morning [every]body” and “ssshhh” (very loudly) – I have to admit I struggled not to laugh!

Following the theme of winter preparations this week we have been making cold frames from thick pieces of plastic to cover the lettuces. We have transplanted loads of lettuces and built some arches out of hose pipe to help them stand up. I think Andy was enjoying thinking about the best way to engineer some supports for the plastic and making some sturdy arches. I have to say that lettuce in the winter is not the main thing that I want to eat, but salad is very popular here, so lots of lettuces are needed. Andy has also been continuing with the corking of the house down the road and I have tried to help a bit. Tegan had been compliant to varying degrees to me and Andy doing this together while she stayed with Catherine (the wife of the bloke Andy is doing the work for) and her kids, one of whom is a similar age to Tegan. She has mostly though not been that keen and seems to like being outdoors with us more than ever which is hard when outside the house is a bit like a building site, so we have had limited success with my involvement in this work. I have had quite a few chances to practice my French though with this family who are lovely and seem to cope with my constant mistakes.

The house dressed in cork

Tegan is still loving life and despite having a bit of a cold seems to be full of energy and getting more and more confident each day. She knows the names of all the other WWOOFERS now and makes sure she says hello to them all at least 10 times a day! We spent last weekend pottering around and doing things in town, followed by a short walk to a nearby village on Sunday. we even managed a picnic on the way! She also helps us cook sometimes, as each of the WWOOFERS take turns to cook so we have to be quite creative when it comes to team Ware making food. She is pretty good though and we feel so lucky that we have such an adaptable daughter. 

Picnicking on a rock!

Helene and Tegan having a bit of a lie in

Tegan “helping” to cook.

We now have 2 weeks left before we leave here for the Lot et Garonne back to the Grandparents for Christmas. Have to admit we are looking forward to some home comforts. Our time here has flown by though and it will be quite sad to say goodbye. We are still unsure exactly where we will be in the new year, but watch this space!

Pruning the raspberries and corking the house

This week has been pretty relaxing actually, and for the most part this has involved pruning raspberry plants (not trees, nor bushes – what are they called I wonder?). By pruning, I actually mean cutting them all down so they can grow again next year, so no marks for any cleverness there really, nice and simple. Except when you have a speedy toddler to keep up with! This actually ended up being easier than anticipated as, surprisingly there were still quite a few raspberries on the plants, and once Tegan had worked this out she went a hunting and gathering. Every now and then we heard a cry of “more raspberries” and with a bit of direction she was once again occupied. There were also walnuts left on the ground, so she was mostly satisfied for the majority of the time. Once said raspberry plants had been all cut down the chickens were then let loose amongst them to pick at all the bits (not too sure what these “bits are but they seemed happy). Oh just how much fun can once small person have chasing chickens endlessly in and around the posts (put up to keep the plants straight) whilst we weeded the stinging nettles that were left!? I am sure the chickens think “hello chickens”  (repeated endlessly) means “run”!

Tegan having a little rest!

We still continue to sit around the campfire at night and have only eaten inside once. We have moved into the pigsty (old pigsty converted into a studio apartment) so are in the lap of luxury, except there is no heater (or not one that we can use at least) so we are keeping an eye on the weather. At the moment all is well and warm enough, but we have been informed that the weather is on the turn with the full moon next week. Which is also apparently when funny things happen, because of the moon…………

Some of the WWOOFERS have gone although more we think due to arrive. The raw food eating ones left without us getting the chance to explore this curious eating habit further. We are lead to believe that it is something to do with not killing the spirit of the food. There are actually only 5 of us now (6 if your count Tegan), although the work doesn’t seem to have increased any and a generally flexible relaxed attitude to getting things done, sharing the cooking and washing up prevails. I never though that living in a community (although technically this is not really a community as such) would really be my thing, but so far it is a really nice atmosphere.

Mostly the people seem ordinary, and quite like us, with not too many whacky ideas. But occasionally there are some slightly more bizarre ideas on universe and the like (did you not know the world will end in 2011/2012?), and we stop to consider what we think about such things. While we all seem to share the core thoughts about limiting our impact on the environment and a respect for the great outdoors there are also some ideas floating around that are quite new to us. I would say that so far we are not about to jump at most, and while we are toying with the idea of using washing balls in the washing machine when we get home (to reduce the amount of washing powder) we are intrigued, mystified, outraged and amused in fairly even measure by some of the stranger wackier ideas we hear.  I like to think I am open minded, but sometimes my sense of the ridiculous gives me a little kick.

Last weekend we went to Coilloures which is a beautiful seaside town – such a lovely sunny day and such a beautiful place. Tegan was able to run around and play in the sand and we ate take away pizza on the beach. We also spent a day in Ceret where we have found a lovely cyber cafe to sit and scoff lovely sandwiches and use their internet facilities.

Tegan playing with pebbles

The beach

 

Tegan in Ceret chasing Daddy

Andy spent a few half days with Evan, one of the other WWOOFers helping Laurent from the next house (a couple of miles away down the valley) with some building work. His house is in the shadow of the mountain and doesn’t get any sunlight from November to February and so gets very cold. To insulate it he is corking it, that is, sticking up 1m by 0.5m tiles, 10cm thick onto the outside of the house. A slightly bizarre concept at first inspection but apparently these tiles are a wonderous material and are resistant to rotting, vermin and insects. They’ve corked one side of the house and it was still standing when we went past this morning so all’s well. Its been very interesting to discuss eco building ideas with Laurent. Certainly plently of food for thought this week.

The Pyrenees Orientales and an ode to donkey pooh....

So here we are in the third place on our adventures - the stunning Pyrenees Orientales, near a town called Amelie les Bains on another isolated farm, up 9 km of really very windy (but tarmaced road).

The weather has been amazing and we are still comfortably eating all our meals out doors. There are a few other WWOOFers and a few paying guests and we all have meals together. We are loving the evening campfires too which provide a cosy place to sit before and after meals where we can chat and drink "green tea" - another WWOOFER'S name for the cheap larger that is provided (it's in green cans)! Even got my guitar out last night, wanting to feel like I was doing the proper campfire thing - can't actually play more than a few cords, so quickly put it down again, but it felt good to do! And the stars are amazing - such clear skies. 

We've had to work pretty hard - half the time shovelling and carting donkey pooh for compost- we shifted 47 big sacks of the stuff down the mountain to the garden. We had to take a cart up the hill each time which was a bit of a walk and on the way I was inspired to come up with a little ditty:

Oh donkey pooh, oh donkey pooh how fabulous you are
for the garden and the compost heap
we have brought you from afar
We dig you up and drag you down the hill onto the farm
And count the bags that are piling up
and proudly feel my arms
and legs, and back, that are joining in the list of aching parts.
It's rather nice in all this sun to do this tough old job
And we're very glad there is no rain or we'd be walking in a bog
of donkey pooh, ah yes you're great, but we'll leave you there for now.
A different job next week I think, and for now a nice sit down!

Andy's actually on wood chopping duty now, and I've been making jam, and we've all been woking as master bakers making bread and cakes which got sold on a market stall today here in Ceret. Should we be asking for a cut?!

Tegan has been helping us in everything we do in her own inimitable style and seems to be really enjoying herself - there's chickens, a rabbit, horse, dogs and cats all of which she loves, not to mention the river, woods and gardens to keep her amused. Just as importantly the other people here also seem to enjoy Tegan's company and she has managed to entertain everyone with her friendly chat and comic ways!

There are a few rather unusual people who we are learning about, including those who only eat raw food - not quite sure what to say about this at the moment, will wait until I have learnt more! And a couple who have been WWOOFING for 4 years - not bad!

We are writing this in an internet cafe so I think it's time to go now and maybe we will be better organised to write some more inspiring thoughts next time.

The journey of the stick and other stories

So here we are again, packing up ready for the next place! We have had a really great two weeks here with Jan and Dave, been totally spoilt with lovely food, wine and beer and the cosy little flat that we have been living in. Have learnt absolutely no French and communication has been nice and easy. Definitely time to move on!

We had 1 1/2 days off last weekend and went to Montpellier on a wet and miserable Saturday. Very cool place indeed, with a nice cheap and easy tram from the park and ride into the centre of town. Had a great meal at “L’assiette de boeuf” – being a non meat eater I wasn’t immediately drawn to this particular place, but it was raining hard, it was 2pm and they had salmon on the set 11 Euro menu. What a find! Very lovely lunch swashed down with half a litre of red, fantastic. Pedestrianised streets meant that we could comply to Tegan’s demands of “walk” and the rain eased off, so all was well.

The next day we went to the Cirque du Navaselles – beautiful valley in a gorge, rather breathtaking I would say. It’s a sort of ox-bow lake type feature. We walked along the gorge for a bit and had a picnic by the river, all very civilised. And we found a stick – a small non-descript piece of wood that we got Tegan to throw in the water so we could watch it float down stream. She wasn’t particularly interested in it after that but it somehow provided some great entertainment for Andy and I, trying to help move it down the river. Little things on a sunny afternoon………………………………..!

 

Cirque du Navaselles

     

And left a bit down the valley!

The rest of the week has seen us carrying on with lots of collecting wood, clearing bushes and setting fire to things, I think we have both quite enjoyed this, as it feels quite satisfying. Maybe we both have repressed tidy streaks in us! We also put Tegan to work again doing some more weeding (she’s good at that as long as you keep a very close eye on what she pulls up!) and stacking small logs which she did seem to get quite in to.

Helene feeding the bracken fire.

Tegan’s helping with the log stacking (more like stick stacking I suppose!).

 

Tegan examining some more piles of wood.

And yet more wood!

I ended the day today with clearing the leaves out of the swimming pool – if we ever build a swimming pool (thinking the chances are slim to zero on this one) best not to do it under loads of trees with big leaves. All looks quite easy to clean, but the leaves didn’t comply with my chasing them with a giant sieve thing. Not one of my most successful exploits. Andy managed to break the prong off a garden fork whilst digging up a bramble bush – those muscles……………!

Off to near Amelie des Bains (nearish Perpignan) tomorrow although will be staying the night in Carcassonne on the way so we can check it out.

Wildlife we’ve discovered………………..

 

Some kind of stripey cricket thing – as yet unidentified (by us I mean!)

Preying mantis larvae -  there are loads of eggs inside this little thing apparently.

Arbutus (strawberry tree) – you can eat them apparently but not too many as they give you stomach ache

 

Chestnut (La Chataigne) – yes they hurt when you pick them up and several at once are like stickle bricks!

I’m a lumberjack and I’m alright…..

Yes, this week we have been mainly chopping down trees (or at least collecting bits of chopped down trees) but, contrary to Monty Python, we’ve resisted the inclination to wear high heels.

We’ve had a great week in the hills of the Cevannes. We are staying with Jan and Dave, a retired English couple, in a converted silk farmhouse nestled in its own valley and hidden by woods on all sides. We have been given luxury accommodation in a flat at the top of the farmhouse and Jan is a trained chef so our meals are fantastic and plentiful. Dave likes a drop of beer with his lunch and vin rouge with tea and we’re more than happy to accept his invitation to share!

They have 25 hectares of woodland and much of the work concerns the constant battle to prevent the woodland encroaching onto the house and the processing of timber into fire wood. For us city folk this is all something of a revelation. Collecting firewood is not simply a case of collecting sticks from the wood. Fallen trees or branches in the wood need to be cut into manageable lengths. These need to be left for anything up to 3 years depending on the type of wood to let them dry out. We have been collecting these dry lengths from the wood and moving them down into stockpiles ready to be sawn into short lengths for the fire. The evergreen oak for the open fire goes into one pile and the strawberry trees (arbutus and yes its berries look like strawberries) goes in another pile for the wood burning stove. We leave the chestnut wood as this spits and generally doesn’t burn so well. The short lengths are left to dry out some more before we carry them down to the farmhouse and stack them up in the wood shed for winter.

‘I’m a fire starter – twisted fire starter!’, as the Prodigy once sang and whilst I may not be so twisted I have been starting an awful lot of fires this week in a bid to keep the forest at bay. It’s unlawful to start a fire between March and October and having seen how quickly relatively damp bracken goes up I can see why. I now know that ivy leaves (even green ones) are highly flammable and burn with a surprising ferocity and that if you leave a 2m high pile of damp bracken to smoulder then by morning it will have entirely turned to ash.

Tegan seems to be enjoying her new place (and the chocolate pudding that she had this evening!). She has recently added “croissant” to her vocabulary and has made friends with the dog – Mally, cats Bill and Ben and the three goldfish (all with names starting with F that I can’t remember). Other new skills acquired include the ability to count (there are a lot of steps for her to practice on), although the sequence generally goes 1,2 6,9 and sometimes 11! I don’t suppose there is any reason to stick to convention at this stage. She has also been doing some weeding today – pulling up some of the dug up weeds and adding them to the pile, very productive. In general she is on good form, although she does have some new teeth coming through and definitely has moments of being a real toddler when she displays a strong independent streak. The whole change of lifestyle and the moving about can’t be that easy for her to get to grips with, but she seems content to soak up all the new information around her like a little sponge. We also make sure we give her extra cuddles and attention now and again just to let her know that everything is ok (and mummy and daddy aren’t completely mad!).

Nous sommes ici (6/11/09)

Escape from the woodland crusties, and a bit of car trouble……….

Well it wouldn’t be an adventure if all went according to plan (is the way to look at it I suppose!). We left the relative calm and security of Sarrancolin to our next destination near St. Etienne d’Albagnan all full of excitement and wonder at the beautiful scenery that we kept meeting along the way. Added to this was 29 degrees of hot sunshine, what could go wrong?

Well, if you believe in fate, karma or any of those signs that something is not quite right then I suppose getting lost around Toulouse was a bit of a giveaway. I blame this entirely on the French inability to name any of their roads in any sort of coherent fashion, or be in any way consistent with their road signs. That and the fact - that I fell asleep whilst Andy was driving (note – must only do this on motorways due to afore said navigational impediments) meant that we got off the motorway and ended up going back the way we had come on a main road. The result was that we got to our WWOOFING host after dark (about 6pm) feeling pretty tired, but still positive.

The road up to the “house” was incredibly bad – about half an hour of winding unsurfaced roads that ended up literally in the middle of a forest. We arrived to a whole host of people doing various things in the dark, and after standing around kissing some of these people in the dark (in the French greeting sort of way!) and exchanging names went into the house for food. The house was actually a kitchen with a room above it and about 10 people or so people were sat around a long table about to eat. It took us a while to work out that these were mostly other WWOOFERS. Andy thinks the first sign that we were not going to fit in entirely was surely the fact that he was the only one not sprouting a beard (although he had a pretty good unshaven stubble to be proud of). The food though was lovely (if a bit chestnut centric) and once we’d eaten there were murmerings about getting our caravan sorted. We knew that we were staying in a caravan, but didn’t know that everyone else was in caravans too (with the exception of an Israeli couple and their baby) and that the caravans were dotted around in the forest.  Still, we thought that all would look better in the daylight – ha, how wrong can you be?

Lets just say that the caravan was one of the most revolting places I have ever had to sleep (and that includes at least one cow shed in Nepal, and a trekking lodge with a nasty pair of old underpants on the bed). I can only put the photos here for all to see (they may not do the horror justice though) and say that even I (yes, even me) was speechless when I got through the door to see our accommodation. We finally got Tegan to sleep and basically got in our sleeping bags, slept a night on a very ropey mattress and left the next morning unsure what to do next but very sure we didn’t want to be there. Comfort zone well and truely exceeded!

The mattress and dining table. Note also bits of tree holding up the ceiling, and the designer curtains.

The other end.

This caravan definitely hadn’t been anywhere for a while (various bricks holding it up).

We trundled down the hill to Olargues a  beautiful small town nearby and found a lovely bar to have coffee and croissants. It was here that we spent the next night in a B&B and most of the day trying to find somewhere to go next, or at least rearrange our timetable a bit. It was also here that we met Theresa a fascinating “local” English woman who had been there 30 years and was just fun to chat to, and entertained Tegan. And here that the wife of a local restaurant owner managed to hit the side of our parked car by somehow mounting the pavement and denting the side of the car that was next to the pavement. It seemed impossible that someone could get a car into the space if they’d tried, never mind by accident, but there we go! Happily, Mr restaurant left his business card and we went to see him in his little (and rather posh looking) restaurant in a nearby village to sort out the details. Should’ve asked for a free meal while we were at it…………..

Yes – she got her car between the metal railing and our car (dent just in front of the right wheel).

We happily pottered around Olargues in the hot sunshine that day, not feeling too worried that no one seemed to want to take us on for the next few weeks. We managed to bring forward our December WWOOF to 15th Nov, it was just a question of what to do in between then and now. The B & B was lovely but not really economical for more than one night, however the idea of a holiday seemed quite appealing at this point mind you……….

So the next day we found ourselves sat in the car in front of the B&B with the map in our hands wondering where to go next! We decided to point the car in the direction of the Ardeche, based on the fact that I had never been to that bit of France (nor did I really know what was there) and that I had a friend there that we may be able to call if we maybe needed a bed for the night. We had called all the WWOOFING hosts in the neighbouring districts and had had no luck at such short notice, although spoke to some very friendly people, including one or two who had heard some bad things about the place from which we had just escaped.

We drove along in a sort of Pooh Bear way, not really knowing where we were heading and not overly concerned. We stopped at a town called Bedarieux for lunch, described quite rightly by the Rough Guide as “unremarkable” and Andy suddenly had the idea that we should go to Millau. This is a town famous for its giant feat of engineering – the Millau Viaduct, and it was sort of in the general direction we thought we may want to go. So off we went, quite pleased I think to actually have a destination.

Millau turned out to be a nice, large town with all the facilities we needed and we stayed three nights in a “Fast Hotel” – cheap and cheerful on the outskirts of town. It was actually pretty lucky that we ended up taking a pit stop here as it was when we got into the town that we noticed a small drip, drip, drip of petrol coming out of the car. I feared that I had done something terrible to the car whilst driving along the last “not quite road” as I had in fact grounded the car a couple of times! We found a Peugeot garage just down the road from the hotel, although by the time we got there it was shut. Fortuitously as it would turn out, we went round the corner to Laselle Pneus (a branch of First Stop- like KwikFit at home) and a really nice mechanic sorted everything out. The problem turned out to be wear and tear to a pipe going from the petrol cap to the tank and was not my fault (phew) but just corroded with age.

Over the next couple of days we recharged our batteries, and looked into more options for places to go phoned more WWOOFING hosts in some other regions. Again, no luck – a combination of the time of year, short notice and the fact that not everyone is keen on having children along for the ride. We almost forgot to revisit HelpX – another website that we had looked at, similar to WWOOFING but with less emphasis on the organic farm element. Ah ha – success! We are now off to a place in the Cevannes for 2 weeks, to not learn French as the hosts are English, but it will provide us something to keep us occupied for a couple of weeks!

Off to the next WWOOF………….

We are off today to St.Etienne d’Albagnan in Herault for our next WWOOF, which we think (you can never be completely sure!) will involve picking various plants and making herbal teas (mainly drying and processing to make a product rather than brewing and sipping).

We have had a great last couple of days here, with amazing weather. Would like to say that it is like summer at home, except summer at home seems to be wet and cold these days, so it is not like summer at home at all! Anyway, we are leaving behind blue skies and warm sun, and hopefully moving on before the snow gets here.

Our greatest achievement in the last couple of days is probably the making of a plessis – the border/small fence thing for the sort of terraced garden they have here in the Pyrenees. We have no idea if we are ever going to be able to use this new found stick weaving technique, but it was fun doing it. The hardest part was probably driving an iron bar into the ground to make the holes for the stakes – my arms are still aching now! Below are some photos which hopefully will make sense of what we are talking about.

Xavier (our host) and Helene mid plessis making

Andy filling in the earth.

The finished job! Just add plants and voila………

Tegan has had a few more chances to explore and has been loving the sunshine. She has perfected her French to include merci, bonjour and bonsoir – not bad. We have added a few more words to our vocabulary, mainly connected to tools and gardens, I’m sure we can worry about the grammar later!

Tegan and Elise (our mini host) soaking up the sun.

Week two of the WWOOFING experience

 

We are clocking up experiences pretty quickly at our Sarrancolin base. Things are also becoming a bit more intuitive as we get to know our hosts better. The weather has not been as good as it was, but we still think we are doing quite well for October, and had to apply sun cream at least once during the week!

So, activities and new experiences accomplished? Lets see…………………I made edible bread for the first time all by myself. This is actually a major achievement as despite careful explanations by a load of different people I have systematically failed to ever make a decent loaf. Ha! Ready to open a boulangerie now though.

Andy seems to have been doing a lot of different things with wood, starting with shifting an enormous pile of dead chestnut tree wood from the middle of a field to near the house and ending up cutting points with an axe on chestnut tree stakes to make them into, well stakes. I tried this and suffice to say that I hope I don’t get stuck on a desert island with only an axe to use, couldn’t get it to chop properly at all – maybe it was a duff axe. In between there’s been unloading of a truck of wood which we have both done, dragging branches of hazel trees down from the field into the garden – these are for “plessis” – no idea what the word is in English but they are for little fence like things around the veggie patches. Andy has also been hacking down a load of broom trees that have handily been growing right in the middle of one of the fields, think this may have been one of his most onerous tasks yet! I think him and Xavier have also finally finished adding barbed wire to the fences in the field – something I did some of last week – not that easy as barbed wire is quite difficult to unravel and hurts!

I have been doing some more in the garden – planting hazelnut and elder flower trees, putting donkey dung on strawberries and picking various vegetables. We have still got Tegan hard at work collecting apples (she won’t make much of a farmer though as she eats most of the apples she gets her hands on). We have both been doing some DIY – mainly helping put in a marble work top in the kitchen which looks rather cool, although there were some quite surprising techniques employed, including sticking panels of marble to the wall with silicone sealant. I also got the job of sanding down an old cupboard that was in the barn – an activity that proved to be short lived due to a lack of sandpaper. There are just some things that cannot be hunted for in the forest! 

Most exciting part of the week has to be a trip to a spa in a nearby town. This was an impromtu afternoon off as it was raining and our hosts were both busy with other things so they suggested we go there. After weighing up the work vs play options for a millisecond, we gladly went in hunt of the bubbles and sauna at Balnea http://www.balnea.fr/. This proved to be an amusing venture even before we hit the jacuzzi as Andy was forced to buy a pair of Speedo trunks at the entrance as his normal swimming shorts were deemed “interdit” on the grounds of hygiene. This fashion was indeed prevalent throughout the pool inside sported by quite a few blokes who just shouldn’t have been allowed to wear such skimpy swimwear - hygiene obviously doesn’t include psychological trauma to the eyes! Tegan had a fab time though and lasted a whole hour playing in the bubbly pool and bobbing around in the “escargot” (snail) pool - plenty long enough for the parents to chill out.

Tegan has by and large had a good time so far, and loves being outdoors, having different things to play with and is eating her way through loads of things we have never tried her with. However, living with two other kids older than her and not belonging to us has definitely had it’s pro and cons. We have tended to work one of us with the host and one of us looking after Tegan and often helping with the kids or doing activities that are compatible with looking after Tegan (such as collecting apples). It is quite fascinating to see how other people look after their kids (especially ones that are home schooled) and also quite amazing to discover how this can be so different from our own ideas of what Tegan needs. There seem to be a whole load of stresses though associated with home schooling children in an isolated environment that mean there are plenty of opportunities for tantrums.  We did begin to worry that Tegan may think such episodes may have had something to do with her – so we have been taking her off for some Tegan time, (often taking her in the backpack for walks), which she seems pleased with. She is very keen on the idea of having her own walking stick and with her oh so cool Mothercare (boys) ankle boots looks the proper trekker! These are experiences that we feel sure she will benefit from, and most importantly enjoys. While she loves watching what Elise and Lucian do, it is hard to tell someone else’s kids off, and difficult to work around the “progressive” attitude to letting kids play with fire and knives for example, when our intuition is to say “no” and “that’s dangerous”.

We had another day off today and went to visit Spain, as you do. It just being down the road we thought we would go and check it out and went to a couple of different villages to have a look. Stopped at the last village in France on the way for some lovely gallettes (pancake things) – Tegan decided to have a bit of a excited toddler moment in the restaurant and we made a fairly hasty retreat! We drove up and down some pretty amazing passes and valleys and took in the lovely scenery of autumn trees and Pyrenean towns. I think the fog somehow added to the ambiance, although did stop us getting many good photos or any nice views from the top.

Generally speaking we have had a great time here in the Haute Pyrenees, although there has been a fair amount of housekeeping work this week (rather a lot of washing up and cooking) and the interesting activities and things that are new to us seem to be drying up. We thought we would stay here for 2 weeks to start with and then see, and we have decided that we will stay ‘till mid week next week and then move to our next venture! I am not sure what we have learned, but we have had a good time and seen that our hosts while fairly unusual for France share some of the values we do and have proved to be interesting people. It is also good to remember that learning also includes finding out more about things that you do not want to do in the future or embrace in a big way. And appreciate that we have a pretty good life in Bristol! 

A day off in the mountains

Tegan trekking through the Pyrenees

 

Helene and Tegan having a snack

 

Beautiful scenery up here

The laid back approach

A few photos from week 1

The end of week 1

So, we have survived week one of the WWOOFING experience, intact, happy, rather relaxed and even a bit sunkissed! It feels like we have got the hang of the place we are living in, have got to know the family and how the house runs which is probably the key to making sure the experience is a good one. The old rambling house turns out to be one full of surprises - Xavier had his own marble business and in fact the kitchen and bathroom have some amazing bits of marble "furniture" (sinks etc). There is also an amazing power shower (also in marble) and Wifi in the house, two things that just seem to make life a little nicer. Also makes me realise what I consider to be some of my own comforts (Andy has just said he didn't really notice the shower). The food I would say is unusual and things are often eaten day after day until they are finished, a bid to not waste anything, which in general had not been a problem as there are usually several things on the go at once. I think I am rather lucky being a veggie as the French are not renowned for embracing vegetarianism, but it has not been an issue at all here. So it is a little bit like a womble palace where nothing seems to get thrown away or wasted (hence the stuff everywhere type feeling - yes, and I am one to talk!) but also with quite a few creature comforts. The central heating doesn't work, but there is a lovely log fire. And we have been so lucky with the weather - lovely and hot every day (except the first one where I spent the morning gardening in the rain). We also have the room above the kitchen above the fire which makes it quite cosy. The bed is warm and I think generally we have everything we need. Our hosts are easy to get on with and we have discovered that they are happy to share a glass of wine with us (lucky my aunt and uncle gave us a box of wine to take with us!). We have spent a couple of evenings chatting to our hosts after the kids have gone to bed and getting to know them a bit better. It is a really good feeling to break the ice over a few glasses of wine and make each other laugh (even if it is often over our use of each others' languages). I get the impression that for France their choice of lifestyle is way out there, but actually from a UK perspective they are not so unusual, apart maybe from living in such an isolated space. So, what have we actually been doing? Well, between us Andy and I have harvested green beans, parsely, mint, apples, walnuts, chestnuts; collected a load of fire wood; erected a few hundred metres of various types of fence - wire mesh, barbed wire, electric wire. There are 2 donkeys and sheep on the land - these all seem to have the function of mobile lawn mowers and generally seem to take care of themselves. Andy and Xavier also built a wood shed for all the firewood. We have also washed up, cooked (I did a Nepali curry yesterday) and generally helped round the house and looked after all the kids(sometimes pretty hard work). Tegan has been mostly playing (with/alongside or without Elise and Lucien), but also helping us to gather fire wood, apples and walnuts. She has had her monents of feeling a bit insecure and hasn't had so many daily sleeps, although has been sleeping well at night. She can say merci and bonjour and despite the fact she calls Lucien "Lucy" and Elise "Ellen" she seems to get on reasonably well with the children. We found time for an afternoon off yesterday afternoon where we went down the 14 hairpin bends to the local village of Sarrancolin and the village up the valley of Arreau. Both very pretty places, particularly so in the sun. In fact the majority of the week has been bright blue skies and in this weather the mountains and view from here looks absolutely amazing. We have the whole day off tomorrow so we may go exploring a bit further afield. It is definately not that easy living in someone else's space, but it seems like we have worked out how we fit in to a greater or lesser extent. Tegan seems happy with the large amount of places to play and things to do and is starting to settle into the way we are managing out time. It is quite different having so much time to spend with her, but definitely a positive thing. We showed her photos of all her grandparents today and she named them all without hesitation, and didn't seem upset, so it probably feels a bit like another one of our crazy holidays to her. And onto week two..........

The first experience of WWOOFING

We left Orleans the next morning for a couple of days with my Grandparents in the Lot et Garonne. They were most excited to see Tegan (and probably us) and gave us a comfy bed and familiar surroundings for a couple of nights. The weather was amazing - suddenly had to excavate all our summer clothes we had brought just in case. Tegan loved the space (they have half a field as a garden) and discovered apples, hazelnuts and figs to chomp on - a good sign for encouraging harvesting activities at first destination. So we travelled the further 4 hours or so almost to the border of Spain to Sarrancolin in the Haute Pyrenees. Finding the village was pretty easy, and finding the road to the house was pretty simple too, but those 14 bends - they weren't wrong! We turned right out of Sarrancolin town up a steep and bendy road and saw a few houses - looks nice I thought, but we had yet to count a bend. We started counting, and stopped when the road turned into a track which we bumped along in a steadily upwards direction. Were we really going to be staying at the top of a mountain! Well, nearly......we turned the last corner to see a house with a cliff behind it and two adults and two small children hovering about in front of it. These were indeed Paula and Xavier, and their two kids Lucien (4 next week) and Elisse (6). This was an amazing, top of the world feeling - surrounded by space and the most beautiful views. Paradoxically, we felt constrained. It seemed as if our travelling on the open road through France had come to an abrupt halt in an old stone house at the top of a mountain. This was also "it" where we now had to face up to what we were about to actually do. Once we had exchanged pleasantries in a mix of English and bad French we placated Tegan (again pretty tired) with the selection of cars and various other bits of toys that Lucien was playing with in the grainy sand pit in front of the house. We also gave the family some hazelnuts that we had picked at my Grandparents house, which Lucien loved and seemed to be a good ice breaker. We went inside to look at the room which was up a rather rambling set of wooden stairs and contained two futons, two lamps (the main light wasn't working), a ropey chest of drawers and some bits of cardboard box stuck to the ceiling (I'm still not sure what for). The rest of house was similarly rambling, cluttered and unfinished looking. I do remember a slight sinking feeling at this point (even our house felt organised and tidy by comparison!). We were given a tour of the gardens and explained our main WWOOFing duties, which seemed to vary from picking and collecting various items to digging up repairing others - could be interesting. We quickly discovered that the flowers in the garden (and quite a few other things) were not just in fact weeds but got eaten, and that pretty much everything had a purpose. Keeping an open mind I agreed to the idea of eating some of the blue flowers in a salad for dinner! Andy started his first bit of work by picking beans while I looked after Tegan. I was feeling pretty tired by this point and keeping Tegan occupied seemed to be turning into a daunting task. But then we were served some lovely moule paella and flower and leaf salad (not to sure what the leaves were!) with all the family and Tegan on her second round of moules for the week sat in a thoughtfully provided highchair seemed quite at home. We put Tegan to bed and then sat up by the open fire for a bit before hitting the futon at about 9pm - the earliest I have been to bed for a long time!

On we go 8th October 2009

The only downside to this expensive hotel (which we were happy to splash out on thanks to a pretty generous leaving present from my work colleagues) was the 17 Euro buffet breakfast (each)the next morning – how much for a few bread rolls and mini croissants?! Should’ve gone back to last night’s bar and the boulangerie opposite it– note to anyone reading this (I hope there are at least a couple of you) – breakfast is a rip off (the rest of the hotel though is lush). Once packed up (we have a LOT of stuff so this takes time) we started off down south, me driving, Andy navigating. Noticed a slight groaning from the car as we went into LeClerc supermarket to get petrol, Andy mentioned something about bearings (pretty sure he wasn’t talking about his sense of direction), but I am sure it will all be fine.......At least the weather is all nice again. Felt a bit like I was in Lincolnshire as it was all flat, but with pointy houses. All very nice and picture postcard, for a while at least until Andy pointed out the “Salon Erotique” (or something like that) billboard on the side of the road– not sure if the villages around Lille have some hidden secrets or if this was just the work of some over excited entrepreneur who hadn’t done his market research very well. Onwards and southwards, pit stop at an overpriced Aire (Tegan found some snails to play with so was happy), and a quick call to the first WWOOFing hosts to check in and get directions. Apparently she told Andy something about 14 hair pin bends, I shall wait to see exactly what this means.....I got a call form the ditsy estate agent at home asking whether we had a gas certificate (the one that she has two copies of, somewhere, I hope) – hope this is not a bad sign. Our next bit of joyful travelling took us round Paris,..........I devised a careful route around the outside, thought I had a good idea of the road numbers and Andy tried to follow my directions. Tegan amused herself by saying goodbye to everything she could see “bye mummy coat, bye plane, bye Teggie sock” and so on. Amazingly we only took one wrong turn, but what a nightmare! Do French town planners have a part of their job description that entails randomly changing road numbers, and in collaboration with the map designers start one road, make it disappear and then reappear on another part of the map. The whole journey round Paris was a complete mystery to me, and I had the map. We eventually decided Orleans should be the place to stop for the night and found ourselves a nice basic Formula 1 “hotel”. Bit like an aeroplane in it’s compactness, but did the job. And there was a nice place serving moules frites across the road. Tegan had her first taste of moules and seemed to love them (soft , squishy and not that dissimilar from snails I suppose). She is also showing a bit of a passion for French bread.....

Off we go! 7th October 2009

We are finally on our way! The white cliffs of Dover (or rather the soggy grey lumps of hillside) are beginning to fade into the distance in a meaningful way. I would like to claim a kind of nostalgic feeling for this moment once aboard our hopefully trusty SeaFrance vessel. However, as it was drizzling hard and Tegan was threatening to climb out of her highchair in search of entertainment beyond the salade nicoise it sort of passed in a “there goes England” kind of way.One hour or so later we are in an even wetter Calais – how come the French always get to complain about our weather! Torrential is the best word to describe the wet stuff coming from the sky as we surfed our way along the Autoroute towards Lille, and our posh hotel for the first night.Andy had the onerous task of taking the wheel, while I thought about the next place to do a nappy change as Tegan had thoughtfully waited until just before getting in the car to pop out a triumphant whopper of a pooh. Alas, she had fallen sound asleep while I considered the options, and only woke up just before we arrived at “La Howerderie http://www.lahowarderie.com/.So, we arrived at our plush pad of luxury with one rather tired and irritable toddler, complete with very sore bum. Not quite the “at last we’re here” fall on the huge bed with a large beer kind of moment I had imagined! However, all was soon solved by discovering the “Au Calice” bar and pizzeria down the road. We rejected the posh restaurant at the hotel in favour of the “not real pizza” described to us by Madame at the hotel. The pizza turned out to be excellent and washed down with a couple of Belgian beers each, we were warmed up and calmed down enough to try our French on the locals. The bar man and woman (who had twin 5 year old daughters) seemed to understood what was needed for a small, travelling and pretty tired Tegan, and the two blokes at the bar were probably too drunk to notice our agrammatical French anyway.We left there an hour or so later to put little T to bed and go and drink champagne in the bath (what a treat!).