Beast, Beauty,

The train journey out of Paris takes about 5 hours to Perpignan, and it sweeps down through the whole of the length of France... over the grey Seine, alongside the sandy Loire, picking up the wide Rhone somewhere, eventually crossing its outlet near Nîmes and then the Aude somewhere south of Narbonne. Lots of tagging in the suburbs, the same names go out quite far - TPA, Sonic - some in beautiful swirly text, other marks like some seventies' album cover.  The eyes on the tanks of this sewage plant was just south of Paris - when we came back it was too dark to see where it was - haunting, nevertheless!

distractions at the sewage farm!

When you reach the Centre, the volcanos are luscious pointy hills with streaming clouds above them... soon after the roof tiles take on a pink hue, a half-tube shape, you know you are in the South. Baroque houses face the station in Nîmes and Beziers, palm trees in fruit, and the huge cathedral at Narbonne rises on the horizon. On the way back the lakes reflect their southern colours, flamingos stand on their one-legs and the sky turns a somersault. The tags from Perpignan all the way to here say "Krevet"... s/he gets about a bit!

Autumn in the Conflent

 Lots of fêtes - chestnuts, ewes and goats, new wine - any excuse really! Lovely community spirit where the "fêtes committee" and the mairie lay on roasted chestnuts and wine to celebrate the autumn, the halfterm holiday is a break for more people than just teachers.

Shops close for a week, parents take their kids out during the day, kicking leaves, walking the transhumance paths up to waterfalls...






The Olette Foire de l'Automne had guess-the-weight of the lovely pink-skinned Rouge de Roussillon sheep, "the one with the blue collar and the bell". Presumably the shepherd will prepare it for the pot and the freezer!
The shepherd turned out to be the young man we had walked the transhumance path with in June; his sheep had come home fatter, more delicious from the mountain grass and herbs.

A little trek up the Cami de Ramader, a slated path with a rise of 200 metres into the lime green, lemon and pink of the turning leaves. A stop at the bridge (de Llosa), a bit of cake and a sip of water, and the realisation that the sky was a bit darker grey than before, so we made a judicious exit from the valley. And then it didn't rain! And today it's been up to 20 deg C.

A last night's meal at the much-loved Le Café de la Paix... seiche à la planxa, beautifully garlicky.
Tomorrow - Paris...

Passionfruits on the Pergola

Chez nous in France, the tentative climbing of the passionflower from the garden next door that we welcomed has borne fruit! 

Having attached some of it to the canisse (a thin split bamboo screen) it was encouraged to spread across the roof of the terrasse, which it did with amazing speed in the summer. This week we took the canisse down, to prepare for the winter, and the network of trailing shoots are clearly established now. Maybe the vine will grow up and meet it next year! There are two - a white, and a black muscat.

We are hoping that there won't be any snow this winter, as it bent the pergola support last time, and killed the bougainvillea. We are trying with another one, placed in the sunniest spot on the terrasse. It had flowers earlier, but the very dry season since the summer has shrivelled many leaves in the garden including the honeysuckle. But a few days' worth of watering and this is looking better, the jasmine has perked up again, and the mint is a bit mintier. The pelargoniums from June are also still OK, hanging on the screen, protected a bit by the cooler air below.

Tiny mulberry seedlings have sprouted too, in with the mint. I add a new small tree in a pot - acacia pravissima, "Ovens Wattle"- indestructible!


A quick trip to Collioure yesterday... always lovely in the autumn & winter... very blowy indeed. 
This is one of my favourite views...

"When visiting the church you are asked to wear suitable clothing, do not smoke, leave outside dogs, cats and other animals - thank you"

In the meantime, the garden flourishes

Banana

Potiron Vif d'Etampes

The green bananas wait til next spring to be planted next to the yellow-leaved one, assuming it survives the winter again. Leeks from Poix's Sunday market are now 2cms across and thickening, tasty! Grey- green spears contrast with the fiery nasturtium Tom Thumb. Hidden in there too, burgundy beetroot amid purple cornflowers (Black Ball). The pumpkin peeks out from the top tier, its shoots tumbling over the edge of the wall, while the fruit itself sits, soaking up the late sun, glowing... Beans, what beans! Canadian Wonder, Hutterite Soup Bean, Selma Zebra, a lovely buttery Beurre de something, the climber Limka has done so much better than ever before.

leeks & cosmos

cordyline tops

The Cordyline sits in the centre of the sweep of ground between two pathways, its spiky tops creating a tropical fee to accompany the bananas, its old flower head drooping like little dates... at the second-to-top tier the Mediterranean garden nestles beneath the hedge: there's agave, yucca, quince, fig, lavender, marjoram, thyme, with the golden hop, the mountain ash and the yew flavouring it temperately. And the ivy - mounds of it, trees if it, long creeping strands of it, greeny globe flowers open now and buzzing with insects. It'll be cut once the buzz has gone... and that Sycamore - its days are numbered!

Tales from the Living Roof

Two weeks ago we had a leaky garage roof, soggy boxes, two big pots of rainwater in the middle of the floor and mushroom growths on the newspaper put out to catch the drips. Then the Miracle happened!

Hmmm, where's the edge?

Oh, look!

We cleared the surface of buddleia, clematis, and the debris of many years (it had turned into a good bit of soil though).

I tested the rotten plank and my leg fell through a hole ... ow!

The hole

Framework

Lee turned up and suddenly the roof was open, gone, a clean space shone pink in the sun!

Gradually the new roof beams, beautiful blond wood, criss-crossed each other, and the space took on a different shape.

Topping out

The kids next door were fascinated with it! So was I...

Waterproofed

now the shingle is on it, and the sedum is on its way... http://www.organicroofs.co.uk/

waiting for the sedum...

The Railway Line

In the garden a few days ago and I realise that the sound I hear every now and again is the train in the near distance, on the Brighton to London line. Instantly it awakens memories of childhood, and I wonder if this is another reason why this home feels so very much like Home! Calculating the distance and yes, it's about the same as the railway line (Cardiff to London) from the home that I was brought up in, Wilson Street, Splott. Regular tum-te-tums... was it a steam line then? Another edge to the home experience, another boundary defining my bioregion. Wow...

Mobile homes

I began this Boundaries of Home blog to chart something of the way in which my home is a supportive structure for my identity and health. As well as continuing Jubilacíon, (the annals of The First Year of Retirement) it arises directly out of it. One of my last entries was the recognition that instead of trying to squeeze everything I did into a tiny garden, I could look more widely for a garden to expand my horizons: "Think systematically about the garden, and to consider the greenhouse idea... it might be easier to move and get a bigger garden with an existing greenhouse!"

And so it happened. No looking, no seeking, just observing, and noticing at the right moment, that a quirky little house was for sale, which happened to have an amazingly-huge garden space (for Brighton). Towards the end of five months later, we moved au fond de la vallée. Now we have come to our little maison des vacances for a break!

One of the things I’ve wanted to do for some time since knowing France, was to see a Transhumance of farm animals going to their summer pastures, or coming back. Here, having missed the Estive, the moving of the cows in Eyne last weekend, today we have accompanied la transhumance des ovins, from their homes in Sahorre and Casteil to the slopes of the Llipodère valley, in the Conflent. Two flocks of sheep, three different types: the locally-bred brebis Rouge de Roussillon (the browny skinned ones) and the Blanche de Massif Central, with a few Bizet. The three bergers, young men who take it in turns to live up in the pasture with the sheep, brought their wives, children, even babies, and their dogs to help, and as a first time for them they made it a public event, mentioned in the local paper. At 06.15 we arrived with others at the Col de Jou above Vernet les Bains, to meet the troupes on their way from their home villages. The dawn was just coming through the trees as the sun rose above the peaks of the Pyrenees, and then a carillon of tinkling bells swept into the Col, around scrawny sheeps’ necks. The Refuge at Marialles was their first target, the creamy swarm flowing up the narrow sentier or footpath, and about 20 of us following on.

Three hours later (courtesy of a 4x4 pickup for les vieux about ¾ way up la piste, where the sentier had opened onto a dirt road) we arrived at Marialles, where the sheep were already making themselves at home on the grassland. The men who run the refuge had provided breakfast for everybody – not just coffee and croissants, but saucisson, rillettes de canard, mountain cheese, red wine…

10am saw the troupeaux leave for the trek to their summer home. Many of the walkers went on too, buoyed by a beautiful sunny day and the prospect of a grillade (no doubt of lamb) at the destination. We did not faire la continuation, my feet and a sleepless night (waiting for the alarm!) having done for us as much as the very steep slope and uncertain footpath, tumbling stones, scree and shifting sand of the sentier, which was also a bit of the GR10, the national footpath network for walkers.

I asked the shepherd how well the sheep knew their second home, and where their boundaries were up on that velvety slope. Yes, they knew where to stop, where to go, some had been up there for many years, and their lambs would come to know it too. Hefting, it’s called in the north of England, the fell sheep knowing exactly what the boundary is, passing it to lambs almost genetically, so much so that when the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2003 (?) culled them, there was a fear that it would take many generations for the knowledge to be passed down again. He knew what I meant, but couldn’t think of the word in French. Maybe it’s just so much more a part of French culture that the homing instinct is seen as natural and not to be remarked upon.  After all, the French themselves are just about to do the same thing – le chassé-croissé – the movement of juillistes et aoutiens, holidaymakers travelling from north to south, and then home again, crossing on the weekend in the middle!