[Ah – literation!] I actually quite enjoy long distance driving. Left to my own devices, I’ll keep going all day without much in the way of pauses, much to the annoyance of my female passengers. There is one thing about…

For once, we didn’t go through our usual “two days or three days to head north” debate as we approached time to leave Fanjeaux. With a combination of an almost dead lake and frequent winds, we both felt it was…

Accepting that we aren’t quite there yet, one of the most notable features of the last three weeks of our trip has been some pretty persistent high winds. Our dear old friend the Jetstream has been playing games and is…

Every now and then I get interested enough in language to ask questions of our hosts. There are various French language terms for enclosed (as opposed to flowing) bodies of water, including plan d’eau, lac and étang. The term plan…

Farmer Luc is a bit betwixt and between at the moment, waiting for a field or two of corn to be harvestable. Today, he and Nadine took some time off and left son Cedric to look after the farm whilst…

[A literary pun? Whatever next?] When enjoying a sunny evening’s BBQ outside Guillaume, we have been a little bothered by small flies/gnats, which insist on gathering in a swirling bait ball over ones head. Actually, it’s Franco’s less than hirsute…

The French have a traditional way of celebrating the summer solstice; the whole country joins in staging a fête de la musique, in which very varied types of musical entertainment break out all around the streets in cities, towns and…

I am very pleased to say that last night we were lulled to sleep by a satisfying chorus of croaking frogs in the Fanjeaux lake. Clearly senior (erstwhile) farmer Marcel has not managed to manges tous les grenouilles. A couple…

Shunning the autoroutes favoured by Sally Satnav, we dragged Guillaume the 150kms across country from the eastern Pyrenees to Fanjeaux, just north of Mirepoix. We’d booked a lakeside pitch from the coming Friday but were arriving four days earlier than…

It’s good to have a reason to go and investigate pastures new. I have an e-friend (i.e. met over the Internet), a fellow dragonfly enthusiast, who has a holiday home down at the Eastern end of the Pyrenees. His latest…