Yes, this is enough

Out in the early morning, just before the early sun climbs the mountain and reflects itself on the snow caps opposite, I bring with me a mug of tea.   Despite the panorama almost too beautiful to contemplate, I close my eyes:  the bell call of the great-tit and the soft call of the bullfinch, a hundred points of birdsong like stars all around, a woodpecker to the right and a cuckoo to the left, a cowbell from on high and a cockerel in the valley below, the gargle of crows who come and go, a visiting donkey who revs up his squeeze-organ for a honk and a holler which bridges the mountains.

Life accepts to touch down here.
Breathing returns to base
It is enough.

Old Trees

As I grow, as I grow older, I am drawn to old trees;  trees bent by prevailing winds, whitened with lichen, bits lobbed off and bits dying off, year after year roots expanding deeper, year after year opening new leaves to the sun.

Ariège Mountains; an exchange

Meet my new friends
Here you can exchange your neighbours and your friends (if you have any)  for two sweet-eyed fat brown cows with bells, three fawn furry donkeys, four black Pyrenéen ponies and their newborn foal, a colony of lizards who jump for flies on the veranda windowsill, a host of birds, and a mason bee who stashes pollen balls in the hole in your front door.

You can exchange the distant roar of traffic for the distant roar of the river;  the view over the roofs with wires and satellite dishes for snow peaks and running ragged lines under a wide sky.  At night, swop the orange imposition and sad green of streetlamps for clusters of lights tucked into the mountain face in front of you where houses are hidden, and above it the slightly different dark of the wide sky, where all the stars in the cosmos alighted and hang in juicy drops, and you can go out into the night, and feel the sky fall all around you.

Actual view from our gite

Actual gite, actual weather!

B observing lizards in the panoramic veranda

Fat bottomed cows you make the rocking world go round

Whole cow:  horned and free, when she looks at you, you know you have been looked at

Posing for a still

Free range cow

...three fawn furry donkeys...

Coquette pose, look at the front legs...

...four black Pyrenéen ponies and their newborn foal...the "Cheval de Mérens" is a traditional breed from ancient times in the Ariege Pyrenees, still rare but being reintroduced, known for its hardiness, and its somewhat wild but sweet temperament.    It can be recognised among other things for its 'beard', hair growing behind its cheeks.

The whole extended family checks out the foal situation, mother and foal have been 'helped'  up the mountain to join the others 'chez eux'

I loved watching the group of horses and how they behaved together.  On the day the foal was born, the 3  grown ups  climbed up the steep mountainside and called for the mother, but the foal was too young to manage the climb.  Eventually they abandoned their calling and charged down the hill to join her (R has footage).

The foal ran in the opposite direction, here he is nuzzled back into order

...a colony of lizards who jump for flies on the veranda windowsill...

Ariege Mountain Holiday; St Girons Market

Saturday is market day, we arrive and stock up with food for the holiday, and to buy presents souvenirs and a bit of food to take home (no room in car for more, sadly).  Then on the Saturday we go home, we call in again.  A multinational gathering of ecologists, hippies, artists, musicians and generally all the people I like being with selling the food I like to eat in a town I like the look of...and so drones on about how wonderful it is...in the face of disapproving teenage son who buys pizza, sits on bench, eats pizza, declares the market, the entire region Boring and "full of Old People" and every time I approach the bench asks "When can we go?"

I usually buy one pot, this one from a profound potter with blue eyes, she is part of the souvenir

Organising the mountain flower honey

Garden produce on a plain table

East-West;  Young Lebanese musician selling his organic vegetarian Lebanese sandwiches;   sauce with special thyme from the Lebanese mountains, humous, smoked aubergine pate, salad, yoghurt sauce, goats cheese...au choix

Dutch wildman goatherder, wonderful life, wonderful cheese!

Here we bought particularly aromatic lemon verbena (verveine) for tisane...

JC even found a lovely 2nd hand bookshop run by a Northerner who stocks up in Paris, opens every day it is possible to sell, works hard but loves the work - JC bought Tin-Tin cartoons and book about Eco Houses...

Beatles music...

Bought apple juice here, gathered from hedgerows, (never shake the trees it upsets them and they won't produce next year), dry the apples a little before juicing, makes them sweet... he works as a volunteer for a charity and so has use of their juice-pressing facilities, also turns wood from his garden

R cruises with headphones, to exasperation of parents,but at least he took them off

market by the river

Bought some very good caramel sauce for pancakes, made by Ariege woman who went to Brittany to learn how to cook Brittany food, and sells it to Brittany people in Ariege who complain they can't get their food...that's business!

Orange is my kind of colour

My kind of people...

 

An American grandmother hippy chick, running a portable organic cafe with camping chairs unloaded from her van:  we had perfectly blended chick pea curry and rice and a spicy chai tea with milk, very very excellent

AM I THINKING OF MOVING HERE?   YES I AM.  AM I THINKING OF BUSKING IN RESTAURANTS FOR MY SUPPER GROWING HERBS PLUCKING FRUIT AND HANGING ROUND MARKETS SELLING THINGS FROM MY GARDEN?  YES.  AM I THINKING OF WEARING FLOWERS IN WHAT'S LEFT OF MY HAIR?   YES YES YES

Eating weeds with your salad

Herbal benefits and pockets of taste to enhance our lettuce, ingredients found growing wild or planted and growing successfully in our garden.

Dandelion flower and young leaf

Violet leaf

Wild rocket

Red sorrel

Marjoram

Mint

Baby Swiss Chard

Hyssop

Lemon Balm

Sage

Fennel