Celebrating new wine and chestnuts.

   A couple of hours ago, we came home from a community event that lasted most of the day. Billed as castanhas e vin novèl  ("chestnuts and new wine" in the Occitan language) and announced by leaflets hand-delivered to our post-boxes, it was organized by L'Amicale des Léranais (the Association of people who live in Léran) whose goal is to gather together Léranais and their friends to share memories, experiences, local culture and--inevitably--good food and wine. If you read French, you can follow our adventures at http://amicaledesleranais.centerblog.net
   Shortly after the church bells rang ten o'clock, we met up in the Salle des Tilleuls (one of our village halls) for a quick coffee before we set off on a balade. More amble or saunter than serious hike, this one took us along the river bank and up to the little road that runs from the crossroads just beyond the chateau.
     I'm always delighted by how deeply many Léranais are immersed in their village's history. We learning that grapes have grown locally for over a thousand years. Some people revealed that they remembered wine being made around here too.
    Even though the day was cloudy, as we ambled down through the forest and back to the village, we still had excellent views of the Pyrenees and the glorious autumn colours. Love those russets and browns against the blue-greys.

    By 12:30 or so, we were back at the Salle des Tilleuls where a table was already set with bottles and snacks (including the lethally good fritons, basically unctuous morsels of deep-fried duck skin sprinkled with salt). We all set out the food we'd brought--chestnut inclusion was a good idea, we'd heard--and got stuck into the aperos.

    I'd brought along a pork, chestnut and apple pie that I'd made yesterday. The recipe's so easy that I'll give it to you right now: 250 g each of ground pork, crumbled cooked chestnuts and finely chopped apple plus a beaten egg, 100 ml of Madeira, salt and pepper. Mix that all together and pat it into a 24 or 25 cm flan tin that you've previously buttered and lined with pastry (that you've pricked with a fork). Dollop in the pork mixture, top with another circle of pastry, crimp the edges and brush with beaten egg. Cut a small hole in the middle and bake at 190°C/375°F for 45 minutes. The recipe said to serve it warm but it was fine cold, with curried apple chutney.

    
    Platters were passed up and down the table. Chicken with squash and chestnuts, chestnut and pork patties, a chicken recipe that originated in the French island of Réunion, endive leaves filled with creamed Roquefort, and much, much, much, much more. Many bottles of "new" wine were opened. Everyone shared everything. At some point, an oozingly ripe Brie was passed around, then chestnut cake, marrons glacés, clementines....and finally coffee.

    The age range spanned single figures to mid-80s. There was dancing, singing and, at some point, someone brought out a small trampoline from another room and jumped on it. It was that kind of afternoon.
    And let's not forget the poetry. Going back to that initial announcement...it also included an invitation to contribute a poem or story. So, when I phoned Mauricette (one of the organizers) to RSVP, I added that I would bring a poem...in French.
     And I did. "Châtaigne" is another word for "chestnut."

Elle est belle, elle est ronde, elle est bonne à manger

Avec un verre de vin ou un verre de Champagne

Elle est si delicieuse, ce beau fruit d’hiver

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

On peux faire un farce pour un poulet ou un dinde

On peux faire une bonne tarte pour la famille

On peux l’utiliser dans une daube ou une soupe

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

Elle commence avec une fleur de printemps

Qui décore l’arbre comme une chandelle

Et après elle porte un manteau verte

Toujours la châtaigne est belle

Mais la châtaigne est une mixe des humeurs

A l’exterieur elle est dure, épineuse

Mais apprendre à la connaitre et vous decouvrez

A sa coeur, elle est douce, delicieuse

Quand il fait froid en hiver, en Decembre

C’est plaisant de s’asseoir au coin du feu sain

Et là, de rotir les belles fruits du saison

Je parle naturellement des châtaignes.

   It fills me with pride to boast that this was judged adequate enough to win me a lovely bar of soap.      What a thoroughly pleasurable day.

  

Learning to Look at the Landscape.

    Our friend Adriaan Luijk occasionally leads walks through the local countryside. These aren't the usual kind of walks where you stride along clocking up the kilometres. What Adriaan does is really make you look at and analyze your surroundings. (Wander off for a while and read about the fascinating courses he leads: http://regarding-landscapes.com) 
    A couple of Sunday mornings ago, three of us drove to the village of Le Sautel (where we go every September to see the sheep brought down from the mountain--see"transhumance" for applicable posts). There we met up with Adriaan and a friend of his. The day was beyond glorious, the sky like blue porcelain, the sun beating down, fields thick with pink, purple and blue wild flowers, the air almost sparkling. 

    Our first stop was along a small track just beyond the village where we paused to look at a series of dry stone walls that run parallel down the hillside. Small shelters had been built at intervals. What were they used for? Sheep shelters? Were these open-ended pens for various flocks? Turns out, we learned from a local man, that they once housed lepers. 
    Another small digression. Doing some research, I found that the nearby spa town of Ax-les-Thermes originated in the 13th century when the Count of Foix developed its hot springs to give relief to returning crusaders afflicted with leprosy. If you soak your feet in free pool in the town centre, know that it's called Le Bassin des Ladres (the basin of the lepers).
    We got out our sketchbooks--and let me tell you, drawing an object really makes you look at it.

From there, we drove close to the village of Lieurac where Adriaan and Andie, his wife, live. (Andie is a natural dyer who sells the most beautiful yarns for hand-knitting and embroidery. www.renaissancedyeing.com ) A picnic lunch under a tree, more sketching, this time of the view opposite...

... and then a climb up into Lieurac itself with its church at one end and what was once a fort at the other. Set on a south-facing slope, the village blazed with poppies, roses and other flowers, all out earlier this year because of the long hot spell we're still experiencing.
    On the long hot trek back to Le Sautel, we stopped to look at wild orchids, and up at the sky where raptors circled. A man was ploughing so we think the birds were hanging around to snap up hapless field mice.
    What we brought home, beside memories, were sketches and, in my case, seed. As we walked through Lieurac, Andie pointed out what looked like a twiggy necklace of sparsely strung white pearls, seeds of what I'd learned that day is the Purple Gromwell plant. I pocketed some and am waiting for them to sprout.
 

An Impressionist look at the local landscape.

Do you think Monet and Manet looked at the landscape with their lens on its "macro" setting? That's how I created this Impressionist painting effect. 

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     Earlier this week, our local walking group--the Lérandonneurs--met up outside the café, and stood there wondering if it was going to rain seriously or if the drizzle would just fade away. In the end, it did both. 

    First, we headed off on the road up past the chateau, then we made our way into the forest, pausing briefly so that a huge truck, laden with wood, could pass by. Huge truck = huge tyres = huge ruts = huge amounts of clay-ey mud from the rain which, by now, was falling down with enough vigour to make me wish I'd worn Peter's ancient Barbour instead of  a light fleece jacket. Trudge, trudge, slip, slide, walk up on the side of the bank and hang on to what you hope is a non-functioning electric fence.

    But rain stops and, soon the sun came out as on we trudged past fields of forgotten sunflowers, across the little bridge that crosses the river Touyre, and below the walls of the Château de Queille.

Dried sunflowers always remind me of shower-heads.

You'll find much better shots of the Château de Queille on its web site: http://www.queille.net/ 

    I don't think I've ever seen such a gorgeous abundance of wild flowers. Little wild orchids of various kinds, crisp white bachelors' buttons, yellow birdsfoot trefoil and buttercups, dark purple clover, blue speedwell, scarlet poppies, pretty pink wild roses and lots more that I don't know the names of. Anyone know what this little plant is called?

A Walk on the Flat.

    Ten kilometres is nothing when it's all on the flat, the trees are in bloom, the sun is out and there's the prospect of a riverbank picnic at the end of it. 

    Not much to add to these photos except that I've never seen so many cowslips in flower, and that that exquisite village is Camon. 

A serious ????? kilometre walk.

   E-mails were flying back and forth over exactly how long the walk was that we went on last Tuesday. Somewhere around 11 km, or more, or less if you took the short-cut. 

    As usual, we met up outside the café, then headed off in cars, this time to the church at Laroque d'Olmes four kilometres away. Compared with most, this was an easy walk, mostly on the flat with only one fairly steep section. Enough snow to be pretty, cold but not too cold temperatures, magnificent views and lots of interesting stuff along the way: this will be a hard one to beat. 

   Thanks to Kate for the photography and, as always to Julian, who organized the whole thing--and us. 

A Beautiful Walk on a Beautiful Day.

    Books need to be stacked and measured so we can make or buy more shelves. Work needs doing in the garden. A deadline for a story is fast approaching. But....on this glorious, unseasonably warm day, who could stay indoors. 

    It's been 17 degrees today and we weren't the only ones tempted outside. As we started along the back road to Laroque d'Olmes we ran into friends returing from a bike ride. A few steps on, a young woman was searching for a missing white dog. A jogger went past with two black-and-white dogs loping along behind him. But as soon as we cut across the fields, we had the rumpled green and brown quilt of the countryside to ourselves. 

   What I love about the land around here is its accessibility. You can wander off tracks up steep grassy slopes to see what's on the other side, and find filigree nets of cobweb zig-zagging across your path. The only fences are the thin electric ones that keep cattle from wandering off. On the way back, we had a good view of the chateau and our stubby-towered church. Fields are plowed over, the colour of milk chocolate, or sprouting winter crops that will be plowed into the ground as fertilizer next spring. 

    One house we pass on this walk is surrounded by a high evergreen hedge with a small area carved into it to hold the post-box. Coming back through the village, Peter noticed the shadows of the plane trees. Don't they look exactly as though they're fighting each other?

The Views Were Worth It.

      Apart from the occasional saunter around by the chateau and back by the river, I'm ashamed to say it's a few months since I've been on a walk of any length. So when the e-mail came around saying that there would be a major hike today, I signed up, polished the boots and dug out the woolly socks. 

    We all met at the SuperU parking lot in Mirepoix, then headed along a stretch of the major trail that connects a number of local villages, partly along disused railway lines. 

     To say it was a glorious autumn day is understatement. It was just gorgeous. Dew sparkled on the grass. The sky was like an upturned cerulean blue bowl. And it got hot very quickly so that jackets and fleeces--what was I thinking when I put that on?--swiftly came off. 

     We climbed up and up, about 18 of us I think, with the occasional staggering view of the Pyrenees and the occasional staggering walker as all of us opted to climb to the crest (rather than take the tempting downhill trail back towards Mirepoix). The way was steep but when we got to the top, we felt like eagles with the tidy Ariège countryside spread out below us. 

   This was the general view. Moving closer you can see the village of La Bastide de Boussignac and the plane tree-lined road leading into it on the road that we take every time we drive to Mirepoix.

    A long restaurant table was waiting for us when we eventually made it back there after doing about 10 kilometres. The menu wasn't exactly as shown. Instead of soup, there was goat's cheese salad, and the dessert was iced nougat. I doubt that very much got done by any of us for the rest of the afternoon.

Sunday Morning Walk

Doing the morning run to the boulangerie via the fast route takes me past the church and the old mairie. Baguette bought, I often come home along the river bank. Join me..

   Top left are some of the houses that back on the river. Built centuries ago, most are no more than 10 feet wide.

   Just over the bridge is this sign pointing to the riverside trail. "A/R" means aller-retour--a round trip.

   The path ambles along with the chateau meadow--and the chateau--on our right and the river--and a green sea of nettles on our left. 

    Léran still has a few derelict buildings around. Here's one. 

    Now we're at the small foot-bridge that brings us back to the main part of the village. Here's the footbridge itself and the green, bosky view when we look to the right.

    Five minutes from now and we can down with coffee and croissants.

A "wall" of violets.

Midweek, Peter is leading the group on a walk we took several years ago. So, because it was several years ago, we did a practice amble on Sunday afternoon. The route starts in Caudeval near a solidly built chateau (around here, these tend to look more like fortresses than fairytale castles and this one is no exception). 

   The track led uphill, deeply rutted and extremely squelchy. It was almost, but not quite, raining adding a gauzy screen to our view of meadows, hills and trees.

  This is the season for violets. (We missed the Toulouse violet festival a couple of weeks back so must mark that on the agenda for next year.) Tiny purple flowers are all over the garden of our first house. And, on this walk, we saw them growing in large clusters at the sides of the track which descend so steeply into the ditches below that what you see is like a small wall of violets.

14 kilometres mostly in sunshine.

I spoke too soon about spring being here (see previous post). Low temperatures, rain and the kind of snow you see on Christmas cards hit us over the next few days. But, by this morning, the skies had cleared by 8:45 a.m. when we all met up at the café, decided what kind of sandwich we wanted for lunch and left the list in the mailbox. 

Our route today began in the village of Limbrassac about ten minutes away, took us over the hills, through forests and past farms. The woods are dripping with pale yellow catkins. Streams are rushing along. Ginger biscuits are very, very good when you've been walking for a couple of hours... but not as good as the nap I had after the sandwich-and-beer lunch.