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 al fresco seafood restaurant that overlooks a series of salt pans where, if the timing is right, the water turns a fabulous shade of pink. It’s quite spectacular the first time you see it. We have been there a few times and enjoyed a wonderful plateau de fruits de mer, a seafood platter with all manner of crustaceans.

One of the main events we were looking forward to on this trip was a birthday lunch for Francine and, of course, what we really wanted was a reprise; another chance to pig out on seafood. We departed Fanjeaux at about 10:00 to give us an hour to wander around the town before descending upon the restaurant.

Monday turned out to be market day in Gruissan and it was busier than we’ve ever seen it. We restricted ourselves to buying a plait of Lautrec garlic – Lautrec garlic is supposedly very good garlic – before heading round to the restaurant.

Disaster! The car park was heaving and the restaurant was fully booked. We have never experienced that before. Other changes had been made in that the dining area was no longer particularly al fresco but had been glassed in (there had always been a roof). Even the salt pans weren’t particularly pink. I can’t resist reusing this shot from 2018 when the water really was stunningly pink. It’s quite a sight.

We returned to the town where the market was now being cleared up and found a small restaurant facing the square which was advertising a plateau on it’s chalk board. It was good but not quite the slap-up feast we envisioned for Francine’s birthday; it was slightly less varied and about half the price. Still seafood it was and it went down well with a bottle of white wine.

In the evening back on the campsite at Fanjeaux, Luc and Nadine turned up at our pitch bearing gifts for Francine in the form of a little hamper of local goodies: olive oil, tomato and basil pasta and a grinder with a mix of Gruissan seasalt and rainbow peppercorns. That went some way to softening the blow.

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 6 people waiting. We decided not to add to the crush and did a swift plan change to call in to the supermarket at Bram instead. That was more civilized. What’s with Sunday morning shopping at Castelnaudary, we wondered?

Our sheep farm campsite at Fanjeaux, Les Brugues, is frequented by many regulars, particularly from the Netherlands and Belgium as well as the UK. We’ve been part of Team UK since 2006 and so are familiar with being happily reunited with various members of Team Netherlands and Team Belgium.

This year we are the only representatives of Team UK but there were three units here representing three generations of one family from Team Belgium: a lady in one caravan, her son in another, and her granddaughter with partner in a tent. Being regulars, and longer serving regulars than us, Team Belgium had also been with us to the farm house gatherings which makes for an interesting evening juggling languages. The lady is delightful and it was good to see her again. We hadn’t met her son before but we were soon getting on quite well. He shares an interest in nature.

What Team Belgium’s son apparently didn’t share was an interest in alcohol. This proved to be to my advantage. An overnight camper had left several bottles of beer on their pitch, presumably accidentally, when they vacated it and moved on. Our new friend discovered it and, since it was of no use to him, donated it to our sanity fund. It was Heineken, so not my first choice but at least it was proper Dutch Heineken and not the rubbish brewed under license in the UK. It was a welcome gift.

I do not understand why most of the European beers that are available in the UK are brewed under license and, IMO, ruined. Few of them are the “originals”. Stella Artois is decent in Belgium, Heineken is decent in Holland and Kronenbourg 1664 is decent in France but British brewers manage to wreck them. We are simply unable to brew decent lager, it seems.

A fourth member of Team Belgium arrived in the shape of nice lady’s daughter. Her caravan, which is kept at the farm, had been positioned for her by farmer Luc. We did know her from a previous trip and now she turned up with her partner. Getting reacquainted was at first a pleasant prospect. That changed rapidly when she announced that she now had a dog, “but don’t worry, he doesn’t bark”. It was a 1-year old male Bull Terrier and was pure muscle. Remaining standing when the damn thing jumped up you, despite being told “nicht springen” (or words to that effect) was a bit of a challenge. I really should have explained that dogs speak English, not foreign languages like Flemish, French or German. I heard partner mutter the word “kak” (sp?) which I knew meant that, once out of the car, the dog had crapped on the campsite.

This was the last time I heard the dog that doesn’t bark not bark. Next time I saw it or, rather, it saw me, it launched into a series of barks. A hefty male Bull Terrier has a loud bark, though I don’t recall hearing one bark before. If anyone else dared to wander past Belgian Daughter’s pitch it launched into more barking. For the sake of peace and quiet I began to feel that I needed to keep out of the bastard thing’s line of sight. I was trapped in my pitch. I would hate to meet a Belgian dog that actually did bark. Go to the sanitaire – bark; fetch water – bark; take the loo to the vidoir to empty it – bark. Since stopping it was impossible, after a while we began turning winding it up into a sport.

This was a lesson in how to ruin a normally peaceful, calm campsite in one fell swoop. Happily, I’d made an email reservation at a campsite near Marseillan from 21st and we would be moving on in a couple of days. Moving now would have been even more appealing but I didn’t want to complicate my reservation.

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 the 18kms drive to see it unencumbered.

Not being market day, parking was a little easier. We may have come to the the architecture but on our short stroll from car to town we passed a shop window with an impressive display of medieval computer architecture. Here were several trips down memory lane all gathered together.

Unfortunately, once in the main square, even sans marché it was encumbered by a funfair and stage beneath the impressive wrought-iron-supported market hall roof. It also seems to have a permanent fixture of a merry-go-round that, whilst it could be quite interesting in itself, rather spoils many of the potential views, particularly because it always seems to be covered in netting. One side of the square was relatively clear and will give an idea of the buildings. There’re so many café umbrellas, though that the cloister beneath the upper level can’t really be seen. If only photographers were involved in arranging such stuff.

I just sat in the sun and let Francine wander with her camera. The architecture hadn’t really seemed to hit the spot for her so she let her creative juices flow on a clothes rail with an array of blue dresses which got a more artistic approach.

Once Francine had finished wandering, we picked one of the many cafés and sat with a cup of coffee to watch the world go by, occasionally glancing at the net-covered carousel. Part of the world didn’t go go by but came and sat at the adjoining table in our café. They were a Brit couple who were also soaking up the Mirepoix atmosphere. They were keen to pick our brains, such as they are. It seems they were on a Great Rail Journey holiday and were staying at Carcassonne having arrived there via the TGV. They had been bussed to Mirepoix and weren’t being picked up until 15:00. They were wondering what to do in Mirepoix for 3 hours. Ah, well, once you’ve studied the ancient architecture for 10-15 minutes, drink coffee and have lunch, if you can find a spare table.

When there is a lack of public loos, there is something cyclic about needing to sit and drink coffee or, worse, beer, so that you can use an establishment’s loo with impunity. The very act of drinking means that you shortly need another loo, which is where we came in.

We’d already had one day overshadowed by the news of Queen Elizabeth II passing away. Now we had a second overshadowed by a more personal event. We had been planning a birthday celebration for Francine together with friends who were also holidaying in France in September. Our arrangements were cancelled when they rushed homewards because their teenage (step) grandson was gravely ill with cancer. Devastatingly, he passed away before they could complete their journey.

If there is a God, he or she has one heck off a lot to answer for. Frankly I’m surprised anyone can believe.

Which leads me to this. So ingrained in our society is religion that folks in our higher positions of authority are simply not allowed, at least publicly, not to believe. No sooner had King Charles III become monarch than he was intoning “.. whatever time God gives me …” in his address which, I have to say, he delivered impeccably. He is required to show faith. I believe the same is true for American presidential hopefuls if they are to stand a chance of being elected. They can behave in as ungodly a fashion as possible, like you-know-who of recent times, but must profess to being a believer. At least in our legal system, I think you could choose to swear an oath on Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” rather than the Bible, if you so wished.

… 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.