On a clear day....

....we can't see forever but the Pyrénées appear so close to us that it's hard to believe they are 80-100 kms away.

It reminds one how close The Tarn is to Spain and why it is so common to meet people with Spanish names here, descendants of the families who struggled through the mountains to escape the Spanish Civil War and after a harsh time in French prison camps were permitted to settle here.

La Bastide on the right

What's this?

We were storing away some garden furniture today (seemed prematurely even for second half of November when the sun is still shining so fiercely that our cocker Diva has spent the afternoon basting on the balcony, always with an eye on the small valley below because it's the day of 'La Chasse'), when we found this:

She-who-must-be-obeyed-and knows-everything believes it is the discarded carapace of a cicada. Opinions from people more expert will be most welcome. We curse the cicadas sometimes in the summer: one starts up and within minutes another half dozen are sirening away. We sometimes confuse their noise with the calls of a couple of tree-frogs who live in our garden - very beautiful little critters, like bright green enamelled gems.

ANOTHER OF THE TARN'S SECRETS: VEAL AS NATURE INTENDED.

One of our neighbours rears cattle for veal. The animals all live together: the bull (that's him behind the mother and baby soaking up the sunshine), about 50 wives and their off-spring until it's time for the young ones to go to market.

I'm stupidly soft about animals and would never allow veal to be on the menu in my country-house hotels because most British restaurant-goers did not believe they were being served veal unless it was white. It didn't seem to put them off their appetites knowing that the milk-fed calves had been kept enclosed in small crates to obtain the escalopes to their liking.

Because the Tarn calves have enjoyed a longer and completely natural up-bringing, their veal is pink and succulent, with more flavour than white veal. Cooked simply in a little sunflower oil with whole cloves of Lautrec's world-famous pink garlic, Tarn veal is something to savour, especially it you get it from M. Fraisse in Lautrec.

TOUR DE FRANCE 2013

Most years the Tour de France passes through the Tarn - in 2010/11 only a couple of kms away from Puycalvel - but next year will be particularly convenient for guests in our gites, as one stage ends at Albi on July 5th and the next start off from Castres on the 6th.

It is fun to watch the pack race by, but this time guests will be able to be at the 'arrivée' and or 'départ' which will be far more interesting.

Here's the whole route for any biking enthusiasts planning a holiday around the tour.

The Tarn has been battered by a wind called L'Autan for a couple days. Blows up from the Med quite often during the summer, but it's usually just a comfortable blow and this is the first time in 12 years here we've experienced such a gale (125 kph gusts reported).
Our mayor called in at lunch-time to say he'd been told that 'La Poste' couldn't get through to us because of a fallen tree (of which we had no knowledge) so he'd come up with a chain-saw and cleared the lane.
Yet another example of why life in France is so comfortable. We Brits may tease (oh OK, mock) the French for some of their habits and attitudes but their system of communes with active mayors ensures a quality of civic service that British rate-payers would welcome.
L'Autan is sometimes called 'The wind of the madmen'. Perhaps with reason seeing that yesterday a chef of a restaurant in our local town Castres rushed out of the kitchen brandishing a knife and stabbed 4 people, one poor girl fatally.

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We've been eyeing two patches of mushrooms on our land. Jos wanted to try them but I've always been wary of wild fungi since a friend, who was an experienced 'fungologist', made a puff-ball soup that kept me on the loo for several days.
Just read that a French couple died yesterday after eating wild mushrooms...

Fin de season

This is a sad time for us especially when it's been such a great summer here in the Tarn - wonderful weather and pleasant guests staying in our gites. Been a good season for bookings too, considering the eternal economic gloom and the World Footy and the London Olympics gluing so many folk to their sofas, zapper in one hand beer in the other.We were rescued by the foul UK summer and late bookings gave us a good end of season to compensate for a poor start. With early bookings and enquiries for 2013 being stronger than for several years, perhaps the biblical seven fat years are about to start.

Autumn means Jos spending more time on her quilting

and Ian and his form expert discussing their chances after the daily hour or so spent exhausting their grey cells over the Racing Post.