… 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 “Les Chemins de Photos”. I can’t quite get to grips with that French ‘cos it seems as if the “de” should be “des”, there being multiple photos, but it ain’t. Be that as it may, the exhibition consists of several collections of 12 photographs printed large, mounted on boards and displayed in the open. Each of these is one of the chemins. The overall theme this year was Scènes de Vie.

There are two collections on our host farm, one around the edge of our lake to do with Thai salt production and another in amongst some trees between us and the farmhouses concerning traditional French farming and the transhumance – moving livestock between seasonal grazing pastures.

There are a few other collections in Fanjeaux itself so we thought we’d walk in, have a gander and combine it with reacquainting ourselves with old, historic Fanjeaux. The exercise might serve as an excuse to enjoy lunch at a fine local restaurant called La Table Cathare and the fact that we would be walking meant we could both imbibe. The walk in took about 30 minutes and got us there a shade before midday. We wasted a few minutes to allow the restaurant to begin opening up and, it being a Friday, managed to make a reservation for 13:00.

The first chemin we found was of life along the Nile. There was a second chemin, which I couldn’t really get a handle on, in the old village washing facility. I think the latter was something to do with “leaving” or “travelling”.

Once we’d gone, “ooh, ahh” at the photos, we climbed a little higher into Fanjeaux – being an old Cathare place it’s up on a bit of a hill – and came across the old market hall. I love the old French market halls. We’d already been in to Revel to have a closer look at that one, now we were in a similarly old timbered example in Fanjeaux. I found another weird facility on my mobile phone camera which, against my better judgement, I couldn’t resist having a play with. It had something called Photo Sphere. I’m a mobilephobe [maybe I should call them mobile phobes instead of mobile phones?] but eventually I managed to figure out how to get it to work. You stand in the middle of something, take picture #1, then the darn phone directs you to spin round through 360° while it takes 7 other shots to stitch together and complete an all-around, spherical view. Clever though this undoubtedly is, I’m not convinced it’s of much practical use in really showing what things look like but here’s Faanjeaux’s halle in the round.

Time for lunch so back to La Table Cathare. They do have other interesting things on the menu but this is cassoulet country and I love it. Cassoulet is a very hearty concoction of slow-cooked white beans, like haricots, cooked together with meats including sausage, salted pork and with a whole confit of duck leg stuffed into the middle. It’s cooked in a traditional earthenware pot called a cassole and then smacked into the oven for a light crust to form on top. I petty much already knew I’d be ordering it but I was greatly surprised when Francine followed suit. This was always going ot be way too much food for her.

It was way too much food for me, too. Not to worry, the restaurant is ready for such eventualities and offers to box up the remains. I popped said remains into my rucksack for the walk back to camp. It leaked a bit but kept us going partially for the next two days.

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. The square itself is surrounded by characterful buildings with some classic French shutters and ironwork. On a Saturday with the market in full swing, much of the interesting detail is obscured so Francine fancied a look without the usual obstructions and crowds. We whizzed off again thinking we might find lunch over there.

We had failed to account for something. When a French square is left free to public access it tends to become a car park. Such was the case today. So, instead of market stalls and throngs, she now had many voitures to deal with. Well, Francine likes a challenge.

We’d had thoughts of sitting outside for lunch drinking in the atmosphere along with a spot of vin but that was scuppered, too. There were several bars with folks drinking various beverages but we saw just a couple of restaurants and the one of those that looked appealing to us was fully booked.

We thought of a few alternatives including Castelnaudary, which must have a selection of restos, and good ol’ Lac de Lenclas which was close and which we knew also has a restaurant.

Since Lac de Lenclas was closer we tried that as plan B. Whilst there is indeed a restaurant this was not one of the days upon which it was open. We weren’t having much luck. Right then, plan C it is.

We drove down one of the main streets in Castelnaudary and, passing a square, saw several restaurants with many people sitting out in the sunshine. This looked more like it. We crossed the Canal du Midi and found a parking place on the street. Walking back towards town the canal front had a couple of attractive looking eateries beside the water so, rather than sit in the middle of town, we opted for those.

We got tired of waiting at the first to find out what the form was but the second proved appealing, didn’t keep us waiting and its menu was offering a few tapas for lunch instead of a large plateful of too much food, which isn’t really our midday style. We chose some tuna samosas and calamari to share, together with a bottle of rosé, most of which was for Francine, with me needing to drive. OK, samosas aren’t particularly Spanish but let’s not get picky; they were very good.

We sauntered off lunch by wandering along the canal to the basin. Quite why the basin of the canal here needs to be quite so wide is beyond me but such a construction would not have been built without good reason, I’m sure. The backdrop of Castelnaudary behind the basin is difficult to capture so, despite my better judgement, I resorted to trying a panorama on my accursed mobile phone camera. Like veggie food, I don’t want this to become a habit. Despite having pretty awful resolution (most phone cameras do better) I think as a representation it’s done a decent job with some judicious cropping.

We were invited back up to Luc & Nadine’s in the evening for aperitifs, which came accompanied by a sort of Roquefort cheesecake and some of Luc’s fabrication maison air-dried sausages. Aperitifs finished quite late at about 21:00 so we needed little more than a nibble of cheese before retiring for the night.

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, though.

The evening did provide some entertainment in a frustrating sort of way. ‘T is Wednesday again so another photographic club night was in the offing. As with last week, we planned to Zoom in using the campsite wi-fi, this time not as a test but to take part in an evening discussing the use of long exposures with a visiting professional.

Before 20:30 when proceedings were supposed to begin (19:30 UK time), rumbles of thunder were beginning to be heard in the distance. Somewhat predictably, the storm moved inexorably closer such that, by the time we were connected, thunder claps were close and rain thrashed on Guillaume’s roof. Being inside a caravan in thrashing rain is a noisy affair. A shared pair of earbuds, in one ear each, meant that we could hear the UK end but it was again necessary to mute our end. Last week we’d had our microphone usurped by the clattering racket of a combine harvester chopping sunflowers, this week we had an electric storm raging overhead causing similar disruption.

It just had to happen.

We suffered from irritation rain today so were a bit lazy. Well, Francine wasn’t lazy; she did some laundry before the rain began and managed to get it dry on a washing line strung up under Guillaume’s awning.

During yesterday’s shopping trip we’d picked up a pack of gesiers de canards [duck gizzards]. I know, that may sound unappealing to many but we love ‘em. Without careful treatment gizzards are even tougher than yesterday’s bloody rumsteck was; they need long, slow cooking to turn them into the delicacy that they can become. They are prepared as a confit, essentially simmered slowly in fat, and make a tasty salade tiede [warm salad] when reheated and served over some fresh salad leaves.

The best laid plans of mice and men, etc. With the irritation rain the last thing today felt like was a salad day, either tiede or otherwise. It was time to rethink our catering plans. Good ol’ Francine came up with the idea of using our remaining half of the coco de Paimpol mixed with the gesiers and some saucisse (which we needed to go and buy – we even found Toulouse sausages but given that we’re a mere 50kms from Toulouse that may be less than surprising) to make a cheat’s cassoulet. Brilliant! Half a chance of a cassoulet and I’m in.

It worked out rather well and was probably the highlight of an otherwise nothing sort of day.

After Francine took a morning census of orchids and got to 15, we started the day with a new view for Guillaume. Yesterday afternoon two Austrian campervans pitched up next door, beside us on the furthest lakeside pitch from les sanitaires and wi-fi.  They were essentially quiet enough, save for one evening burst of music which caused Francine to pop over and politely ask them to turn it down. We had, however, broken with our tradition of pitching Guillaume longitudinally down the pitch and, because there was flat ground and he fitted, we’d gone across the pitch, meaning we could sit in front of our awning and look at the lake. The down side is that we tended to notice neighbours more, too.

The Austrian vans were part of a small stream of one-nighters stopping at the site and they left by mid-morning. With an English-sided van pitched in our more usual fashion, we’d be better off in the vacated pitch ourselves, looking through a hedge to the neighbouring night-farmer’s field of cut off sunflower stems. Being unsociable bastards who dislike interlopers, we decided to move. It’s far from the first time this has happened.

We whipped down the awning, disconnected Guillaume from his services and drove him round to the neighbouring pitch on his electric mover. Putting the awning back up was less easy than whipping it down. With the lack of rain much of the ground is cracked and has deep fissures. I was finding that where I needed some of the pegs, there was either a fissure or a stone that bent the peg. I managed to get a minimum fixing but had to leave the side panels off. No matter and we could still “see” the wi-fi.

Reconnecting Guillaume I disturbed a fledgling bird on the ground. It scuttled into the leaves and hedgerow so I don’t think it was ready to fly yet. It certainly didn’t look it. We suspect it must have fallen from a nest, though none were obvious. We could do nothing (including find it again) and hoped it might be found by parents and survive. I wasn’t hopeful, though.

Since barbies are technically banned now, we popped off to a larger supermarket in Castelnaudary for food and bought ourselves a new toy in the form of an electric plancha. There were a few to choose from and we settled on this 1800W job with a combination of ridges and a flat surface. I saw some attractive rumsteck to give it a test run. Before grilling, we cooked all our coco de Paimpol and I dressed half of them up with some onion and tomato goop.

Time to set about the plancha. The instructions are, of course, badly translated from Chinese and gave us some amusement.

a. Install a large baking pan (refer to the base 1-2-3-4 four feet in order), and gear oil plate

Quoi ? Never mind the “refer to the base 1-2-3-4”; “Gear oil”? I think not. Just oil the meat and chuck it on the ridged griddly bit.

The rumsteck may have looked decent in the packet but it most certainly wasn’t. Rumsteck translates as rump steak, as you might imagine, but this, despite still being pink in the middle, was like no other rump steak I’ve ever attempted to chew. Boot leather sprang to mind and the flavour was, well, odd. [… checks to ensure that he didn’t actually use gear oil…] I really must stop buying lumps of beef ‘cos I very rarely enjoy them. I did enjoy the beans, though.

The night farmer next door was at it again, this time chopping up the sunflower stems left after harvesting them. Basically they get ploughed back in.

The plancha box is sizeable, I don’t know where we’ll be storing/transporting it. Hmmm?

We thought we’d stretch our legs and walk to Fanjeaux and back. We began by taking the route out of the back of our campsite. It gives you a bit of a trudge along a road but it’s quiet and there are decent views over the escarpment down to the lower ground below Fanjeaux. The Café des Arts was open, having been closed recently. It would be rude not to freshen up with a beer at one of their outside tables. I found they had Grimbergen Blonde on tap, which is a half way reasonable brew bettering 6% ABV. I’d seen it in supermarkets when I’d been scratching my head wondering what to buy so I was interested to try it. It was very drinkable. I do wish we weren’t so limp when it comes to the alcohol content of beers.

Our route back formed a circular walk, returning along the approach road used to get to the campsite. Then we veered off along a lower track below the farmhouse and beside a second smaller lake and hedgerow. The hedgerow was productive; I was pleased to have another chance to photograph females of the Violet Dropwing (Trithemis annulata).

We relaxed chez Guillaume for a while but neither of us is terribly good at sitting still for too long. Francine spotted something near the lakeside that gladdened her heart: Autumn Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes spiralis), a relatively small wild orchid with a corkscrew spiral twist. One spike was quite advanced but other spikes were just bursting through the soil and yet more seemed to be following as Francine watched.

We weren’t done yet. Our Belgian neighbour spends a while sitting and watching the lake. He calmly called Francine over and a mustelid was poking around one of the tree bases that surround the lake near his pitch. Naturally when I went to join them it had disappeared down the bank onto the shore. It did, of course, fail to reappear. However, a short while later I spotted something essentially dark brown and furry swimming on the surface at our end of the lake. Then it dived and I didn’t see it again. It clearly wasn’t an otter. Given the watery habitat this just has to have been a Mink (Neovison vison). Naturally, a picture was out of the question, so fleeting and few were its appearances.

We’re clearly making up for missing French street markets for four years. Saturday is when Revel holds its market and it’s always an interesting one. We even remembered where to find a parking spot which is just as well ‘cos they can be hard to find.

The market was busy, though Francine drew the line at calling it heaving. The most interesting food stalls had queues and I’m not good at queuing so we wandered around just looking while we waited for things to calm down a little. The square has a fabulous old timbered market hall in the very centre and the surrounding shuttered buildings on all four sides add to the ancient character of the place. The non-food stalls are scattered along a street outside the main square.

It’s Coco de Paimpol season. These are white beans, rather like haricots or cannellinis, in rather tatty, unattractive pods. The French buy them in large quantities and bottle them, I imagine to see them through the winter months. Being a huge fan of pulses, eventually I couldn’t resist joining a short queue and buying a measly kilo. Well, I couldn’t deal with a larger quantity. I found three large artichokes for €3 irresistible too, with the idea of a paella forming in my head, so I grabbed those and added a pepper.

Purchases securely in my rucksack, as we were making our way back to the car Francine spotted a tiny butterfly feeding on some potted flowers. It’s one of those that annoyingly keeps its wings shut. It looked like a blue but I failed to recognize the underside. My book soon solved the problem. I had seen this once before but only in Spain – it’s a Geranium Bronze (Cacyreus marshalli), an import originally from South Africa.

We were close to Sorèze again but this time the weather was good and we made it. It turned out not to be the place Francine had thought it was but, with a very limited choice we did find a personable little restaurant for a bite of lunch. I don’t regard pizza a as a proper meal but shared between two a veggie pizza here was just right. I must say I don’t think I’ve eaten a better pizza but my experience is admittedly limited.

We returned via a tortuous route through Saissac so we could stick our noses into the upper reaches of La Rigole. ‘’T was a little too late in the day, however, and it was mostly shaded. There were a couple of Demoiselles flitting in a small patch of sunlight but not advantageously positioned. I’m getting picky.

We’re continuing the wind theme.

It’s not easy to see the likely weather in all directions from our Fanjeaux campsite. Our morning dawned quite bright and we decided to visit Lac de Lenclas, which is a modestly sized dammed lake nestling into a bend in La Rigole, the engineering marvel of a narrow canal that feeds water into the high point of the Canal du Midi. With both gently flowing water over a gravelly bottom and standing water with emergent vegetation, this has proved a happy hunting ground for odonata many times in the past.

As we drew closer the sky ahead of us progressively darkened rather alarmingly. The wind had switched direction. We were no longer in the grip of easterly Marin blowing in off the Mediterranean but of the northwesterly Tramontane. Clearly life was becoming unsettled.

I parked and we wandered. There were some Violet Dropwings (Trithemis annulata) zooming along the edge of the lake, not really posing for pictures, but little else. This was not going to hold attention for any length of time.

As we finished our walk around the lake and were returning to the car, with a few spots of rain falling a French lady approached us and muttered something about a village called Les Cassés. We explained that we didn’t know it but ever resourceful Francine found our map and the village on it. It was just a handful of kilometers from the lake. It seems this French lady was out walking for the day and her destination was Les Cassés. She was evidently concerned about the rain. What she actually wanted, we finally figured out, was a lift to Les Cassés ‘cos she wasn’t dressed for inclement weather. Well, OK, we gave her a ride “avec plaisir”. I can’t figure out why anyone would set out on a cross country walk without being equipped for some weather. It does sometimes rain in France you know, madam.

Francine had wanted to head for Sorèze and lunch but given the change of weather we skipped it and bought some Teilles Sètoise from a supermarket instead. A specialty of Sète, these are little pies filled with a seafood mixture in some tomato-based sauce. They make a pleasant effort-free lunch.

We’d also purchased a pintade [guinea fowl] and planned to have the breasts this evening. I foolishly cycled uphill into Fanjeaux to the local alimentation thinking a mushroom sauce would moisten them slightly and add interest. The darn shop was shut so my puffing and panting had all been in vain. Drat! Instead I made a sauce of sautéed shallots, which I did have, with a little rose wine and some of our Polish grainy mustard, and damn good it was too. I shall repeat it.

My new recipe will henceforth be known as Pintade des Brugues (this campsite being Camping des Brugues).

[Another rock reference but a bit twisted this time: a nod to The Scorp’s Wind of Change.]

There are actually two winds that blow from the east/southeast in the Languedoc, the Autan (in either of its two forms) and the Marin. We thought we’d been enjoying the Autan but we’ve been told it’s actually the Marin. Since both blow from the same direction I’m wondering how one tells the difference.

Food shopping being a regular occurrence, scouting around in the local supermarket my eye was taken by some absolutely perfectly sized sardines which would do very nicely over some hand-imported New Forest charcoal on our portable Weber barbecue. Sadly, our trusty little Weber is on its last legs; a modest (so far) hole has rusted through the base so I covered it with a few layers of foil before lighting up. Just in case, I also covered the ground beneath the barbie with more layers of foil and, given the dry conditions, stood by with a watering can just to be on the safe side. Nothing untoward happened and the sardines were every bit as delicious as expected.

Continuing the food theme, we’d been invited up to the farm house, along with a couple of other regulars here from Belgium, for an evening meal with Luc and Nadine. Luc was serving up one of his “surplus” lambs. Lambing takes place in late November/early December. The main product eventually being the ewes milk collected to make Roquefort cheese. This, of course, means that the poor ol’ lambs can’t have the milk. Some of the female lambs are kept to refresh the herd of ewes but the males are destined for the Christmas tables. He keeps a few lambs for personal use, some of which is what was now on his large electric griddle.

Much of southern France bans open flame barbecues in the summer but they’re usually OK here. However, I’ve now learned that only electric and gas barbecues are allowed here in this exceptional year so I’ll have to adjust my cooking choices and, therefore, my purchases. There’s really no other decent way to deal with sardines.

As well as his sheep, Luc raises two or three pigs for personal consumption. These, he shares with his family. I think the “personal” bit gets him around the normal regulation to use an abattoir for slaughtering them. He likes to try his hand producing things gastronomic and supplemented his lamb with some home made chorizo for a bit of variety, and very good it was, too.

As enjoyable though the evening was, the Wind of Change blew strongly as the evening finished on a more sombre note. News had been filtering through during the day that all was far from well at Balmoral so it came as little surprise when we learned that our much loved Queen Elizabeth II had passed away. I think the French, having lopped the heads off their royal family many years ago, find (most of) our love of the monarchy a little strange. We should remember, though, that we are not alone and that there are fully six EU countries also still with royal families: Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and, of course, Holland. The Dutch are particular lovers of their royalty and we’ve been over to celebrate their “Queen’s Day”. We did sample some of their basically unpleasant orange liqueur but we drew the line at dressing in orange. So maybe we aren’t so strange after all.

The Queen is dead, long live the King.

Now, If I could only do something about our blasted National Anthem which sounds as though it were written by a 9-year old schoolboy.

[Very Led Zeppelin.]

Last night we’d watched an entertaining electric storm beyond the lake towards the Pyrenees. It seemed to be approaching but it didn’t get to us. This morning life was considerably calmer.

Wednesday is market day in Bram so off we went. There seemed to be a bit more atmosphere these days in Bram, maybe because of a couple of street cafes. We bought a fine magret de canard from a duck producer together with a slab of pate to go with a baguette for lunch. I fancied some olives, too, but the queue was too long.

There’s a grassy meadow dotted with shrubs on a high point overlooking Laurac. In the past this has been a happy hunting ground for all manner of insects. After the market we went to have a peek but this desiccated year we found pas un chat [which is apparently the French equivalent of “not a sausage”]. I’m going to have to turn into a regular tourist at this rate.

Wednesday is also the night our photographic club meets. This being the first meeting of the new season, Francine, as one of the programme secretaries, was keen to show a presence so used our campsite’s relatively new wi-fi set up to Zoom in. The meetings start at 19:30 which is 20:30 French time. The technology seemed to be working until an act of sabotage occurred. The neighbouring farmer decided the time was right to begin harvesting his sunflower crop. The field in question abuts Guillaume’s end of the campsite. Zoom communication got drowned out by the noisy clatter of a combine harvester busily munching sunflowers about 30m away. The harvester was considerably louder than Francine’s voice.

Well, it made a change from thunder and lightning. It was worth a try.