Continue reading →

I’m really not good with wildlife, or even tamelife; even such mundane animals as cats and dogs scare me. But I am getting better at coping with the invasion of seriously big spiders every autumn and I can tolerate the bats in the attic, simply by making sure I don’t go in there at night.   However, when a toad crept in through the door one evening and started hopping towards the wardrobe, Nick did have to come to the rescue; it ended up in one of my shoes. Imagine if I’d put my shoe on in the morning and found it full of toad – it really doesn’t bear thinking about!

Now there’s no Hugo to deal with the autumn influx of mice,I’m practicing setting mouse traps, but Nick has to deal with the remains. There was a lot of noise last night, in the kitchen; a strange noise, it didn’t sound exactly like the fridge making ice, so Nick went to investigate. There was a mouse under the sink; it was caught in the trap, but still alive, poor thing (I can say that when it’s no longer there), so he had to dispatch it pronto, by hitting it on the head with the washing up bowl.

But yesterday, when I went into the bedroom to put away some clothes and found a snake in the middle of the floor, it was just more than I could cope with. Nick, thinking “something serious had happened”,(it had!), came hurtling downstairs to find me frozen to the spot and almost incapable of rational speech, only to declare it “just a small one” and “very pretty”, before packing it into a plastic box and taking it to the far end of the vines.

I think I’ll always be a townie at heart.

We’ve been working on our bedroom all summer; the task I thought would be done in a week has actually taken a couple of months, but at last it’s finished.

When Joel, our builder, said we’d have to have a pillar in the bedroom to support the floor above, we had plenty of ideas how to decorate it, but also wondered about using it to create a dressing room. But would that make the bedroom small? Would it make the entrance too narrow? Like a corridor? Etc., etc….

In the end, we bought a cheap, temporary wardrobe, just a few shelves, a couple of drawers and some hanging space, and put it next to the pillar; we could imagine better how it would work and yes, it would work. But it was already bulging at the sides and sagging in the middle (a bit like us, really!), so Nick built some extra hanging at the end, between the wardrobe and the wall and put in a back, which we covered with plasterboard and filled. I painted the new wall and we designed and built some shelves and shallow cupboards. Next came some more hanging and shoe racks across the end wall and it was done and works really well. It’s supposed to be temporary, but……

We’re still using the chest of drawers and bedside tables I bought, unfinished, from Argos years and years ago, functional, but the paint was looking tired and they didn’t match their new home; so I decided to tart them up a bit. The first job was to find the paint. The chaufferie had become a dumping ground for all sorts of stuff apart from paint, from dust sheets to sunbeds, tiles to a table tennis table; you could barely get in through the door, let alone find anything, so we spent a day sorting that out before I could even think about painting.

Then I could start, undercoat, two coats of dark grey, wax the edges, a coat of pale grey, rub off the edges to get a worn look, then a bit of stencilling, a coat of varnish and they look great, in our opinion at least.

The walking club hike being Saturday this weekend, there was no walk today; so Nick suggested I join him on a big organised ride around Lectoure, at the eastern end of the Ger, the “route du melon”. There was a choice of three routes of 35, 55 or 74 km, so I opted for the middle one and assumed Nick would do the long one. We left home at 6.30, in order to get to Lectoure early enough to miss the worst of the day’s heat;  though cloudy and cooler than recently, it was still about 23°C and very heavy as we set off at 8.30.

It’s the first time we’ve been to that part of the Gers; it’s very pretty and Lectoure itself was buzzing with life, but it’s also very hilly. We both ended up doing the 55km ride as the heat was quite oppressive, making every hill seem steeper than it really was and by the end my legs felt like lumps of jelly. Even Nick said he’d found it a hard ride!

But we met lots of folk who were at last year’s cyclotourisme week in Auch and the sausage sandwiches and fresh melon at the feed station partway round were very welcome. No photos, sorry!

Maybe it was a mistake, doing a col with Maddy; Nick now seems determined that I should regain the fitness I had 10 years ago as quickly as possible and with that aim in mind, is finding as many hills as he can to drag me up. It’s a very different experience riding with Nick from riding with Maddy; he has the sort of gears that simply won’t allow him to ride uphill at my pace, whereas Maddy’s gears are lower than mine, allowing us to potter at a very gentle pace. Nick’s very good though, waiting for me at the top of every hill with words of encouragement, if not quite long enough to recover from my efforts.

So when a big club ride into the Pyrenees, organised by Maithé and Pierre, had to be cancelled due to storms being forecast that weekend, Nick decided we’d go early to beat the weather; we could still visit Maithé and Pierre at his family’s home and his birthplace, a ride of around 55km, over two “little” cols. We set off on Tuesday, parking the camper at Arette. The forecasts aren’t very accurate here and we had a big storm that night, leaving the roads soaked on Wednesday morning and the clouds well down on the mountains. As Maithé and Pierre wouldn’t be around on Thursday and we had to leave on Friday, that only left Wednesday afternoon to visit them. There wasn’t time to do our planned warm up on the flat, so we set straight off; the first col (col de Lie) started 500m out of the village and had some quite steep sections, Nick flew up it and I eventually plodded my way to the top, promising myself all the way that I was going straight back to the camper from the top, but once there, somehow I got talked into continuing. The second one (col d’Ichère) was longer, but felt less difficult. What we didn’t know was that Pierre’s house is partway up another col, the bottom section of which, as far as his house, is truly savage. I thought I’d never make it and had to stop and hang over the handlebars for a few minutes shortly before we reached the house.

But what a welcome we received on our arrival! All Pierre’s family was there and keen to give us a guided tour of their childhood home and feed us drinks, bananas and cakes before we headed home for the return trip under leaden skies.

We took a flatter route home as I wouldn’t have made it otherwise and treated ourselves to a lovely dinner at the local restaurant.

The following day Nick went out again, doing another four cols along a 75km route as I took the easy option of the village museum.

On the way home we stopped for a night at Oloron Ste Marie, a town made up of three ancient villages, all built on steep hilltops and united during the time of the Musketeers by Captain Treville. Definitely somewhere worth another trip.

On Sunday there was a big ride organised by the Bagnères de Luchon cycle club; you could choose to ride as many, or as few, as you wanted, of six Pyrenean cols around the town. When we heard that our cycling friends from Skipton would be arriving the previous Thursday to stay for a few days, the obvious question was how many cols they wanted to do. Nick and Dom signed up, but as I’ve only just got back into cycling,after a ten year break, for health reasons, I was apprehensive about taking on too much, too soon. Maddy was happy to stay with me, to attempt just one col (the easiest) and just see how I went.

The monthly cycle club dinner was on Friday evening, a great opportunity for Maddy and Dom to meet the cycle club, as well as for the club to meet our friends, about whom they’ve heard so much.

We arrived at the camp site in Bagnères de Luchon on Saturday evening, dining on mountains of pasta in preparation for the big day ahead; I wasn’t at all sure I’d be up to the challenge after so long off the bike.

Nick and Dom set off at 7am on Sunday, meeting Francis from the Nogaro club at the start; it was a glorious morning. Of the six cols, port de Bales, Peyresourde, col de Portillon, Hospice de France, Superbagneres and Artigues, Dom managed three and Nick and Francis four. They celebrated with well earned beers in the town that evening.

Maddy and I had a more leisurely start, gently rolling out to attempt the col de Portillon at 10am, not the best idea as it was already getting quite warm. Just a couple of km into the col, it was really steep for a while; this wasn’t what it said in the description in Nick’s book! The steep bit was meant to come nearer the finish. At this rate, I would have no hope of completing it. But for whatever reason, that was the worst part; maybe I rode myself in or something, and it wasn’t too long before we arrived at the summit, very pleased with ourselves. I’m not sure I’d have done it though, without Maddy pacing me as I puffed and panted my way up the hill.

We were in no rush to get home, the garden would survive another day, so on the Monday Nick and Dom did another col, then joined Maddy and I at the end of the vallée du Lys, not a col, but à 12km climb nevertheless. We enjoyed our lunch at a little cafe at the top after a walk to look at the Cascade de l’enfer (hell’s waterfall).

A very enjoyable weekend, then home to water the garden.

On est allé à Bagnères de Luchon le weekend dernier, avec nos amis anglais, pour faire une grande randonnée au vélo, organisé par le club de Luchon. On pouvait faire entre deux et six cols, donc Nick en a fait quatre, avec Francis du club de Nogaro, et Dom a fait trois. Ma copine Maddy et moi avons fait un col; pas grande chose pour les grands cyclistes, mais pour moi, qui n’a pas fait vraiment du vélo pendant dix ans, c’était une grande réussite. Le lendemain les hommes ont fait un autre col avant de se joindre avec Maddy et moi, faire la vallée du Lys et admirer la Cascade de l’enfer en haut.

C’était un très bon weekend.

I have sad news to post this week; our cat, Hugo, was hit by a car last week and died. At least it was instant, so he didn’t suffer.

La semaine dernière notre chat, Hugo, est mort; frappé par une voiture. Au moins c’était instantanée et il n’a pas souffert.

It was always going to be a busy week; Friday’s trip to Cap Breton for lunch with Alice’s grandparents; helping put a new roof on the lavoir in Caupenne on Saturday morning, followed by a lunch to thank all the volunteers. Nick then had to change clothes in the car on the way to the circuit, to help with the cycle club’s preparations for the Route du Sud (a big professional bike race) to finish there the following day; before heading out to a local fete for the evening. Dinner wasn’t served till 10.30, so it was 1am by the time we got home.

At the end of May, it was time for the biennial bike ride from Bordeaux to Sete. Several mebers of the Nogaro club were doing it, including Nick; but what was different this time was that he and another equally crazy cyclist, Francis, decided to do the return trip to Nogaro by bike as well.

After four days’ hard cycling in unseasonally hot weather, they arrived in Sete and as everyone else piled into cars and vans to head for home, our two intrepid madmen turned their bikes around, donned rucksacks containing essentials for the return journey, and pedalled off into the sunset. 25km towards the setting sun, to be precise, to where Nick had booked accommodation for the night.

The next day they had a following wind and were able to keep up a steady 45-50 kph most of the day, covering around 200km by late afternoon, so they cancelled the next two hotels, found somewhere to stay for the night and had a mere 160km to do the following day.

The statistics are impressive; 974km, 10 330m of climbing and 18 550 calories burnt, just riding, over six days!

Once home, Nick didn’t have time to rest as we were going back to Yorkshire for the wedding of our nephew, Dan, to the lovely Claire.The weather was beautiful on the wedding day and the venue, the Parsonage, near York, was superb; it was good the have the chance to catch up with Nick’s brother and his family.

We told very few people we were going back, in theory to give us chance to recharge our batteries, but these things never work out in practice and we still ended up with a hectic schedule, which included visiting as many Oxfam book shops as we could find; I don’t really know why, as we rarely seem to find the time to sit down and read. One day, perhaps……  It was great to see the family again, even if we’d forgotten how cold it can be in Harrogate in June.

No such weather problems here in our absence; it was perfect growing weather, warm, with frequent bouts of rain. The result was that we arrived home to a garden overrun with weeds and new stems of bamboo in the park that had reached 6 feet tall in our absence. As for the strawberry bed……  well, suffice it to say that it took some time to find the strawberries beneath the bindweed.

It’s hot now, so we get up early and spend the mornings in the garden, before retreating indoors for the rest of the day, or visiting a friend who has a pool. Ours is a swamp at the moment, Nick not having had time to sort it out yet this year; another task to add to the ever-growing list.

Nick a fait le Bordeaux- Sete rando au vélo encore cette année, mais cette fois lui et un autre fou ont fait la rentrée au vélo aussi. En total, ils ont fait 974km, 10 330m de dénivelée et ont brulé 18 550 calories, juste aux vélos! impressionnant.

Lorsqu’il est rentré, nous sommes allés en Angleterre pour le mariage de notre neveu. Le jour du mariage il a fait tres beau; on a profité du temps de parler avec la famille à Nick, qui on n’avait pas vu depuis longtemps.

Quand nous sommes rentrés, le jardin était complètement couvert de mauvaises herbes; je ne pouvais pas trouver les fraises là-dessous! Il nous faut beaucoup de travaille maintenant.

Adrian, Didier and I all having left our respective bands in the last year, it seemed a good idea to play together one evening at a new local tapas bar. We were never going to be great, as we’d only rehearsed together a few times, only once with the drummer and never with the lead guitarist. It was an odd mix of styles, mostly rock, a bit of jazz and an occasional folk number. Adrian suggested this Friday as he had some motorbiker friends down from Scotland for the week, so it was agreed.

Unfortunately, this meant that Nick wouldn’t be here as he’d be cycling from Bordeaux to Sete, then back to Nogaro, around 900km in a week. Or perhaps Nick thought that was actually quite fortunate, having had to listen to me practice the same songs ad nauseam as I tried to learn tunes, lyrics and chords to songs that either I barely knew, or that I’d never heard a few weeks ago.

When Adrian learnt that I’d be on my own, he invited me to take the camper to his for a couple of days, so that I could go out biking with the lads. They all came over on Tuesday evening; could I get to Adrian’s for 10am the following day? It sounded reasonable, but my sleepless brain went into overdrive, making lists of what I needed to pack and what I had to do before I could leave at 8.30am. When Nick left for Bordeaux at 4.30am, it was obvious I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so I might as well get up.

The first job was to make a lemon meringue pie, always very welcome chez Adrian; but it didn’t seem much among 4 hungry bikers, so I made a marquise au chocolat as well, watered the garden, filled the cat’s bowl, showered, packed and wondered what vital item I’d forgotten, as I found myself ready on time, an almost unknown phenomenon.

We rode into the Pyrenees, up the col de Somport on day 1 and into Spain the following day, riding the twistiest roads I’ve ever seen and stopping at the top for a picnic. The weather was really hot, 37C the first day; when we had to stop at traffic lights in towns it felt like being in a mobile sauna in our thick jackets and trousers. But the views were spectacular as we swooped around the hairpin bends up and down the mountainsides, Kieran joined us for the second day, delighting in showing off his new bike.

There was plenty of good natured, if sometimes distinctly un-PC, banter, but what can you expect of a group of 50-something blokes? And I thought it was strange, the way the clothes airer, full of tee shirts and trousers, seemed to inch its way closer to the door of the camper; it turned out they were hoping the ironing fairy might work her magic; sorry lads – no chance! Was it perhaps a sign of age that our plans to go for a drink at the village fete on Thursday night were altered as we were all too tired to bother?

Friday afternoon came; I came home to swap the camper for the car and get ready for the gig; I’d hardly practiced for the last two days and hoped it would be OK. About 30 friends turned up, more than the bar owner was expecting as Thursday was a bank holiday and the weather was so good; we made a few mistakes, but what can you expect when we’d never played together before; fortunately the audience was very forgiving. Didier broke a string, so I had to fill in with a couple of unexpected solos, but it was a very enjoyable evening. And I took it as a compliment when the lads said that I didn’t scrub up too badly……..even if they did add “for an old woman”!!!

Home today, it seems very quiet after the laughter and hilarity of the last few days; but I really feel as if I’ve had a holiday, it’s a long time since I’ve laughed as much.