Continuing fruit trees and visiting Cathar country

Before the work continued for the second week we had a weekend off to explore a bit. This started by visiting the two Renees (there is Renees- Les- Bains and Renees-Le-Chateau). The former is supposed to be a spa town that apparently has been raided by the great unwashed who used the baths for a bit more than just washing (use your imagination) and led to them being closed for quite a while, and the commercial spa was closed for winter. The town was pretty dead when we visited although we were told that there was an internet cafe there (which is why we went). We discovered that this was in fact shut but were reliably informed by some helpful locals in a tea shop that if we sat outside a particular hotel in the car we could use their wifi – bingo! The other Renees is apparently the place that inspired the writing of the Di Vinci Code and while most of it was shut up for the winter it did have a Glastonbury high street type feel about it. I think it has become a hang out for all things alternatively weird and wonderful. It also had some nice views although the weather wasn’t that great and prevented us from seeing a lot.

The church at Renees le Chateau that famously (apparently!) inspired the Da Vinci Code

Tegan fairly uninspired by any air of mystery at Renees le Chateau

We also visited some amazing gorges – Gorges de Galamus and some Cathar castles. We went up to Peyrepertuse (apperently closed in January but you can still see everything that you would pay to see, but for free!) and spied a few others on the way. It was a shame that we didn’t have such nice weather as these castles were pretty amazing, all ruined and teetering on giant pieces of rock. We also did a fair bit of driving around the place just looking at the scenery, some of it really spectacular.

Crazy roads along the gorges

Tegan having a little leg stretch at the top of the gorge.

Peyrepertuse

Back to work again we went back to the orchard (or what will be one day). I never really thought that planting fruit trees would be such an involved process, but it seems that if ya want organic loveliness in your apples, apricots, plums etc ya gotta put the effort in! The new trees once planted needed surrounding with muck (horse pooh), leaf mould (that we had collected from the forest) and loads of straw, which was all quite fun to do. We then had to work on the 17 fruit trees that had been planted last year which involved weeding around them, adding muck, leaves and straw again. Surprising as it sounds this took us pretty much all week. It was quite satisfying at the end of the week to see our achievements (and feel our aching limbs – who needs to do aerobics?).

Hard at it with the straw

Moving the straw on the tarpaulin with a tiny helper (Fabien not Tegan)

The last couple of days of work though involved trying to clear the hole for the reservoir from brambles and clematis which have “roots of all evil” as we dubbed them. This hole was dug last year and has been work in progress for a while, but before any lining to hold the water can go in there need to be no plants to grow into it. Andy has been helping Ivan with the water engineering side of creating a functioning reservoir (I saw some spread sheets being talked about one evening) and I helped with the weeding. However it was decided after a few hours of weeding that this was a bit of a loosing battle and that a machine of some sort was needed to do some proper earth moving. Phew!

The digging did continue though on the terraces (or what will be terraces) with even more brambles and clematis (isn’t that what people grow up the side of their houses?!). I got the quite enjoyable job of slashing with a thing that looks like a machete (but with a blunt end) and I think is called a grass cutter. We managed to clear quite a bit of the ground before it was time to down tools and start to pack up for the next bit of our journey.

Slasher Jewell

Tegan has had a lovely time here and has spent a lot of time playing with Fabien both inside and outdoors. Often this involved Tegan bossily walking around and getting up to mischief and Fabien dutifully following. It was quite sad to say goodbye especially when Tegan gave him a lingering kiss and they looked like they were a sort of mini couple! We were also quiet sad to go as we had had such a great time with the family. All good things must come to and end and so it is off to Spain. Actually I am writing this from a hotel room in Girona so we are already here and off to Tarragona this afternoon. So far so good – watch out Spain!

Story time

Hiding under the table

 

Playing trains

How many pairs of gloves is it sensible to travel with?

We finally made it to our next destination in Aude after several days delay because of the snow. Having laughed at everyone at home in the UK under several inches of snow we had to stop smirking quite so hard when we heard that our host at Arques in Aude was snowed in. When we first heard this we stopped packing up and took a brief look at the weather forecast before realising that we too were “snowed in”. “Snowed in” is actually a bit of a relative term we realised as at my aunt and uncle’s home in the Lot et Garonne this actually meant hard icy snow on the road – bad idea to drive, but possible. In Aude this meant 1 metre snow drifts, making life slightly more problematic! Impatience eventually got the better of us and we set out towards Arques, managing to get to the edge of the village where our host Ivan came to pick us up in his not quite 4 wheel drive car, complete with all important snow chains.

We left the car where it was, hoping that any potential car thieves (not massively present in the middle of nowhere in rural France) would also be deterred by the snow. Fortunately it was still there the next day when we were given a lift down to get it, by which time we had settled in a bit and made friends with our new host family – a family of 5 from the UK, headed up by Klair and Ivan and livened up by three boys, the youngest of which is Tegan’s age. Tegan has taken to calling these three her boyfriends and seems to have slotted in fine showing up all her best tomboy qualities! The plethora of toy tractors, cars and things to pull, push and ride has made Tegan enormously happy, and consequently walking around the place has become a pretty hazardous activity.

Unpacking in our nice sized (but pretty cold) room has revealed that we have no less than 18 pairs of gloves – how can this be? We have between us 2 pairs of work gloves, 2 pairs of gardening gloves, 2 pairs of cycling gloves, 2 pairs of ski gloves (clearly we anticipated snow!), one pair of fingerless mittens, one pair of woolly gloves, two pairs of waterproof (or not as the case may be) gloves, one pair of rubber gloves (not too sure why), and five pairs of gloves that Tegan has and all but refuses to wear! I wonder if this is some kind of record………………….?

Anyway after 10 days of being here we can safely report that all is going very smoothly indeed, and that our hosts are not only really lovely and friendly but are so far people we have clicked with the best. We have spent most of the time preparing ground for new fruit trees which has involved marking circles in the ground (not of the crop circle variety), strimming the grass and then digging up the earth. This was made a lot easier by Ivan starting the job with his digger (oooh how pleased was Tegan when she saw that!?) and then we broke the ground up further with a mattock and greillenette. The greillenette is basically a two handled fork that breaks up the ground in quite a satisfying way as you can jump on it and push it and pull it, and it doesn’t break like a normal fork (at least not yet………..). This work took several days and is pretty back breaking but was worth it as the fruit trees have finally gone in today and we feel quite pleased with ourselves. I also built a fence around one of the trees (a mulberry, planted outside the main field) to stop the wild boar chomping it – haven’t seen one yet but apparently they are quite determined creatures when it comes to foraging for food. We have also collected a load of straw for said trees– we filled the back of Ivan and Klair’s van with it today. This turned out to be a lovely job as it was beautifully sunny and warm today (which also meant our first outside lunch for ages!). This is in contrast however to most of the rest of the time which has been a bit hit and miss weather wise.

Collecting straw

Trying to use the rake

The Mulberry tree in it’s new enlosure

The field of trees

We have managed to do quite a bit of work though – insulating the garage ceiling with some shiny bubble wrap (so that it looks a bit like a spaceman has been plastered to the ceiling), stacking wood and a bit of cooking on the rainy days. Collecting leaves (for leaf mould compost) and wood from the forest and picking and chopping parsley on the slightly nicer days. We have felt pretty productive here actually, which has a lot to do with the fact that Tegan is easily entertained by her new playmate Fabien. They seem to be very content to run around after each other and be watched by each others’ parents and generally share in the same mischief making. It is really nice to see Tegan with another 2 year old as she hasn’t until now had a chance so far to be around kids of her own age. Of course this means that there are two toddlers in the same space which can be a bit manic but there seems to be a sort of solidarity in the madness!

We plan to stay here for another week and then head to Spain. There are quiet a few things lined up for next week, including building some garden terraces and Andy and Ivan’s project to build a reservoir. Methinks that there is not really enough time to do all these things, which is a real shame as we have had such a good time here. We have also learnt a few things about gardening that we may try to take home with us (yes to our teeny garden!) since Ivan and Klair are market gardeners and seem to know all that clever stuff about when to plant things and what pots to use and how to prune things. Unfortunately the Jewell Ware combo thus far has only undertaken the type of gardening that involves dashing into B&Q in June and buying things that should’ve been planted in March but shoving them in a pot anyway to see what happens! This approach has not been entirely without success but watch out Bristol, we may actually become productive gardeners one day! 

Putting our feet up for Christmas and making plans for the next place…………

Happy New Year to everyone – a new decade, wow, how did that creep up on us?! We spent New Year’s Eve sat in front of a giant TV (with lots of remote control things at our disposal!) drinking champagne and seeing in both the French and then the English new year. Not because we especially wanted to see Jules Holland singing Aude Lang Sine, but because the champagne was crying out to be finished.

We have been staying at my aunt and uncle’s house for the last week or so while they have been back at home in the UK. It has been a real change to be back in a fully heated house, with all mod cons and so nice to have some space to ourselves. We have been mainly relaxing and not doing a great deal which is strange but a welcome chance to be a bit lazy.

We also spent Christmas at my Grandparents house nearby, which was also a nice break and great to catch up with the news (both family and world) and generally recharge the batteries.  We couldn’t help ourselves though when there was an invitation to burn some rubbish in the garden and to erect a new compost heap! Father Christmas brought Tegan loads of goodies and since it was her birthday too she has some great new things to play with, read and wear. We are now trying to work out how to fit all these nice new things into the already overflowing car………….

Presents!

We have also been doing a few small day trips around the area, including a nice day out to Limeuil in the Dordogne at the confluence of the Dordogne and Vezere.

 

Playing by the river

Medieval phone box………

The other thing about having this time and space is that we have been able to plan our next WWOOFing steps. We are off to a family near Carcassonne next for three weeks. After that we are not too sure and slightly torn between the idea of going to Spain for a month (just because we can!) and going further east in France. We did have a place organised for February back in the Haute Pyrenees, but have since discovered that the accommodation is not that child friendly. Our last WWOOF in March is all sorted, so it’s just a question of what we do in between. That is the nature of this WWOOFing lark, so many possibilities but it does mean that things change constantly which presents both challenges and problems and new opportunities. Tegan copes really well with the changes and different places and we always have food for thought for the type of lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves over these last few months. With this brief flirt again with “reality” and catching up with family and friends in the middle of our WWOOFing project we have discovered that while we feel less and less hippy -certainly in comparison to some of the true blue – purple? (what colour are they I wonder) hippies that we have met, we seem to be simultaneously making our friends and family think we are more hippy – strange world!

A few favourite photos……………

Reflections in the playground

View from the Col de Tourmalet

Strange clouds over Sarancolin

View from our picnic spot just down from Pic du Midi

Our beautiful plessis!

Pont de Herault

View over the Cevennes

Funky wood

Cirque de Navasalles

Carcassonne castle

On our way to La Fargassa from the steep and windy road

Red sky at night from La Fargassa

Harbour wall at Coilluire

Coilluire beach

Arty farty garden photo

Rocks on a walk up the valley nearby

View of the Roc de San Salvador

Driving down to Amelie les Bains after the snow

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!