New Years day

For some years now we have gone to the coast on the first day and feeling that we should no longer be bound by tradition - and no longer having a dog, alas - we set off to Ax-les-Thermes. Saw no cars on the mountain route, just snow in the distance and brilliant blue skies. Quite stunning.

Ax is a weird little place, built around the sulphorous waters that steam and smell away in the middle of the town. Like all French spa towns it  has a casino so we ate our sandwiches in front of it and pondered. 

Since we can't remember anything, I looked up past christmas's on this blog and discovered that with Esperaza Follies and its predecessor Tilling-sur-Aude ( http://tilling-sur-aude.blogspot.com/) I've been doing this for a decade.

Apropos; I have found a typewritten manuscript in a skip which I'm slowly translating. It is a record of the walks a particular group of friends made round Esperaza in 1989. It is effectively their blog. And like this one, it gets rather samey... though, ahem, charming.

Will  publish in some form when I finish the translations. Had hoped to have them done by now but there are too many distractions. Is there a New Years' resolution calling??