pastures new

Summer ended in a flurry of planning and packing for a brief sojourn back to homeland for me in Dorset (UK) in September. I returned to France in the last weekend of September, refreshed, revitalised and ready to get stuck into new projects and adventures!

Back in the valley, I was greeted by autumnal weather. Yesterday morning, I woke up in the dark, and there was frost on the roofs. As the last of the lingering tourists and curistes head back to their homes, the village is becoming quiet again.

In the Pyrenees, the autumn is always a time of ebb and flow...a season for change...a time for new adventures.

With the first sprinkling of snow up on the summits, it will soon be time to bring the animals from the high summer pasture lands back down to the fields around the valley.  We will wake up one morning soon to find all the leaves have changed.

Old things are coming to an end. New things are happening...and we're looking forward to exploring new pastures and having new adventures!

starting again

It’s been a long while since I last wrote here.

A storm-cloud blustered through, knocking all the stuffing out of me. And my last little logs ended up falling by the wayside.

The storm seems to be passing, but I am left feeling unsure, a little battered.

Despite the thunderous clouds and the lashing rain, my desire to write has remained deep inside.

I need to write, to connect once again with my surroundings, with myself.

And I need to start again.

So here we go, let's see where this little log takes me...

vallée de Campan

Am spending the week over in the Vallée de Campan, reunited with N and living in the woods together with the other barn-builders. It's just the thing I need after a busy summer and poor health - the tonic of wilderness.

early autumn in the woods

This is what early September feels like when you're living in the woods for a week - misty and chilly when we wake up. Our view is eclipsed by trees that sit on our hilltop obscuring everything a few feet above. 

We are out of the tent at 8 am, the sun breaks over the hill by 9am. By eleven, all hints of autumn will be lost again to the hot sun.

For those of us not re-building a barn, a Turkish novel, an audio book, bramble bushes and hazelnut trees await me today. Such possibilities!

big sky

   
It was a day of clarity and blue skies. 

A day spent living out in the open, beneath the big Pyrenean sky. 

A day that began early at dawn when we were woken by cows grazing about our tent and ended at dusk as I cartwheeled in the setting sun.

From its rising to its setting, I have been soaking up every beam of this inescapable, soul-stirring Summer sun.

At a moment when we desperately need healing, it is like a river of love flowing down upon this hurting land.

 

 

cowbells and parachutes

Pulled from a heavy sleep by the tinkling of cow bells. There was just time to pack up the tent and brew a quick coffee before the parapentistes arrived.

light pollution

I was in desperate need of a break from my translation project. [Nearly 12,000 words behind me, only another three thousand or so to go]. 

N came home to rescue me from my dictionaries and laptop, and brought me over the Tourmalet for a night of wild camping.  

We set up our camp on the crest of a hill, overlooking the barn in Serris. 

After dinner, we made hot chocolate and sat on the crest of the hill watching the sunlight drain from the sky, to be replaced by the lights of Bagnères and Tarbes.

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows..."

Summer is finally upon us, and the thyme is fragrant as we walk through the fields and meadows above the valley.

Wild Mountain Thyme growing around the Lac du Gaube

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 

Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, 

With sweet musk-roses, 

and with eglantine" 

Oberon, King of the Fairies - A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. Act 2, Scene 1

j'aime la montagne

 Parce qu'elle est là, dans mes yeux, dans ma tête.

Parce qu'elle est belle et fragile aussi ; elle nous rappelle combien nous sommes petits face à elle et combien est grande notre responsabilité à la protéger.

Près d'elle, je me simplifie.

Loin du futile, elle m'enseigne la langue de l'essentiel.

picnic in the woods

Tuesday 11.30am.

I've been translating since seven o'clock and my late morning French class has just been cancelled at the last minute.

The sun is shining and I've had enough of lighting policies for one day.

There is only one thing for it. We grab the picnic basket, fill it with good things (organic spelt loaf and tomatoes, goats cheese, ripe peaches, olives and a thermos of chai tea) and head up for a dejeuner sur l'herbe in the fields above St Sauveur.

We spread picnic blanket and map of the valley out on the grass. Perched on a patch of grass on an otherwise wooded hillside, we have a sublime view up towards Barèges, across to Chèze and up to the pic du Bergons. We eat slowly in the midday sun, spreading copious amounts of bûche de chevre onto thick slices of the slightly nutty spelt loaf. Only one thing missing: on a oublié le vin. 

I drink in the view, watching the clouds gather and disperse on the Soum de Moustayou peak which towers above our place. Nico plays the favourite game of map maniacs, 'Spot the Peak'. In the long grass around us, bumblebees lazily gather pollen, ants occasionally nibble my bare feet and scent of heather and wild mountain thyme wafts through the air.

...After a couple of hours we feel a little more energetic and go on a foraging mission, rooting out wild herbs (thyme and chives) and mushrooms. We gather a modest basketful but are somewhat disappointed that the mushrooms are so thin on the ground today. Then we cross an old, beret-clad chap rooting around in the long grass and realise that, when in competition with un ancien, we are lucky to have found anything at all.

All too soon it is time to head back down to the village. There is just one more foraging spot that we have to stop by on the way, a little café by Napoléon bridge, where we find some delicious ice-creams waiting for us by the roadside...