[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 tray. Now there’s a radical idea, making the shower screen sit on top of the shower tray instead of falling short by an inch and a half [~4 cms}. While the silicon sealant was curing, we’d been using the upstairs shower over the bath.

Here we were back in Spain and keen to have showers in our own shower room. We both showered and dried ourselves off. We hung the towels out on the balcony to dry in the sunny late afternoon air. I returned to the shower room where I was dismayed to notice a small amount of water at one corner of the outside of the shower tray. As I was looking, I was even more dismayed to notice a larger and much more disturbing pool of water at the opposite outside corner of the shower tray. Bugger! Clearly there was still a problem.

I spent a partly sleepless night considering what might be wrong. Since the shower screens were now correctly positioned, I began to fear a leak from the shower tray waste. In the morning, I set about a test; I began pouring 2-litre jugs of water down the shower waste. After four such jugs of water, no further water appeared where I had noticed them. Head scratching time again. I put the shower head on the floor of the shower and turned on with the screen doors closed. I noticed no problem at first but then Francine, now an onlooker, spotted water tracking along the shower tray below and outside of the shower screen.

Time to get prostrate on the floor. I peered under the aluminium and could just about make out at least one gap in the silicon sealant beneath the aluminium. For f**k’s sake, Mr. Bozo Plumber couldn’t even seal a shower screen correctly with it in the correct position. Actually, he’d done it all wrong anyway. Accepted practice is to position the aluminium and assemble the screen first, then seal around the outside edge of the screen where it meets the shower tray. It looked as if this sealant had been put down first then the aluminium of the screen positioned on top of it. How are you supposed to know you’ve put enough sealant down when you can’t see it? Either that, or he’d attempted to seal the inside and failed.

The bill for misfitting the screens twice was still outstanding. I could have withheld payment and got the idiot back for a third attempt. However, by now I didn’t trust him to be able to find his own arse with both hands, so I set about sealing the screen correctly myself and paid the outstanding bill whilst making my feelings known.

For pity’s sake, if you want a job done correctly, do it yourself. We can finally have our showers without turning our shower room into a swimming pool.

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 at least by 8:00 AM. That should give us an arrival time of about 4:00 PM leaving time to shop for our evening meal.

You know what it’s often like with an alarm set. Come 4:00 AM we were both awake, waiting for the alarm and thinking we wouldn’t get back to sleep again. The night was over. “We could always just get up and hit the road”, I risked suggesting. Francine seemed up for it. Packing up Guillaume and securing him for 2-week stay tout seul is inevitably a somewhat noisy business – stowing the water container, disconnecting the electricity, etc. – but we had no neighbours to disturb; the only other unit on site last night was on the far side of the campsite out of earshot, unless we got really noisy. So, decision made, we carefully packed up and drove gently out of the campsite at about 6:50 AM.

Jocund day, as Shakespeare would have had it, was breaking directly in front of us as we headed east on the French autoroute towards the dawn and the Mediterranean coast of France, before turning right and south towards Spain and its autopista. [Note to self: I really must look up jocund one day to find out just what a jocund day is.] Cruise control set to 75mph/120kph (good for both French and Spanish limits), pausing only at the occasional toll booth, service areas for an occasional pee break and a single fuel stop, the 500mls passed as we guessed in 8 hours. Pulling out to pass the odd small cluster of trucks with their cruise controls set to 56mph/90kph was about as difficult as it got. What a delight driving on these roads is, even if you do have to pay the tolls. A similar length journey in the UK would give one pause. We parked in Jalon for lunch at 2:00 PM before announcing our unscheduled arrival to our friends, who welcomed us warmly.

The heat was about to increase. Although the skies has done their frequent clearing trick as we crossed the Pyrenees, just south of Barcelona we ran into heavy black skies. torrential downpours followed swiftly. There were occasional breaks of lighter grey but essentially the weather was dreadful all the way down to about 30mls/50kms above Jalón. The stormy skies were moving south towards us. As we were remembering how to drive our Spanish house and preparing for a reunion meal with our friends in the evening lightening flashed and rumbles of thunder began. Then we noticed flames and plumes of smoke rising from the hillside across the valley from us, directly behind our friends’ house. A lightening strike must’ve set the scrub aflame on the hillside.

We called our friends who in turn tried calling the authorities but contact had already been made. Shortly, a couple of fire trucks headed along the valley to the blaze, not that trucks would be able to do much near the top of a mountain. Maybe this was a precautionary move in case the fire crawled down the hillside to habitation? Then a helicopter flew by and appeared to investigate the situation from above. It settled briefly, we think to drop off some fire fighters on the ground, took off again, now with a bucket slung beneath it, flew back up the valley and shortly returned with a load of water which it dumped on a chosen part of the fire.

As I was thinking that this looked like being a long job, one ‘copter bucket at a time, two yellow fixed wing aircraft appeared on the scene and joined in the fight. They appeared to be able to carry a heavier water load. Water bombing continued for a while after I could see no more flames glowing. What they didn’t want was a re-ignition. I know this type of flying is very hazardous and watching the professionalism was fascinating and educational.

Whilst a warm welcome was good to receive, I thought setting fire to the hillside was going a bit far, though. 🙂

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 other regular camping visitors have not materialized. Instead, they all seem to have decided en masse to visit in July when we’ll be heading back north.  Could it be that someone warned them we’d be here in June? 😀

Whatever, our first 6 days or so here were bathed in glorious sunshine and warmth/heat, depending upon your personal calorific scale. This week, however, has seen a downturn in the weather and the uncomfortable truth is that we’ve been here so often and for such periods of time that without our camping companions it’s all turned a bit samey. So, we took the decision to travel to Spain a week earlier than originally planned and have two weeks there instead of just one, leaving Guillaume in France in the hands of our camping hosts.

This week, though the weather has been less than settled, the three orages [storms] we’ve experienced have very thoughtfully been overnight. Now, I don’t really mind overnight rain; in fact, I find the thrumming/hammering of rain on Guillaume’s roof quite soothing in a cossetting kind of way. Yesterday (Thursday), which was actually quite pleasant, even if very windy, we told Nadine that we’d be heading for Spain on Saturday. That left today (Friday) for all our packing and securing of Guillaume – things such as taking down his awning.

Wouldn’t you just know it? This morning we woke to gentle rain, rain that was very English in nature. Very English in nature not only in the fact that it was less than a tropical downpour, more irritation rain than anything, but also in the way that it went on … and on … and on. We visited Limoux market in the morning and the dripping continued. We called into Bram for tonight’s supplies and still it dripped. Why today of all days? If it wanted to rain in the daytime, almost any other of our first 18 days in France would’ve been OK but today was the worst timing possible. I’d got about 12 square metres of saturated awning material to fold up and stow away, for Darwin’s sake! Today, I really could’ve done without the persistent dripping.

It did actually stop in the early afternoon and, though no blazing southern French sun emerged to dry the awning properly, it did seem to more or less dry off once the dripping had ceased, at least well enough to roll it loosely and stuff it in Guillaume’s shower tray for the duration of his abandonment.

It is my experience that meteorological events have an unerring sense of timing when it comes to screwing one up.

“You wanna pack up? I’m gonna rain.”

Just watch what happens to the wind speed and direction when you plan to start towing a caravan all the way back up France towards an appointment with a channel ferry. 😉

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 table. Quite why anyone would consider it good value to pay through the nose for food whilst at the same time killing their nose’s senses of smell and their mouth’s sense of taste with smoke is quite beyond me but I certainly didn’t appreciate their forcing me to do it and it ruins any financial outlay. Mercifully, in a more enlightened modern world, this reason has in some cases disappeared though Spain still suffers from it.

Alternatively, somebody might still turn up with poorly controlled children. English children are notoriously poorly behaved in my admittedly Victorian view and generally quite noisy in restaurants. I see no point paying £50-£100 on a meal for two only to have the ambience utterly ruined by Satan’s Little Disciples running riot. Once again, a complete waste of money. The French, bless them, seem much better at controlling the fruits of their loins. In fact, pretty much everyone seems better than the British at controlling their offspring. [possible exception: America.] Freedom of expression is complete nonsense and has been taken much too far. freedom of anything should always be tempered by respect others. End of sermon!

Our neighbour chez nous is also a near-neighbour in Spain and is very fond of eating a menu del día in Spain for lunch. Typically, this might be, say, 15€ for three courses, including wine. Nominally that represents exceptional value. It is, of course, usually pretty straightforward food that could easily be done at home for even less but my main problem with this approach is that, frankly, we don’t want that much food at lunchtime. I’d much rather have a simple bocadillo [sandwich] at lunchtime.

Evenings would be better for a few courses but, quite apart from the fact that I have to stay sober enough to drive, I frequently come away from a restaurant feeling a little disappointed; disappointed by the fact that I’ve just spent a fair wedge of the folding stuff on food that I could’ve prepared for myself, in a fashion suited to myself, at a time that suited myself and accompanied by wine quantities that suited myself with no need to drive. We have, on occasion, found ourselves waiting in a busy restaurant in the evening almost interminably for the bill when we just wanted to pay and get back to Guillaume to collapse.

So, that’s lunchtimes and evenings dispensed with, then. 🙂

Fear not, there are exceptions to my general restaurant exclusion rule. One exception might occur when the food might be sufficiently complex for me to want to leave it to someone else, though I don’t mind a fair amount of complexity. The more likely exception these days occurs as a result of the unavailability of some ingredient that simply makes it impossible to do at home. It was this exception that led us off to Gruissan  today. Whilst I prefer not to spend 15€ on a menu del dia 3-course lunch three or four times a week, I positively jump at the chance to lash out wads of cash, in this case 70€ , on a wonderful French plateau de fruits de mer. I love seafood and it is simply almost impossible to get raw seafood fresh enough to attempt any semblance of such thing in England. Here is food that you positively must play with, much to your mother’s disgust. They are great fun and today we set off to Gruissan on the Mediterranean coast to get one.

We know the seafood shack at Gruissan from a previous visit; no airs and graces, just shared trestle tables that get loaded with spankingly fresh seafood. Our plateau consisted of a crab [cooked – don’t panic], raw oysters, raw mussels, cooked prawns and cooked whelks, all washed down with a decent bottle of white wine. Incidentally, many years ago I accidentally tried eating a live whelk and, trust me, they are much better cooked. For those not keen on any raw food, there are other cooked options, such as fish baked in a salt crust. Here is one. 😀

Ah, now the salt – yes! The colour of the water surrounding the metal fish above is, in fact, pink. Your eyes do not deceive you and I haven’t been messing with the colour balance. The pink colouration is entirely natural. This wonderful seafood shack overlooks a salt pan at Gruissan. As the intensity of the salt increases with the evaporation of the water, the remaining solution turns pink. Curious but photographically very interesting. I cannot remember quite why we used to use the phrase “sky blue pink” when I was young and I certainly never thought I’d be able to use it literally but here, I can. Again, other than using a polarizing filter to intensify the colour a little, this is entirely natural.

Francine snagged a picture of a huge mound of salt, together with a couple of folks very considerately standing by it to show the scale, that had been harvested. I’m assuming the rusty looking tractor, with what appears to be metal rear wheels, has something to do with the process but don’t quote me.

Incidentally, as we were there taking pictures after our wonderful plateau de fruits de mer, one of the guys at the restaurant came out and emptied a pan load of used salt back into the water. Great recycling!

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 a very large flea market, was Rennes-les-Bains, an attractive sounding spa town. On our approach, we drove past a fair number of people playing about in the river which flows through town from nearby springs. Being a Sunday, I thought it might be busy and that parking might be difficult but no, we got parked with no difficulty.

Heading straight for the river on our wander about town, our expectations of a well shod spa town soon evaporated. Whilst some of the river front properties, a restaurant, for example, looked well decorated and cared for, a good number of the river front was decidedly run down or, in some cases, just unfinished. Here’s a couple of example shots looking both ways along the river from a bridge. One way doesn’t look too bad, perhaps almost inviting given the colours and sunshine, but just look at the unfinished masonry off the monstrosity in the left of the second shot. Why on earth ..?

We’d have thought so much more could have been made of the place. Frankly, it looked seedy. One possible explanation occurred to us in the form of dropouts those seeking an alternative lifestyle, a number of which were wandering around in the baggy Kasbah trousers that they seem to favour. Perhaps when such folks move in, markets are affected and investment becomes pointless. Or maybe I’m just cynical.

A beer would have been a pleasant refreshment in a better environment but we decided against it and moved on in search of Arques and some nearby red earth that we’d seen mention of. We found it. Now, here’s a thing. I favour brown-tinted sunglasses as opposed to those nasty smoke-grey-tinted jobs. The former seem to enhance colours whereas grey flattens them and makes the world look a generally duller place. There is a potential problem with the former, however. We rounded a corner to be confronting by gobsmackingly red earth. Pull over and remove sunglasses to take a photo. Wait a minute, where did the gobsmacking red go? Sunglasses back on. Ah, there it is! The brown-tint has a similar effect to putting an 81C/D/E – you pick the strength – warm up filter on your camera. In these days of digital post-processing, such filters are almost a thing of the past, forcing you to do it Photoshop/Lightroom/your chosen digital darkroom. Anyway, here’s a shot from Francine, somewhat post-processed.

We did find a small village called Serres with an appealing river front complete with shady picnic tables for lunch. We skipped the beer, though there was a bar across the road, mainly because we thought it might be more interested in serving Sunday lunch as opposed to just a couple of drinks. As a bonus for yours truly, the river was supporting a decent population of dragonflies, including a couple that we’d not yet seen on this trip, most impressive being the Large Pincertail/Blue-eyed Hooktail (Onychogomphus uncatus), with its fearsome looking claspers. Quite how those help in a passionate embrace is beyond me. 😉

… 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 fly-throughs It was, though,a very thriving population with many breeding species and some in very large numbers. Swarms of various types of blue-striped damselflies (Coenagrionidae) used to be able to be seen ovipositing on the lake’s floating vegetation. Dragonflies rarely swarm but there were certainly large numbers of Red-veined Darters (Sympetrum fonscolombii) and Broad Scarlets/Scarlet Darters (Crocothemis eryhtaea) present. Also well represented were the ubiquitous Black-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) and the slightly less ubiquitous White-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum albistylum).

A few years ago, enter the Grass Carps and the ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp intensively reared by a fish farmer with his own agenda and who, we suspect, “advised” farmer Luc about the lake’s ecology. The ecology certainly changed. The erstwhile abundant bird life disappeared completely as did the vegetation [Grass Carp – there’s a clue in the name]. The Libellule population also crashed. Several species disappeared altogether and those that remained appeared to be hanging on by their wing tips; no more swarms, just species represented by a few individuals, their populations now counted in single digits.

Last year we saw no evidence of the ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp, though there were still many schools of fish of varying sizes to be seen cruising about. Also visible were a few huge leviathans which may well be the vegetation-eating Grass Carp. Farmer Luc visited us in England last year and he seemed to realize that the ecology of his lake had been changed for the worse. I think he wants to redress the balance.

What of this year?

This year, we see (again) no evidence of any ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp, just the floating feeding device lashed in a quiet corner of the lake unused. There are still very many fish of varying sizes, though perhaps less than last year, which would be a move in the right direction. We’ve been told by Marcel, farmer senior, that a Cormorant took up residence for quite a while and was doing its best to reduce the fish population. Now, however, other than an occasional visit by a passing Mallard, there is no sign of any birdlife on the lake. Neither, still, can I see any evidence of floating vegetation, the vegetation that is so necessary for damselfly oviposition. The story remains much the same as last year but with possibly less fish.

Thus far I have again logged 10 species of Odonata but all in very low numbers. The one species that does seem to be doing quite well is the Western Clubtail (Gomphus pulchellus), which we’ve seen probably approaching double digits. Of one of the previously most numerous dragonfly species, the Red-veined Darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii), a normally very successful species with a reproduction cycle of less than a year, I have seen so far just one example. The Broad Scarlet/Scarlet Darter (Crocothemis erythraea), also previously very numerous, looks as if it has disappeared altogether. I noticed this last year but wondered if we were ahead of the flight season. This year I know that’s not the case because other lakes nearby are supporting good numbers of them already.

I’m happier to note that the delightful Tree Frogs, missing last year, have this year returned to the trees and hedgerows lining the campsite pitches. Their demise could well have been down to a severe winter with considerable snow fall a couple of years ago. Also, though we have still seen no sign of any tadpoles, we have have had an allmost nightly chorus of water frogs croaking in the lake and come eye to eye with a small froglet in the grass just beyond Guillaume. So, I imagine the water frogs are managing to breed and that some spawn is surviving the appetites of the still large fish population.

The lake, though, remains a somewhat sad sight, given the rich diversity of life that used to thrive here. At least no further damage is being done but, alas, significant damage has already been done. What is needed is some vegetation, not only for the Odonata but also for water birds – dabbling ducks need something to dabble for, after all. I’m wondering if what is needed is a good handful of predatory fish. Some Perch would make short work of the shoals of smaller fish and maybe a Pike or two would deal with the larger buggers. Then perhaps we’d get some vegetation back in the lake.

Dream on, Franco. I imagine nature will eventually strike a more natural balance once again; I’m just impatient. 😉

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 we want him but the discussions have to be had. I nudged him forward, facing the lake, and checked how level he was side to side. Not bad, he needed just one wooden block under a wheel to bring him to level. Brakes on, wheels chocked (he’s pointing downhill), corner steadies down and we were here.

I didn’t notice disturbing anything in the business of setting up – connecting the waste, connecting a water supply, etc. – but this morning, as I was topping up the water and rummaging around in Guillaume’s nose locker for Darwin-knows-what, I heard a frenetic flutter from one of the bushes beside our pitch. I peered into the bush and just about at eye level noticed a small bird’s nest. Nobody was home.

After finishing a few chores I returned to peer at the bird’s nest again and was delighted to see a small bird hunker down into it. Guillaume had a neighbour about 5ft/1.5m away from his nose but getting a decent look at the bird to try to identify it was very difficult. More than anything else, having pitched right next to its chosen home, we were very keen to disturb it as little as possible. I’d feel terrible if we caused a bird to abandon a nest and clutch of eggs. It seemed reasonably tolerant in that you had to get really close to cause the poor thing to flee but we determined to give it as wide a berth as possible.

After several failed attempts, I managed to get a decent lie up with a long telephoto while mum was sitting on the nest. I had thought perhaps Spotted Flycatcher but once a recognisable photo was to hand it clearly wasn’t flecked enough. My next thought was a warbler of some kind, say a ChiffChaff or Willow Warbler but they have greenish heads and eye stripes. Nah! Our culprit had a russet brown cap. Ah, female Blackcaps have a brown cap, perverse creatures that they are. Guillaume’s neighbour was a nesting Blackcap. Sometimes hubby took over egg-sitting and, with a distinctly black cap, was much more readily recognisable. [The bird in the picture, by the way, is panting, not singing – temperatures were hitting 33°C/91°F today.]

Still no camping neighbours for Guillaume, which suits us, though it isn’t so hot for Luc and Nadine.

We’ve spent a pleasant week in the Marais Poitevin with Mike & Linda but now it’s time for us to head south. What we haven’t done yet is pay for our 8-night stay at the Arçais camping municipale. francois, the man in charge, was not around yesterday when, normally, we’d have paid. With a 320-mile/500-kilometre journey ahead of us towing Guillaume, we needed a reasonably early start and nobody turned up by the time we hit the road. We decided to leave the money with Mike & Linda (they do know Francois) and taped a note in very bad French explaining on the door of the acceuil [reception]. Hopefully the gendarmes would not be chasing us down the autoroute to Fanjeaux.

We were not looking forward to some sections of this journey. We had done the route down the autoroute to Bordeaux and round it a couple of years ago, solo, and the roads around Bordeaux had been a snarled up nightmare. Happily our fears for a repeat performance were unfounded and we sailed around Bordeaux with no hindrance. What a dull autoroute the A10 down to Bordeaux is, though, at 55mph/90kph with Guillaume in tow. We hadn’t noticed when flashing past mile after mile of nothing but trees with no views beyond when driving solo. Now, Francine was getting very bored with nothing to look at and no navigating to do. 😉

The forecast for our run into the deep south had been good. The weather was apparently set fair for the remainder of the work and temperatures were supposed to climb markedly. The forecast seemed accurate, for today, at least; as we approached Fanjeaux the car’s thermometer was reading 29°C. I love it. Let’s hope the accuracy remains for the rest of the week.

Nadine, farmer Luc’s wife spotted us arriving on the single track road to the farm and left the sheep milking sheds to welcome us. We went on down to the campsite to get Guillaume installed and have a very necessary beer or three.

We haven’t quite got the site to ourselves, there is a French tent on the back row, which is level and suited to tents.

The Marais Poitevin is in some ways quite unlike anywhere else we’re familiar with in France. One of the most enjoyable shopping experiences in France, even for one such as myself who does not regard shopping as a recreational pastime, is wandering around one of the iconic French street markets. The reason for my making an exception here, of course, is that a good proportion of the street markets centre on French gastronomy and I’m likely to stumble across something that I can’t resist trying. The weirdest thing for us about the Marais Poitevin is its almost complete lack of markets. What happened to the French love of street markets here? We used to stay in Damvix a couple of miles down the road and that occasionally has an oyster stall set up shop in the street. Once we happened upon a rarely occurring farmers’ market there, too, but that’s it; no regular weekly street market. Now we stay at Arçais to make visiting Mike and Linda easier and that seems to lack a street market, too. Odd!

Most of our shopping when in Arçais is done in one of two supermarkets, a Super-U at Magné and an Intermarché at Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon. Both are a not too arduous car ride away. Our purchases here can occasionally be supplemented by a relatively meagre choice of items from a small local Coop at Arçais.

Unknown to us, however, there is a relatively little known further source of some specialist items from a very bizarre shop tucked away in an unnamed village/hamlet in the marsh. Mike, having lived here for a number of years, knows the area pretty well but even he had trouble finding this place for the first time. Telling someone where a shop is is a little difficult with no name involved; directions are about the only option. Directions concerning some of the more minor roads threading their way through the marsh can get quite convoluted. Nonetheless, Mike now knew roughly where this curious shop was and managed to take us there.

Mike parked outside a house in the said unnamed hamlet. [Silly choice of phrase – without a name how can the hamlet be a “said hamlet”? Just a thought.] The “shop” was clearly a converted garage on the side of the house. What makes this shopping experience most enjoyable is that the first thing the proprietor, Jean-Claude, does as a new customer enters his bijou establishment is to pour them a glass of wine. He generally pours himself another glass, too, of course. As the day wears on, Jean-Claude gets steadily more inebriated.

Several customers were already browsing around this marsh curiosity as we were receiving our welcome drinks. What they were browsing was a goodly selection of goats cheeses and some hams and sausages in vacuum packs. There was a fair spread of booze on offer, too, above a selection of eggs, some of which looked like quails eggs and others more like ducks eggs. I made my selections: two crottins of goats cheese and two packs of saucisses and approached Jean-Claude to pay. “Go and get another goats cheese”, said Jean-Claude (in French, of course). I happily complied. There was no till. I suppose a till would be far too formal in an establishment such as this, after all. Besides, Mike is quite sure that the authorities know nothing of this backstreet business in an unnamed hameau. Totals were arrived at on an elderly calculator and the till, as such , was Jean-Claude’s pocket. I think you’re probably quite right, Mike. 🙂

The sausages, I have to say, were the best I have ever tasted in France. [Hic!]