Category: 2011 Spring

La Prise Reprise

About 32kms/20mls north of us in the Montagnes Noires is la prise d’eau d’Alzeau, literally the place where water is captured from the river Alzeau. It is the beginning of La Rigole. We’re familiar with the word rigole from the

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Pêches Plats

Mirepoix lies 18kms/11mls south of Fanjeaux where we are currently enjoying a very mixed bag of southern French weather. Mercifully, on market day (Monday) the weather was fine and hot. In addition to most French street markets being colourful affairs,

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Pyrenean Picnic

Mountains make a useful escape from days which may be getting hot and sticky in the valleys but you have to pick the right day. The valley may be hot and humid but mountains tend to attract weather and if

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Manual Dexterity

Many years ago we visited an area of France called La Brenne which is noted for its breeding population of Purple Herons. Still using the excellent but very slow (50 ASA) Fuji Velvia film in those days, and not having

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Damsels in Distress

In an attempt to avoid our local breezy, cool, overcast weather this morning, we went to investigate a new-to-us stretch of La Rigole, the cleverly constructed small canal that feeds the Canal du Midi with water from les Montagnes Noires.

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Express Delivery

We are not normally given to reserving pitches on campsites in France. In fact, in close to 30 years, we simply hadn’t ever done so. That was largely because we never really knew where we would end up or when.

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Castres and Lautrec

Now we come to the second reason why we chose to stop for a few days at Réalmont. The first was Albi, about 20kms/12mls to the north. The second is Castres, lying a similar distance to the south. The weather

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Bunting Hunting

Small birds are tricky to photograph. Something the size of, say, a Golden Eagle gives a photographer a fighting chance, especially if it sits still, stares at you and says, “aren’t I pretty – why not take my portrait?” [Ed:

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Albi

One of the reasons we are where we are, if you see what I mean, is to see Albi. Albi lies 20kms/12mls north of us and, since today the skies cleared a little to leave a patchwork of dark grey,

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Alarm Cocks

We know a few folks back at home who either are keeping or have kept chickens. For basically urban folks, it seems a slightly odd decision to me, perhaps because several weeks frequently pass without our using a single egg

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