Yesterday, after our enjoyable visit to the market at Revel, we stopped in at the Lac de Lenclas for our picnic lunch of aligot [a regional potato and cheese goop mixed with a rowing oar] and some chiffonade [paper-thin sliced ham]. The lake itself is a dammed fishing lake nestling in a bend of La Rigole, the purpose built canal that feeds water into the much larger Canal du Midi. There is a restaurant and rugrat play area on site but our attraction is the population of Odonata. We’re in an irritatingly unsettled weather system à ce moment but the day was half way reasonable so we thought we’d see who we could find.

As we were working our way through our aligot lunch, a man appeared to be having some kind of bonfire. We couldn’t actually see the fire, which was behind his car from where we sat, only the rising smoke and heat haze were visible. Adjusting our viewing angle, we could see that he was setting fire to some seriously sized pieces of ex-tree in a large metal trough. Curious, we thought, then, having finished our lunch, set off around the lake in search of Odos leaving him to his fire. When we returned, the fire was well under way and the man had been joined, not only by another man together with a couple of glasses of beer, but also by an entire pig – well, entire except for the head – which was now rotating slowly on a spit about 1m/3ft above the fire. Hog roast French style – how splendid!

One useful technique when watching Odos, particularly in an Odo-rich area, is, rather than chasing them ,which can tend to scare them off, is to stand still and wait for them to come to you. Though this wasn’t the conscious thought involved, one did settle on the track near Francine’s feet as she was standing still during our tour of the lake. Fortunately, not only did she have the correct lens mounted (the longer one, 75-300mm) but she’s just about tall enough for her feet to be a little beyond the lens’s minimum focus distance. Snap; snap, snap, snap, she went.

The first snap was the best shot, as it so often is. Her visitor was the most interesting spot of the day. It’s a female Common Clubtail (Gomphus vulgatissimus). I’d snagged a male before on Le Loir at Luché-Pringé but I hadn’t got a shot of a female; this was our first.

Once back at Guillaume and able to study the photos a little more closely, our female Common Clubtail’s abdomen looked a little more curious. Here’s a blow-up of the tip of her abdomen. Something is clearly clinging to the underside of the abdomen tip. I’d remembered reading something in the Dijkstra/Lewington Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe concerning the Two-spotted Dragonfly/Eurasian Baskettail (Epitheca bimaculata), which we affectionately refer to as the European Basketcase:

Females carry an egg mass under their up-curved abdomen tip while searching for a suitable oviposition site. The ball of eggs unravels into a gelatinous strand when it is deposited in flight on floating plants.

I assume that this habit of carrying an egg mass on their abdomen is the very reason these dragonflies are called Baskettails. I can’t find any similar comment concerning Clubtail dragonflies but could this be what is shown in our picture? We suspect it is an egg mass, though I’ll need to consult other authorities at a later date.

Interesting day.

Fortunately, although France is full of both supermarchés and hypermarchés, the French still love a proper, old-fashioned street market. Market day seems to be quite a social occasion with friends meeting and nattering whilst wandering around the vast array of foodstuffs and prepared foods on offer. Shopping for food is a very serious affair not to be hurried. Here are a few customers discussing the finer points of olives with this particular vendor. During their market marathon, folks will sit at a street cafe and re-invigorate themselves with a cup of coffee or maybe even a pastis. It’s all great fun.

The market at Sarlat-la-Canéda in the Dorgogne region has a reputation as “the finest market in France”, at least in some circles. It is certainly enormous; to my mind it is actually a bit too big and can seem somewhat daunting. It is undoubtedly, though, a great place to buy the specialities of the Périgord region.

In this neck of the woods the market at Mirepoix is very good, albeit a little a touristy, often with English voices outnumbering the French voices once the season is underway. Our favourite market in this area must be the market at Revel, which is held on Saturdays and is very well attended by real, local French people. Revel has a magnificent square in the middle of town housing the old market hall constructed of some very impressive, clearly ancient wooden timbers. Doubtless, the woodworm think it’s market day every day. This shot shows about a quarter of the covered area.

The four streets surrounding the outside of the old market hall are crammed on both sides with more stalls dedicated to gastronomy in one way or another. On this occasion there were also a number of people attempting to give away young kittens, though not for the pot, I imagine. Oh, I don’t know, though, they’ll eat pretty much anything in this country. 🙂

As well as raw ingredients, meat, fish and vegetables etc., several stalls sell prepared food. Here’s an example of a stall with at least six meals available, all cooked on the day in large paellas. [I desperately wanted to type “paella pans” but since paella means this type of pan, saying “paella pan” would have been like saying “pan pan”, if you see what I mean. Anyway …] On offer here, amongst others, are brandade (closest – a salt cod concoction), paella (the meal, not the pan) and moules (furthest away – mussels).

There are stalls selling clothes and table cloths, etc. but they are in another nearby section of town. One more reason why I like this market at Revel – I can avoid that section completely. 😀

We bought ourselves a sample of a local speciality called aligot which seems to consist of cheese and creamed potatoes stirred together into a stomach-cuddling, gooey mass with a large wooden paddle in un unfeasibly large pot. This made a change from our usual purchase of a poulet roti [rotisseried chicken] and we retired to one of our dragonfly lakes for a picnic.

Have you noticed that sometimes in life you may learn or bump into something new and, as soon as you have, that something seems to keep re-occurring for a while making you end up wondering how you ever missed it for so long? No? Stop reading now. 🙂

At the end of our 2011 autumn trip to La Belle France, we arrived back in Normandy a day ahead of schedule and, with a day to occupy before our ferry, decided to visit Dieppe for the first time. All I knew of Dieppe prior to that concerned an abortive military invasion by the allies during the second world war. Now I know more. Dieppe has a magnificent Saturday street market and an attractive harbour surrounded by several popular seafood restaurants. We called in to one of the restaurants for lunch and noted that we were lucky to have arrived early; most tables were booked and we had no reservation but we did get in. [Note: in future, make a reservation.]

The spécialité de la maison [house speciality] as a starter at our chosen restaurant was foie de lotte [monkfish liver]. The first thing I do at my relatively rare visits to restaurants, particularly in a foreign country, is to scan the menu for main ingredients that I’ve never eaten before. Here was a grand example of just that; other than cod liver oil capsules being forced down my neck as a child, I’d never come any where near eating fish liver. Francine fancied it too; we both ordered it. It was served cold and tasted unlike anything we’d previously eaten. It seemed to me to have a very slight hint of vinegar in the flavour. I’ve no idea how it had been prepared but we both liked it a lot. [lotte – get it?] 😯

Earlier this year in Spain, our UK neighbours arrived while we were house-and-dog-sitting and invited us to dinner at their hacienda. Dinner was to be a Rick Stein [Ed: all hail!] recipe involving rice, grilled red peppers and monkfish – essentially something like a monkfish and red pepper paella. Our neighbour bought a monkfish from the local Mercadona supermercat [or supermeerkat, as we like to call it]. Unlike in England, where many foodstuffs are painfully sanitized, said monkfish came complete with (ugly) head and liver. In sensible Spain, one is expected to make stock from the head and eat the liver. Naturally, these expectations were not set by anyone hailing from England. Mr. Neighbour froze the accessories and just used the monkfish tail, which is all we ever get to see in our sceptred isle.

During previous trips here, we’d noticed foie de lotte on sale in the Super-U supermarché down in Mirepoix. Today we saw it again. “Oh what the hell”, we thought adventurously, and went and bought some. Being a “spécialité de la maison” in Dieppe, I was expecting something relatively pricey but no, it was dirt cheap at a mere €7.xx per kilo. Having discussed various methods of preparation, still not knowing the Dieppe restaurants secret, we decided to serve it as a salade tiède [warm salad] with lardons over lettuce. Quite good it was, too, though I think I’d cut it thinner next time. I’ll stop short of claiming it to have been very good; calves liver is very good and has one gasping for more. Calves liver is also much more expensive and rightly so.

I’d still like to know how the foie de lotte had been prepared in Dieppe. 😉

Beside the beginning of the narrow, local road which is the final approach to our Fanjeaux campsite, is an area which is used as a gravel storage area, presumably for road works and the like. Sometimes it is piled so high with gravel that stopping there would be ill-advised, to say the least. This time, however, the stocks of gravel seemed to be very low and the area was largely clear. As we were returning from today’s shopping and blogging expedition and entering this last road, Francine excitedly asked me to stop. I pulled in to the now largely clear gravel repository.

Francine clambered out, crossed to the opposite grass verge and began peering at the ground. She returned saying that she’d found a new orchid – new to her, that is, not to science. 😉 Where’s your camera when you need it? Back at the campsite, of course. We’d return later after lunch.

As usual, lunch included sharing a carafe of vino so we weren’t about to drive before giving our metabolism a chance to work on the offending alcohol. At about 5:00 PM though, I reckoned a return trip complete with camera gear was safe enough so off we set. The previously largely empty gravel storage area was now full of large articulated lorry [truck in Amerispeak] manoeuvring to dump a huge load of fresh gravel. We parked elsewhere and returned to the new orchid on foot. As we did so, a second large lorry arrived with a second, equally huge load of gravel.

Francine’s new orchid (left) is, she thinks, a Man Orchid (Aceras anthropophorum). It was in the company of a few of the probably more often seen Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis). Lorry driver stepped out of his cab, presumably eventually intent on discussing the finer points of gravel dumping with his fellow driver, and first wandered over to us asking what we were looking at. “Orchidae”, we replied in our best French, whereupon he switched into stilted English and told us he had five or six orchids at his home in Quillan, which he was careful not to cut down with his mower. If only other Frenchmen were so considerate. We’ve seen municipal verges containing many orchids decimated by municipal fauchage [grass-cutting].

Being on a roll, we continued searching other rough ground near by at the same road junction. Here we discovered a few examples of two of our favourite orchids, the Lizard Orchid (Himantoglossum hircinum) and Bee Orchid (Ophrys apifera).

After a slightly disappointing trip in search of Pyrenean flowers, we find four different orchids within a few metres of each other a mere kilometre or so from our campsite. I think this served as a reasonable consolation prize for Francine. Happy camper.

[Note: the scientific names used here are from old reference books and may have been changed.]

[With humble apologies to Mussorgsky.]

The main reason for our making this trip basically begin at Fanjeaux instead of the more normal end at Fanjeaux, was for Francine to investigate the mountain spring flowers in the Pyrenees. Mountains being what they are, such excursions must be planned to coincide with clear weather, of course. Today’s forecast was grand and looked like our best chance yet so we set off early to maximise our time at our chosen first likely spot and one of our favourites, the plateau at Soulcem.

After a 90-minute drive we arrived and parked. On the last 30 minutes of the drive climbing up the valley to the barrage [dam] we’d both been thinking, “don’t seem to be masses of flowers beside the road” but saying nothing. Once at the plateau and while we were getting our cameras ready, there didn’t seem to be masses of flowers either; how disappointing for Francine.

Neither were there masses of people, though there did seem to be a little activity around the loo area, the building for which seemed to have a large curtain affair draped over one side of it. I spotted something, some rapid movement, in the left periphery of my vision and then thought, “no, it can’t possibly have been”. After all, with a cataract developing in my right eye, visual acuity isn’t my strong point. As I was doubting my own 1½ eyes, Francine piped up with, “there’s a naked woman running down that hill over there.” I used my camera’s telephoto lens as a telescope and saw a woman return up the hill but she was wearing a gown. Shortly she removed the gown, threw it to an accomplice and, sure enough, ran naked down the hill again. My telescope became a camera again. 😉

Along with the disrobing assistant, whose job it was to deposit the robe at the end of the lady’s run, a short way down the hill were some chaps armed with a variety of cameras and microphones. There were other men standing around dressed in what appeared to be period mountain garb: knee-length leather boots, smocks, rifles etc. – and there was clearly some location filming in progress. I assume that the curtain draped around the small building served as a dressing room for the cast, though quite what a woman about to run naked in public would need with a dressing room eludes me.  😀

Streaking female actors aside, here’s what we really came here for. The flowers may not have put in a appearance en masse but the trip wasn’t a complete blank. After naked lady excitement, we wandered off up the valley to the high pasture and Francine was very happy to see several stunningly blue Gentians, probably Southern Gentian (Gentiana alpina). Francine’s other floral find was this rather delicate-looking Alpine Clover (Trifolium alpinum).

We knew we’d be meeting old friends, fellow fans of Fanjeaux, here and with a national celebration approaching, the temptation to arrange a 60th jubilee party for La Reine proved irresistible. Very graciously, we thought, Ma’am accepted our invitation to attend. She probably realized that the weather in the south of France on the first Sunday in June would be likely to be better than that in London. Very wise, Ma’am, if I may make so bold.

[Naturally, for security reasons, faces have been obscured on the following pictures.]

Tentative arrangements made, Francine set about a few advanced preparations before we set sail in the form of some red, white and blue bunting. Here is an example of it. Although these particular bunting flags may look a little like chopped up pairs of Francine’s knickers, I can assure readers that none of Francine’s knickers, at least, none that I’ve seen, are actually large enough to make flags. No expense spared for such an auspicious occasion, these are of specially purchased material. Francine also spotted an appropriately patriotic plasticized table cloth to guard against any royal red wine spillages. Good thinking!

A few hours before our guest of honour arrived, I fired up the trusty travelling Weber grill and put on a shoulder of lamb, expertly boned and rolled with a little local wild rosemary by Francine. I’d really wanted to cook a Crown Roast – seemed particularly appropriate – but the lid of the travelling Weber isn’t quite tall enough to accommodate one of those so a boned and rolled shoulder it was. With the meat taken care of, the reception committee had time to string up some flags in the banqueting hall to make Ma’am feel at home.

Once the food was well under way, our guest of honour finally arrived and here we see yours truly, Franco, welcoming her warmly with a friendly hug. Meanwhile, Francine couldn’t resist trying on the temporarily discarded royal headgear, though she looked a little uncomfortable doing so. Maybe her hair didn’t fit underneath well enough? Though the Crown Roast proved impossible, we had managed to acquire some crème de cassis and Spanish cava to make Kir Royale to toast our esteemed guest’s arrival. (No worries, Ma’am didn’t spot the cheaper Champagne substitute.)

With the Welsh dragon decorating the banqueting table in honour of Ma’am’s number one son, the crown did the rounds again during the celebratory meal itself and Ma’am commented on the fact that she had found our choice of bag-in-box Corbières rouge to be a refreshing change from the cases of Chateaux Laffite, to which one’s royal palate was constantly subjected but to which it had become a little jaded. How appreciative of her.

“First impressions?”, I hear you say. “You’ve been here lots, haven’t you?”

Well, yes, you’re quite right, we have. What I mean is first impressions this year. Last year, what I thought of as a dark cloud was hanging over the lake at Fanjeaux. The dark cloud in question was fish; the lake was stocked with enormous Grass Carp to eat the weed and was also being used for intensive farming of Koi Carp, present in their thousands. The effect of the fish appeared to add up to very bad news for what had previously been an extremely rich Odonata habitat. We have personally counted 17 species here and some of the damselflies were present in very large numbers. In September last year, the richness of the Odo population seemed to have been badly effected with numbers down, both of species and of individuals. I was keen to see what the situation would be like this year.

Following a 6½-hour journey from Bellebouche, nearly all of which was on easy going autoroute, we arrived yesterday in time to get set up and grill one of those splendid French magret de canard [duck breast] jobs for dinner. I think I could almost live on those.

After a partial night of digestion and rest, Francine crawled out of Guillaume before sunrise armed with camera and tripod intent on capturing what she hoped would be clear first light on the neighbouring village of Fenouillet-du-Razès. Franco sensibly remained au lit [in bed].

Once the morning had actually dawned bright and sunny and with the necessary quota of caffeine coursing through my veins, I was ready to meet the world and go and scan the lake for wildlife and my first impressions.

To cut a long story short, Odo-wise, things are actually better than I feared they might be. I counted nine species:

• Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa)
• Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)
• White-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum albistylum)
• Western Clubtail (Gomphus pulchellus)
• Emperor Dragonfly (1) (Anax imperator)
• Red-veined Darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii)
• Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
• Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
• Western Demoiselle (1 probable) (Calopteryx xanthosotoma)

Nine species is more or less half of what we have previously seen here two things must be remembered. Firstly, we are here several weeks earlier than ever before and not far into the flight season, particularly this year which got off to an appalling start courtesy of a dreadful spell of weather during the whole of April for both the UK and France. Secondly, several of the historically present species have not yet begun their flight season.

I’m not completely comforted, however. The three damselfly species above were, I believe, present in noticeably reduced numbers. Damsels generally are fond of ovipositing on floating vegetation, which has pretty much been eradicated by the nuclear-submarine-sized Grass Carp. I haven’t yet seen a single Dainty Damselfly (Coenagrion scitulum), which has formerly been prolific here but which is said to favour:

Sunny, still, sometimes slow-flowing waters with rich aquatic vegetation …

Nor have I seen a Small Red-eyed Damselfly which;

Favours eutrophic, standing water clogged with aquatic vegetation …

We should be in the flight season of both these species but there simply isn’t much/any vegetation left.

We are certainly ahead of the flight seasons of a few other suspects, one or two of which may emerge during our stay assuming the weather remains favourable. If it doesn’t, we may not emerge, either. 🙂

We are due at Fanjeaux on Friday 1st June so we’ve been thinking about just how we’re going to get there. It’s possible in one hit but it would be a very long day, probably over nine hours driving. Additionally, it would be a tiring 100mls/160kms cross-country before we got to the autoroute south. So, since the forecast is for the brilliant weather we’ve been enjoying at Luché-Pringé to break up, we decided to head south in two stages and hit Fanjeaux a day early, pausing overnight near the autoroute after the cross-country section. I confess to a vested interest in that our pause would place us in the Parc Naturel Régional de la Brenne, an excellent wildlife habitat filled with lakes of various sizes including the Étang de Bellebouche, where there is a very pleasant campsite, so we wouldn’t have to go searching for where to stay, either. 🙂

Good decision. Much as I quite enjoying towing, after a morning of winding through relatively minor roads dotted with villages and speed limits, I was beginning to feel like a rest. Fortunately we arrived at Bellebouche at about 12:10 PM, just before the accueil [reception] closed at 12:30 PM for lunch. We pitched up and settled down to lunch ourselves before heading off to search a couple of small fishing lakes on site to see what we could find.

Quite soon into our wander, somebody settled in the tall grass beside me. In my haste I fluffed my first attempt at a shot but got a second before it disappeared, never to be seen again. I realized it was an Emerald (Lestes) of one sort or another but it didn’t look quite like those I’ve seen before. I’ll have to get my suspicions confirmed but I’m pretty sure this character is a female Southern Emerald Damselfly (Lestes barbarus), a new Odo for our catalogue.

The weather forecast proved to be accurate; what started out as a walk in the sun became a walk under threatening clouds. Francine certainly thought her washing was under threat and returned to rescue it, just in case, leaving me to continue unaccompanied.

Some female dragonflies seem to me to prove elusive. Whereas males tend to defend their claim to a territory and be relatively easy to find, the females of the species seem to hide elsewhere until they are ready to mate (or, as Francine would have it, until they fancy a shag). One species like this is the Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva), of which I’ve seen countless males but as yet not a single female. Another of my female bêtes noires has been the White-tailed Skimmer. As the sky continued to darken I very nearly didn’t bother searching the far end of the second small lake but I’m delighted I persevered. On my way back there she was, low down in some grass stems beside the lake, my first female White-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum albistylum). Isn’t she lovely?

The rain began.

I think the campsite at Luché-Pringé is becoming one of my favourites. Of course, the weather plays a vital role, as it does anywhere, and here, we’ve been lucky – the sun has shone. This site, though, seems to have everything we want. Luché-Pringé is a classic French village/small town complete with a church whose bells chime the hours and half hours to complete the French atmosphere. Being on the edge of a village, there is a good boulanger, a butcher and a cash machine a short walk away for life’s essentials. It is also within easy reach of a couple of supermarkets in the two larger towns of Le Lude and La Fleche only about 10 mls/16 kms distant, so all supplies including relatively reasonably priced fuel, are readily accessible. [Ed: it comes to something when we regard €1.36 per litre for fuel as reasonably priced!]

The campsite is situated directly on the banks of Le Loir river – well direct other than for a public footpath running immediately beside the river. Beside the site and river are large meadows which appear to be unused except, perhaps, to be cut for hay. The river itself is non-navigable so there is no disturbance due to the wakes of noisy river craft. The quiet river and fallow fields add up to a haven for wildlife of which the campsite is essentially just an extension. Bags of interest for the likes of Franco and Francine. Guillaume very much likes being parked here, too. 😉

One of my main interests here is the 10 or so species of dragonfly that can be seen along the banks of the river but there are other critters to be seen, too. Early on in the day I got a rare chance to sneak close enough to a Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) for a recognisable shot, even if it kept its tail hidden in the grass of the campsite.

Later, while we were out wandering the banks in search of our usual quarry, Odos, what I can only describe as a vividly green lizard sat head-down on a fence post beside one of those fallow fields that I mentioned. I say, “only describe as” because I have no idea what particular lizard this might be, though, given a book on European reptiles, I’d have thought it might be relatively easy to identify. It, too, kept its tail hidden before scarpering completely.

Not all the green tails of the day remained hidden, however. Among the 10 species of Odonata were literally swarms of Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryx splendens), sometimes rather romantically referred to as riverside butterflies, flitting back and forth along the bank. The frantic flitting is, of course, for one of two reasons, either males in a territorial spat or a male in pursuit of a female. Eventually an unpursued female posed advantageously on a seed head offering a much more artistic picture than had the earlier individuals.

A final few moments of excitement occurred as we were setting about our evening barbecue. While it was firing up – yes, we still use real charcoal – we both spotted some movement in the grass just in front of it. Confused at first, we eventually realized it was some sort of moth. Its wings were still not fully inflated. It had just emerged from its pupal case which was about 3cms long, still half buried in the ground and decidedly gooey. Despite this, Francine grabbed it so we could snap it for the record. The poor moth seemed to be missing two legs but, with wings now fully inflated, it eventually flew off so we’re hopeful that it might fulfil its mission in life, reproduction.