Festival des Hermits

... as in Hermit the frog. Bizarre, all of it. In among the April showers that bedeviled the market, the carnivalistes deftly waylaid all and sundry (blocking the roads and importuning car drivers) for some sous which they then take to the cafes and drink. There were about 150 of them gathering this morning so it'll take a bit of work to keep them oiled; when I heard them last, about 3.00, the band were playing the traditional air - tump de de de tump tump tump tump, la la la, diddle diddle de dum - at twice the traditional speed, very impressive.

What it all about??? A miller who saved the area from the plague, way back? erm... there are lots of stories, unprovable by now. But its a good ruse for the joyful young to get out and be bad on Easter Sunday.

carnival

Kids in Esperaza dress up and act up from time to time and Good Friday seems as good a day as any to be Chinese; I think that was the theme:) All very jolly.

Don't forget, shops closed on Monday - though not life drawing which is at 10.00 am as ever.

Hotmail seem to have handed me over to Outlook and I can no longer access my mail - please use the comments box  here below (I get to veto it so don't have to publish) or facebook me. Sigh.

Or just pop in.... Captains here!

watching the commandos

 Max and Andrea organised Gary, Debs, Jude, Stuart and me into a convoy to Collioure; here Max is photographing Gary photographing  the view as painted by a dead artist, I forget which one.

And lo! 
The commandos put on a show to entertain us through lunch. Most exciting. Then a bit of a totter and back home.

Stuart and I met for the final of our chess tournament in the Pont and he trashed me, slowly. Below, to change the subject, is the pathway to the ravine des colors where I wandered yesterday. Some bee orchids out and lots of wild boar footprints.
Captain arrives tomorrow!

Maxing up

 My cooking is erratic. Always has been. Strange that whilst I'm occasionally good, its the bad that stick in the memory. We still talk of the night in 1973 when I served a paella to some 20 people with ice in the middle of the chicken... no one died.

Last night I got the fish pie horribly wrong; burnt on the bottom and with a slightly fishy sludge on top. Alecia had the great good grace to blame the oven in this house (I'm living in the studio house in the absence of the Captain) and that was a contributing factor certainly.

 I hope all are well today - Max and Andrea, Debs and Gary, Dick and Jude.
Thankfully - and I am really thankful - Andrea bought a salad with a special dressing with pistachios and strawberries and cream and chocolate. Otherwise we'd have had to have gone out to T Rex:)

I tided the accounts out of the study so we could sit there and now find I have only today left to finish them in.

An artists life is far from easy

post

The post office is closed, apparently to make it disability-friendly... given that there are no steps and a large front door, we all wait with interest to see what is accomodated and how.

In the meantime you have a limited range of services in the town hall, from 9.30 till 11.30.  Its worth popping in for the fun. There is no computer but a charming lady has some photocopied bits of paper which might make it possible to send a letter, if its not too complicated. She called the space une bureau de fortune - La Poste reopens April 16th, if memory serves.

Leo and Toby and Tim have left for pastures new but will be back. Kat cooked the farewell feast last night and I forgot the camera but it was excellent, of course:)Everyone on form, particularly Stuart - hoping to finish our chess tournament on Weds.

Arenys de Mar

As part of Esperazas town twinning with Alanis, I went with the Comite de Jumelage to visit Arenys de Mar today.
We set out at 7.15 am. Well almost; the coach was there before me and I was early but we waited for the people that didn't turn up till 7.30.
I don't know why but I assumed we could doze and look at the view as we sped along;  ha! First call on our attention was the menu. We were to lunch at Mas Taxonera and there were two choices per course so we had to make decisions and everyone joined in with advice and suggestions. Naturally. There were fifty-odd people on the bus so this took time and a surprising amount of hilarity. I don't know why.

Then there were riddles.
Q. What do you call the tongue of a gossiping skeleton? I don't know, I didn't understand the answer.
Q. What is big and gets small? A candle.
Q. What do a schoolboy and the conductor of an orchestra have in common? I don't know, I thought I understood the answer but as it was obscene I think I got it wrong.

Then song sheets and singing.  Yup, sounds like hell on earth but really was fun, everyone threw themselves into it and laughed as if they'd been drinking for days and this was before breakfast.

La Presidente bought round chocolates and her son followed with a cup to spit out the caramel if anyone got one that was too hard for their teeth. (Think this was a joke - it was funny at the time  -)

By popular demand we had a rest stop. There is a lot to be said for hanging out with people slightly older than you, various geriatric needs are regularly and nonchalantly met. The break was to take 15  mins and took 30 - not bad really. The mayor said that it was the women chattering that held things up. The blokes seemed to do quite as much.

We passed Mimosa on trees, Aloe Vera with those huge tree-like flowers shooting up, eagles, egrets, mountains and plains...

Suddenly - after 4 hours - we arrived. We were disgorged in the market, a pretty street of stalls with the  usual stuff like we get at our market. Thence to pose for the group photo. This copper thang was in the street - couldn't find anyone to ask about it (they spoke Catalan) but it has an alchemical air to it.

Or perhaps its a thinly disguised alien.

Thence to  museums. Lace Museum and here, Rock Museum. Proper museum with display cases and labels. Was very disappointed the labels weren't handwritten in faded ink - or even typewritten - but everything else was lovely.

From the museums to the church, which is massively impressive - its so obviously created with reverence and pride that its impossible to think of it as over the top :) Usually it is simply called baroque -

 

 

Et voila - Msr Torrent, our mayor. Now we know why we are twinned with this place.

Lunch was extremely good and a very hysterical affair. I had a fresh salad with meat, osso-buco and vedg and kebabs of fruit with a little chocolate sauce. We drank sangria, red wine and muscat. Hola!

 

 (No I didn't have a go - these people have been doing it for years and I'm not starting in public without secretly practicing well beforehand.)

After several hours eating, thus missing the port, the seaside and the cemetery, we piled back onto the coach. I went to sleep. Judging from the racketing about me, I was alone  - more singing, more jokes and when I did wake it was to persons pretending to be politicians.

There is a spot on the border between France and Spain called La Junquera which is a vast and depressing shopping place where everything costs slightly more than Lidls. We stopped there - there was a deal on whiskey and the smokers wanted to stock up with their drug - hated it, there was a little river being used as a sewer behind the warehouses and the olive trees on the hills adjacent were blackened from last summers fires which had stripped the earth too. Felt horribly post-apocalyptic.

But more singing on the coach dispelled that one:) Got back to Esperaza only an hour later than planned, far too wrecked to do any partying with the Tocques et Clochers. Hope everyone had fun and that the rain held off - report, someone??

toques et clochers vernissage

 So; Kat (who can drive) took me and Alecia to the vernissage and we knew we hadn't won prizes because we hadn't had the phone call that tells you to be there for the prize giving; nonetheless, we went to look at the competition and see who had won.* And so we did and with one heart decided to leave before the speeches, mostly because Didiers speech of last year was just so good that it couldn't be beat ( I had to tell him about it because he'd forgotten but I remember good)
Leaving before the speeches means you dont get the thimbleful of blanquette afterwards so I offered the girls a muscat at Lucs in recompense.
We were debating whether one muscat was enough when dear Stuart arrived with his friend Tim and offered us a bottle of Blanquette -

 

 here is Luke opening it:)

Much jollity and hilarity occurred and Tim was welcomed to our close-knit community - he will be at the Toques et Clochers tomorrow so please make him feel at home:)


Its all too much for me - I'm off to Spain. Full report later. 
Enjoy the wine fest; the weather will hold, it wouldn't  dare rain on this auspicious day.

 *Well done Ezra!!

best of three...

Stuart and I played one and a half games in Le Pont- hunger stopped play - and since he trounced me I'm insisting on another date.
It was most excellent fun:)

birthday girl

Here is young Andrea yesterday on her birthday. She and Max arrived in the afternoon from very very cold Winnipeg - they did say how cold but I didn't believe them, how can anyone survive such temperatures?

Roy and Jo hosted the birthday apero party with deliciousnesses and the team did their best to make the evening unforgettable:) They were still at it when I left respectably early, though truth to tell I don't actually recall the time.

Dick is here too on excellent form with some great ideas, Toby and Leo sparkled, Stuart shimmered, Kat glowed - oh hang on, that may be just the camera -

monday morning

Last night I forgot to photograph Janie and Pam who ate here with me and Kat, being as how they are leaving early today for the UK - they left in the pouring rain and five minutes later Leo and Toby turned up. Didn't photograph them either which is a double shame as Leo has a splendid shiner... he says its almost invisible now so it must have been a stonker. Some accident with a bicycle. Very Dutch of him:)

I did photograph the riverbank at dawn; the rain has caused a great greenness hereabouts. Even the bare branches of the trees are green.

spring movement

Its a spring morning, blue skies, birds bouncing... our population is shifting. Here are Nel and Pete last night at Kats, a farewell dinner as Nel leaves for Amsterdam today. Tonight, very late, Leo and Toby arrive from Amsterdam. Tomorrow Janie and Pam leave for  England. Max and team will arrive this week - Toques et Clocher next weekend.
Its a full life:)
Spent most of this week doing housework, mending things, catching up on stuff - anything other than doing the accounts.
Off to the market now.

Blizzarding

Kat and I gasped our way up the hill last in a blizzard to the warm and wonderful house of Janie and Pam , where we had a an extremely good evening:) -Mozzarella, tomato and basil salad, apparently you can get basil in the winter from a supermarket, lovely to taste it again; chicken with lemon and herbs, hmmm; an extremely original pudding made by me on the basis of a chocolate mousse  that set rock solid; cheese, involving double Gloucester -
Here is Janie waving garlic that she grew in England.
Got a phone call  after dinner to tell us about the new Pope, who bodes well. A Jesuit, in itself a Good Thing (IMHO) but also giving the possibility that he might be the so-called 'black' pope as described by St Malachi- the head of the Jesuits is always refered to as The Black Pope, the alternative head of an alternative structure within the church - and therefore, says Malachi, the last.

Snow continues today and its very cold. Perfect day to get the wretched accounts finished, which is why I'm messing about blogging.

arts event

Here are Kat and Alecia unpacking their work for the Toques et Clochers expo, handing in day today; watch this spot for notice of the show.
Is it my imagination or are the girls wearing some sort of uniform? Star Fleet cadets, probably.

Fantastic thunderstorm last night after a glorious Sunday - power cuts all night so gave up and went to bed early. Woke refreshed after the first decent sleep for an age. The power cut had taken out the streetlight outside my window; long may darkness reign there.

On Saturday went with Margaret and Kat to look at art in Carcassonne. Found some, enjoyed it, moved on to Limoux to catch the carnival. It was excellent. From our vantage point in one of the cafes we sat in comfort in the sunshine and were vastly entertained. I took around 100 photos over three hours. Some were good (happens if you take enough) and I  was pleased as I edited the shoot direct on the camera before downloading. Somehow I managed to press the 'delete all' button. Sigh.

fish n chips at Fa

The cafe at Fa does a frenchified version of fish and chips which is jolly good - here are Aileen and Sherry enjoying:)
I have a really scarey picture of Olle-Bendik but decided against frighting people with it - he was doing that thing with his eyes and the onion rings, normal enough - but he was doing it diabolically. 

Sherry and I arranged to meet the others at the Cafe du Pont afterwards. It was crowded with youff and unusable. Discovered that Margaret, Mike and Hilary had taken one look and gone home. When Aileen turned up it was without Olle-Bendick who, it seems, had been mislaid. Sherry and I came back to mine to listen to Their Satanic Majesties, yeah, whence we were eventually joined by O-B and Aileen. Aileen had found him locked into the Cafe at Fa, not even realising that he was lost. Drank some more and chattered art - lovely evening.

Tonight -

 -the Cafe du Pont reopens! Scenes of chaos... Kat hanging the expo.... and a >gasp<   new toilet:)

See you there around 7.30

getting better

yesterdays on/off rain was predicted to continue for the week but it hasn't - here is the market this morning, warming up.

Last night in an attempt to overcome the drabness of life, we (Roy, Jo, Kat, Ryan, Alicia, Margaret) went to T Rex to sample the new menu. It was at the printers so we ate off the old one, which was great:) Forgot the camera.

Sunshine so strong now I have windows and doors open. Yeah!!

Blurry photographer

Around once a year Yahnn the photographer drives from Carcassonne and does decent pix of my paintings. Here he is working in the studio, snapped by my rubbish camera. It was a long afternoon and we were both tired when he went to collect his van and load up the kit prior to passing a pleasant evening with his wife in the comfort of their new home.
By one of those evil strokes of fate, he found himself locked out of the van with the keys inside; the engine running; his portable telephone, money and stuff on the seat, totally inaccessible.
So we settled down with a tin of smoked almonds and a bottle of pays d'oc Cabernet Sauvignon  (2011) to await the arrival of the long suffering wife and the spare keys.
A most happy evening! - for some of us. Sorry, Mrs Yahnn...

couch surfing

Couch surfers are people who overnight on your sofa - and entertain you with their wit, knowledge, wisdom and massive intelligence. That's what Raul did last night, anyway- the next couch server that comes this way will have to be pretty impressive to best him.

It would be very good if the next couch surfer was Raul on a return trip.

Kat helped make dinner - onion tart and salad, vedg Thai curry and rice noodles, pineapple and almond ice cream. Today was the market and then a walk to Campagne-sur-aude with Pete to see the Templar church, which was locked and a drink in the cafe, which was closed. Otherwise a delightful riverside walk in hot sunshine. Healthy and knackered now.

chateau rushton

 Dinner with John and Clare and the other John last night...
above are John and John plotting and here is Clare, enjoying them:) Dinner was divine; thanks, darlings x