News from Nowhere

Still in France, two years ago, but by now very much homeward bound. At this stage of the holiday, everything is a last chance: last day, last chance to go shopping, last picnic. When the whole holiday stretches ahead of you, a dull lunch doesn't matter, because tomorrow will be better; now it's... not a catastrophe, even now, but a disappointment, a lost opportunity. And the good things are something unexpected, we may be on our way home, but we are still on holiday and having a good time.

That's my excuse, anyway, for this loving photograph of my lunch:



We had bought bread and goat's cheese and figs, and to wash it down, bernache (a harvest-time treat, grape juice just beginning to ferment; I've met the same thing in Germany as Neuwein). Since I declined to drink the bernache out of the bottle - it is cloudy, and throws a heavy sediment - we had bought cheap tumblers to drink it out of, too (my favourite kind of holiday souvenir). Following the signs to the picnic site brought us into Cinq-Mars-la-Pile. where we spread out our haul on a picnic table half in sun, half in shade and wondered a) what was the Gallo-Romain pile which had given the village its name? and b) what was that brick tower over beyond those houses?

A short after-lunch stroll (past a wall on which lizards scampered away as we passed revealed that, of course, these two questions shared a single answer.

At the very end of our last trip to France, I started to notice that the roundabouts were sporting rather - umm - ambitious decorations. Instead of the familiar arrangement of, say, rowing boat at a fetching angle with bedding plants spilling out of it, one roundabout in Wimereux displayed a miniature hot-air balloon, in what looked like topiary. I was fascinated, but since the roundabouts tend to whizz past the car at great speed, there were no photos.

( This year, however... )

I wasn't planning to post about the next stop on our journey north through France. It was Angoulême, and a piece of silly self-indulgence that didn't quite come off; a familiar stop, whose main purpose was to visit the excellent shop at the CNBDI (comics museum). Only they turned out not to open until midday, and we couldn't afford to linger so long. Instead we visited a perfectly adequate bookshop in the new mall under the Champ de Mars - what have they done to the Champ de Mars? - where I found some comics, though not all I'd hoped for, and the diary which continues to give me such pleasure throughout this year (a lighthouse for every week of the year), and the briefest of strolls around town on the pretext of buying a picnic. That's when I took this photo, which durham_rambler - the Man in Red - demands I post here.

Today's news is that we have booked the final B & B, the last jigsaw piece of our next holiday: we are now all set to spend the first half of May in the Northern Isles, in the company of two separate friends who don't LJ (but are in all other respects excellent people). We drive up to Orkney in the company of friend number one, for a couple of days based in Saint Margaret's Hope, three days on Hoy and a couple of days on Mainland. Then we put her on a plane south, and take ourselves to Shapinsay for a couple of days before catching the overnight ferry to Shetland for a book launch, and the best part of a week based in Lerwick with friend number two. And back to Aberdeen on the ferry.

When I say "all set" I mean, of course, nothing of the sort. My preparations so far amount to making all the bookings, and persuading samarcand to give me a tutorial in the use of the mp3 player, onto which I am now loading music selected not quite at random but certainly at whim. If you're reading this, samarcand, I'm enormously grateful for your help, and may need further tuition: how did you do that trick with capturing audio from YouTube?

Moissac is on the pilgrim route to Compostella, and we'd passed through before, but always passing through, arriving late and leaving early, never visiting the abbey. This time we would see the Romanesque cloister, and the famous sculptures: but first we made a detour to the edge of the town, and stopped to admire the aqueduct where the Canal Latéral crosses the Tarn. There's a tiny parking space tucked in beside some steps which climb up to the canal; I couldn't see the river at all from ground level, just the lush green of the flood plain contrasting with the red brick (the "local stone" of the region) of the aqueduct. Up the steps, and the perspective shifts to a pleasant canal-side walk; it was sunny and lazy and we had the place to ourselves - it was tempting just to stroll on along by the glassy water.

But we carried on into Moissac, parking by the railway line which divides the abbey buildings into two groups, and is itself lavishly decorated with colourful tags, and made our way to the abbey. The porch and the cloister are so famous that I didn't expect much of the abbey church itself, but it was - "delightful", say my notes, brightly painted, and that's what I remember, a general impression of light and colour. There were also two charming fifteenth century polychrome wood sculptures, one showing the flight into Egypt, Joseph leading a donkey on which his diminutive wife grapples with a baby, the other Christ being lowered into a coffin by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, while Saint John and a gaggle of Maries look on.

By the time we had had our fill of the porch and the interior, the cloister had closed for lunch; and the supermarket was about to close too, but we had just time to stock up on a picnic lunch, and to admire a mural tribute to artist Firmin Bouisset, whose works are more familiar than his name.

Maybe next time we'll visit the cloister.

It seems perverse to be thinking about last autumn in France; on the one hand the next holiday is beginning to take shape very nicely, thank you - and on the other, it seems to be spring in England, unwary daffodils buffeted by sudden blasts of bitter wind, cold showers and warm sunshine taking turn and turn about.

But there you are: all the time we were in France I was seeing the fall colours, particularly as we drove the long miles of motorway with no chance of photographing the multicoloured curtains alongside. Sometimes it was just one branch catching the sun and flaming bright against the dark green of the tree, but as we turned northwards the colour began to dominate. Great swathes and folds of gold and orange hung against the dark evergreens which lined the hillsides.

The vines too were shifting to their autumn plumage, first peach and apricot, then pink and red.

They were vinifying in Maury as we drove through; we didn't have to leave the car to smell the headiness of the wine to be.

Part of the plan for last autumn's holiday was to visit the Cathar castles - some of them, at least. On a previous visit to the region we had sat at the foot of the crag, gazed up at Montségur and decided maybe not, today. On our way south, the low cloud had chased us towards the coast, so now, as we turned back towards the north, we were ready to try again.

( Queribus )

( Peyrepertuse )

( The Gorges de Galamus )

The hill between Narbonne and Gruissan is the Montagne de la Clape, which we already knew as a wine-producing area, but only because of the corny joke, that we might have a bottle but at least we didn't have a case of La Clape (thank you, D.).

Naturally we wanted to become better acquainted. With nothing better to go on, I had picked up a leaflet at the hotel about Château l'Hospitalet, where we would allegedly find not only a winery but also various artisans and a second-hand bookshop. We had a little trouble locating the place, but eventually pulled off the road and down a drive to a large car-park; below us were a cluster of buildings which had clearly once been a large farm, and above us the vines rose up the slopes. Tractors with huge metal teeth were bustling too and fro among the vines, stripping off the grapes, but the little shops around the farm yard below us were all dark and still; at the very beginning of October, the tourist season was over. On the far side of the courtyard the barn sheltered the great stainless vats, and a door beside it let into a great showroom, where wines from all parts of France were stacked high. A member of staff greeted us politely as he passed on his way to somewhere else, so we wandered around reading the labels and decided that no, there really was nothing here that interested us enough to try to catch someone's attention, and left.

Further research suggests that the wines might actually be worth a try, but that we can get them in Tesco's.

Never mind; as we drove away we passed the cheerful red sign of the Mas du Soleilla. It looked individual, characterful, and it looked welcoming, so we turned in, parked by the vines and rang the bell by the garage door. At first nothing happened, then the little dog came running up, followed by his owner who unlocked the up-and-over garage door to reveal a little tasting room with a counter at the far end. She openined bottles, we tasted, we commented on the wines, and on the basis of our reactions more wines were opened - and we came away with five bottles of an extremely agreeable table wine called Jason (it's a moth, apparently) and, nestled in among them, one bottle of their AOC La Clape, wonderful and rich and complex.

Which demonstrates, I suppose, that sometimes it's right to be swayed by first impressions.

I would never have guessed that I'd still be writing up holiday posts (and still sorting holiday photos) into the New Year. But here we are...

Sunday morning in Talairan was grey and misty; we weren't really tempted to go for a walk, even without our host's warnings that the waymarked path was unsafe on Sundays, when half the village went hunting (English hunting is an aristocratic ritual; French hunting involves bringing home good things to eat). The route we had planned to drive took us up into the mountains, and bad visibility made that seem less inviting, too.

So we kept to the lower slopes, among the vineyards. Road signs warned us that the harvest was in progress; there were groups of grape-pickers with their heavy baskets, and tractors laden with grapes trundled along the roads. As we left each village, more signs thanked us for tolerating these slow vehicles: "Les vignerons de S. Laurent vous remercient de votre comprehension."

We stopped in the little town of Lagrasse for a stroll through the old streets and across the river to the gate of the abbey, then back past gardens to the main street. A shop specialising in local produce kept us entertained with olives to taste and wines to buy until it was time for lunch at the café.

In the afternoon we drove on, and, almost without meaning to, came down to the Mediterranean at Gruissan.

Over breakfast we planned out our day, using the paper tablemats with the gaily coloured tourist map on them. Inevitably, the things we ended up doing were not the things we had been planning to do, and vice versa.

We set off for Siran, where there was alleged to be a "Maison du Minervois", which we hoped would allow us to sample and then purchase a selection of the local wines. But on the way there we saw a signpost pointing off the road to the "Dolmen des Fados" (fados = fées = fairies, of course), so we swerved off the road into the car park: sunshine, sandy slopes, pine trees, no-one there but us and, on a low hill, the dolmen, a long passageway leading into an antechamner and finally an inner chamber, 24 metres long in all, walled with great stone slabs. Even if we had known it was there, it would have been exceptional, one of the major stone-age monuments in France, but to be there on pure impulse was magical.

Of the Maison du Minervois, on the other hand, there was no sign. It may have been in the hotel, which was closed, and may have been for sale.

We stopped in La Livinière to shop for a picnic lunch*, and in the little supermarket picked up a leaflet about L'Ostal Cazes: a winery situated in the former tile works, with a discovery trail around the olive plantation. This sounded good, and how hard could it be to find: the tile works had to be pretty visible, with that chimney. We drove three times round the village looking for it, then gave up, and, on our way out, drove straight past it. We tasted a couple of delicious, but not cheap, wines, and dipped bread in olive oil, and decided that we could maybe afford one bottle of wine and one of oil, especially if we were going to walk among the olive trees. And then we went and did so.

I'm not blasé about vineyards: that moment on each trip when you realise that you are, at last, driving between vines, that still thrills me. But olive trees are even more exotic than vines, and I loved that walk among the little trees with their grey-green leaves and their fruit.

The plan was to stop for the night in Homps, where the Syndicat de l'Appellation Minervois has a cellar, by the side of the Canal du Midi - a chance to make those purchases we had missed earlier, and to stroll by the canal. But the hotel was full, we knew when we were beaten, so we drove on south, out of the Minervois and into Corbières.

---

*We also bought a copy of the Guardian which carried the story that researchers had decoded the genome of the pinot noir grape. Inevitably, let a bunch of oenophiles research the genome of a grape, and they're going to choose pinot noir - whose genome turns out to be by a clear margin more complex than that of human beings.

Among the many charms of Minerve is the Librairie Paroli, a bookshop with chairs outside, and a couple of tables inside, where they serve tea and coffee. Like the little town, it is on several levels, with steps down from the reception area to a larger bookshop space on the right, and even further down to the tiny room where the proprietor sits at the back.

After nosing around the obscure poetry and the collectable and very expensive comics, I selected a book published in 1951 as the second in a series of illustrated guides to the regions of France, their scenery, cookery and and traditions. This was the volume about the south-east (the south-west, where we now were, had been volume 1) and it cost 20 euros, which was more than I'd usually spend on a whim - but perfectly reasonable, and it was a very charming book. The lady who took my money made polite conversation, asking me "Vous aimez cuisiner?" I said, yes, I did like to cook, and I also liked old books. So she leafed through it, and conceded that yes, it was a nice book, it had pretty illustrations. She called down to the boss: "The lady is buying Recettes et Paysages." The answer came back up "Oh, that's a nice book." I felt quite vindicated.

( It is a nice book, too, as I shall explain at length - and illustrate - behind the cut. )