Why do we call June 21st Midsummer’s Night? Officially, June 21st is the start of summer, the first night of summer, not the middle of summer. Everything from March 21st to now has been spring. I know the sun is…

Spanish properties are frequently, maybe even usually, fitted with rejas over the windows. Rejas are a bit like decorative prison bars over windows but they are designed to keep low-life out rather than you in. The two readily accessible “ground…

I have always disliked neck straps on cameras. Modern neoprene straps are better but stuff swinging round my neck is essentially uncomfortable. i don ‘t even like a modest pair of binoculars doing pendulum impressions around my neck, never mind…

[Yes, I know, another one out of sequence.] Just after we left Spain on our previous visit, we had just had our misplaced shower screen refitted, complete with an extra component to make it actually line up with the shower…

It’s smack on 500mls/800kms to Jalón from Fanjeaux. About 480mls/770kms of that would be on autoroutes/autopistas so we reckoned it would be about an 8-hour drive. Francine set her alarm for 6:30 AM so we could be on the road…

OK, we’ve been here at Fanjeaux on the sheep farm for 11 days. Our original plan was stay here 18 days catching up with friends, not only campsite owners Luc and Nadine but also other regular camping visitors. However, the…

There are several reasons that I’ve been falling out of love with eating out in restaurants. Years ago, the chief reason was probably having to put up with some git puffing foul cigarette smoke into the air at a nearby…

There’s a road near here, heading south from Limoux, that we’ve been singularly remiss about investigating on all of our many visits. We set out to correct our oversight. The first target en route after Limoux, which was smothered by…

… my on-going survey . The story so far. This farm’s irrigation lake, a lake of about 2 hectares, used to swarm with libellules (dragonflies and damselflies). I have recorded 18 species here, though a couple were admittedly most likely…

As usual, when we arrived at our campsite we drove onto our assigned pitch and had in-depth discussions as to where precisely to site Guillaume. We’ve been here on this pitch so many times sthat we know pretty much where…