Any sleep that was had last night was disturbed sleep. Perhaps because there is some heavy rain in the forecast, the farmer whose vineyard is immediately adjacent to our campsite decided to harvest his grapes all night, quite literally. I…

We are at Camping Villemarin a short distance from the shore of the Bassin de Thau [pronounced “Tow”] and surrounded by vineyards. The Bassin, or Étang de Thau is an oyster farming lagoon, about 15km long, just west of Montpellier…

We’re off to one of our favourite parts of France in the Languedoc around Mèze and Marseillan for our final week. We have stayed in this area several times before but we are heading for a new-to-us campsite. After the…

In a few days time it will be Nadine’s birthday and we’d been invited to the family party up at the farmhouse. For a brief while it was tempting, then we wondered if we’d be the odd ones out. We…

The damn Belgian dog was quiet overnight, mercifully. It fixed that in the morning which was otherwise sunny and pleasant. Gruissan is a resort on the Mediterranean coast about an hour away by car from Fanjeaux. It has a super…

Francine declared it to be laundry day. Once her camp duties were done, we needed some shopping so went to a large Intermarché supermarket on the edge of Castelnaudary. It was absolutely heaving, all checkouts having lines of 5 or…

The cloistered square of Mirepoix is one of the more appealing sights that we’ve seen in a French town. Once again, Francine was keen to have a look at it without its obstructing market stalls so we set off on…

… which really should read, “too much lunch in Fanjeaux” … “but I’m getting ahead of myself and Denys liked to hear a story told well.” Every year this area of France puts on an open air photographic exhibition called…

We’ve been staying at Fanjeaux for years so we’ve visited Revel several times but always on a Saturday, market day. Bang in the middle of Revel’s central square is magnificent old covered market hall, its roof supported by ancient timbers.…

NOT! Our part of France had some much needed rain overnight. We heard that it amounted to about 1cm so not exactly a deluge but the farmers may be a little happier. It led to a day scant on interest,…