Summers lease is over?

 It's so cool! Seems that summer is over with none of the scorching temps of last year, thank heavens.

Had dinner last night with Bieke and her family and regret terribly not photographing the beautiful tribe - Bieke and Willhems daughter and partner plus the three young adult offspring.  So beautiful, I was probably overawed.

Most of the food - veggie - was from the garden. Not the tofu, soya-soaked and honey-glazed, which will be featuring chez nous next time veggies are here.

The conversation was tops also, the young are very informed and informative. They live in Belgium so can chatter in many languages, making us sad old Brits look shoddy. Sigh.

Here's a cheering parrot. He is Tango and he wants his neck tickled.

More rain

So, there we were eating, [Bob, Lizzie et moi]  at the luxurious Chateau du Ducs du Joyeux...and the heavens opened again. Highly trained staff whisked off the tables to the safety of the arches where dinner continued apace (ate sturgeon for the first time-)

Most memorable evening :) 

The young waiter that unbrella'd me to the car was Spanish, from Barcelona. It's too hot there so he works in the S de F in the summer.

Market lovely, everybody out with tales of where they were when the rains came :)
 

After the storm

 This is on the new bridge, commemorating the author of the hymn sung at Jeanine's burial. Still can't find the words. Will try approaching some of the elderly left in town.

---we went shopping in Limoux. Outside Aldi was a white male, cleanly dressed as a walker with a knapsack, sitting with a bowl to collect change. No eye contact, no words. Good smart phone. Rather odd, we thought... then we saw another, same sort of age (early 50's) clean, well dressed, outside the bakers by GiFi. Along the road, sitting by big stores, we saw another two. Only one had a beard.

Posh tramps? Jesuits getting to St Jacques de Compostella? Police spies? Extra Terrestrials??? The list is endless :)

AMAZING storm last night!! The house shook with banging and crashing for a couple of hours: it was as light as daylight with continual flashes of lightening. Today the earth smells marvellous and the world is refreshed. 

Blinking Orange

The Captain last night at Le Chapaire... sausage and pommes dauphine, le plat du jour. Perfect (for me) after a slight excess of the good red wine at Tout l'Apero. And here's this mornings market, twinkling away. 

If you live in these parts you have had computer collapses for the last three days. Word on the street (ie Louise told Bob) is that lightening has caused problems that Orange are trying to resolve. So you don't need a new machine.

 

All change

Found this handsome beastie in one of the little streets and brought it home to the pond - s/he didn't make it through the night. It struck me how few there are this year; then I thought, what's happened to the little scorpions? The bats left us about 4 years ago, hence the rise of mosquitos. But where are the scopes owls, the nightingales, the hoopoes? Or am I getting less observant -

Here's a selfie with the current post office timetable. 

Use the place, please, or we all know what'll happen - extinction awaits us all -

 

Lovely day for it...

It rained, softly, for Jeanines funeral - perfect. Everyone over 50 in the town turned out and it was a dignified and moving event. A tent had been erected over the family grave (+ Pages and Verdier, together) and after two voices sang the Song of the Esperannaizes, joined by everyone that knew the words.

Jeanine had said she wanted that sung at her funeral and so it came to pass, probably because Toby and Rose arranged it... it recalled Andree Bonnet to me, who was but a girl when the song was written on the family piano in her living room. In the white house opposite the school. Will try and track down the words; a hymn of praise for Esperaza, 'village of my birth' -

After that her sister read a moving and emotional tribute. We filed pass the coffin, touching or kissing it as appropriate, and left. There was a movement towards Matthius cafe. 

And now the sun is out :)

 

Jeanine Pages-Verdier RIP

 Saddened by the death of our friend and neighbour Jeanine - though she was 95 and made it clear she'd had enough.  Can't find a photo of her and the drawing I've got doesn't do her justice. 

She was a special Esperazannaise. Her life-time was spent in a hat factory, from her early teens to retirement; her father took her out of school when he went to fight in the war, saying it was up to her to take over producing the family income. She LOVED it! They sang all day, she said. She was delightful company - especially fond of our Toby and generally interested in us weird foreigners. When her heart started playing up she moved into the local old folks home and was OK - but the joy had gone from her life. 

So, to the point: she's being buried tomorrow at 11.00am in the cemetery. No ceremony beyond the graveside presence. See you there.