French Letter 1

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Les Bordes, 11 September 2009

In the land of Bardot, Deneuve and Tatou and indeed the delicious Madame Sarkozy, it comes as quite a relief to find that here in the countryside; the women are not perfect examples of French chic, in fact quite the contrary. Our neighbours are friendly, offering ‘bonjours’ and ‘bonsoirs’ in passing, but we have yet to engage in conversation - probably a good thing considering our fractured French.

The locals are friendly too, so much so that one fell like a stone at our feet when we were having lunch yesterday in Mirepoix. It seems that he was neither desperately anxious to make our acquaintance, nor poleaxed by our beauty, but had suffered a blackout. We thought the worst, when he hit the deck, but once restored to his chair, he revived and carried on eating his lunch as though nothing untoward had taken place, but for me it was a case of "be still my beating heart."

Our home for the next couple of months is just over an hour south of Toulouse, situated in a beautiful wooded valley. Les Bordes is one of three hamlets that make up the village of Arvigna. We have arrived at the tail end of summer so the landscape is dry and dusty with cool mornings and evenings, and baking hot temperatures during the day - up to 36 degrees, so we are making good use of the pool.

On her morning walk today Adrienne made the acquaintance of the local Mayor who happens to farm next door, her photograph shows him at work on his tractor. He stopped work to introduce himself; what he said has not been reported!

The two closest places for provisions are Mirepoix and Pamiers. Mirepoix, 15 minutes away, is a beautifully preserved medieval bastide (fortified) town with the longest open wooden gallery system in France and St Maurice’s cathedral has the largest gothic nave in the country. Monday is market day in Mirepoix and the range of cheeses, fruit and vegetables for sale are wonderful. The peaches, nectarines and tomatoes are simply delicious. We bought an immense beefsteak tomato that must have weighed nearly a kilo and it tasted as good as it looked. Pamiers is a larger town about 20 minutes away, it too has several different markets during the week and a large Carrefour supermarket, so needless to say we are neither going hungry nor lacking in stocks of French wine which we are sampling with gusto. Dining in the garden on a balmy evening has to be one of life’s great pleasures and we are looking forward to sharing the experience and the local attractions with our visitors.

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Photos

Life in the country
Our French farmhouse