Pass Jos the ear-plugs.

They're back. They're rehearsing. They're 'our' nightingales.

As every year, they'll be nesting in the overgrown heap of elder, old man's beard and other creepers just five meters from our ever-open bedroom window (but 100m from our gites).

They start singing in late dusk, but when we turn off our bedside lights, they turn up the volume and Jos grits her teeth for a disturbed early night....

Bloomin' Spring....

got chilly in The Tarn after a good start, but a few bright warm days and Nature's pent-up energy has been released. The blossom has never been as stunning as now.

A less technophobe than me would have taken a video clip to capture the sound of the bees working the blossom.

And we'll have to start being busy b's too, getting the properties ready for the season, which looks like being as good as the pre-credit-crunch times, due more to the diabolical UK weather than Dave and George's efforts to convince us that good times are round the corner. It's an ill wind ........

Hibernation over already?

We don't get much of a real winter in the Tarn, although we usually have one shortish sharp snap in January/early February (-14C last year to plumbers' delight), but this year we've been let off lightly (so far...). Only 30th January and SWMBO is pruning the vines in a sunny 18C.

Unlike Dave & Georgie's, our green shoots are real and the birds' behaviour around us suggests they think Spring is on the way. We hope they're right as our house has an electric central heating system and whilst French governments make sure that EDF cannot increase headline kwH and standing charge prices, they have allowed the list of  'Contributions' (French Newspeak for Taxes) that appear in very small type at the bottom of the bill to grow so much in past couple of years that together with VAT, they now account for over 30% of our bill. But still much cheaper than oil of course.

Jos' main past-time is quilting to which she's become addicted. You can't stay in any of our gites without seeing a quilt or three. 

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.