Don't Worry Be Happy

Lists at this time of year are ubiquitous - I've just recently seen the top funniest viral videos, top news stories, top Canadian weather stories, and on and on.  So I thought I'd make my list of events from 2012. Unfortunately it's impossible to rank them. Top daily life changing event - Retirement June 30, 2012 - not exactly life changing but definitely changes my daily routine.  YES to sleeping in! Top festive occasion - Scott and Sam's 2nd wedding - March 17, 2012.  Although the first one was lots of fun too. Top amazing adventure - Kruger Park - January 2012.  Fulfilling a life long dream of going on safari. Top 'unreal' experience - Sabie, January 5, 2012.  Meeting Martina Makua, my letter writing partner from the Grannies a Gogo group. Top personal realization - Biking, summer.  I remembered how much I enjoy biking.  I'll continue to do more next year. Top educational activity - France Oct/Nov 2012.  Learning about a culture tha...

The sheer number of amazing places in south France never fails to amaze us.  On Tuesday we thought we might visit Sarlat as well as one of the most beautiful villages in France - La Roque-Gageac about 45 minutes away.   On the way we stopped at Domme, known as the Acropolis of the Dordogne.  From the walkway beside the ramparts we had a spectacular view of the Dordogne River Valley. You enter the city through one of two gates from the 12th c. and the one below was most impressive even if a bit crumbly. The round towers were converted to prisons to hold the Knights Templar that were arrested by the king in 1307.  They really made things to last in those days! Just a few kilometers down the road was La Roque-Gageac and it was apparent why it was on the list of most beautiful villages in France . Wedged between the river and a steep limestone cliff, this village actually had about 3 narrow roads you could climb up, with homes partially build into the clif...

The day began a bit grey and drizzly in Carcassonne with the French army conducting some kind of manoeuvres/ceremony directly across the road from the guesthouse.  They were using an area in the park that is normally used for playing 'petanque' which is a VERY popular pastime in the south of France (similar to bocce). The day got greyer and foggier as we made our way up through the hills towards Millau but just as we got closer to the viaduct it seemed to lift and we were just left with grey clouds.  It is an impressive structure to see, particularly because there isn't really anything around it. It took us an extra few hours to get home but here are some photos just for you John!

Quite a bit of downtime the last two weeks but now that Scott, Sam and Mike have arrived in France we've reverted to tourist status again. First stop, the amazing medieval town of Carcassonne. It exceeded all our expectations and the guest house we're staying in has this incredible view from the terrace. The chateau and walled city on the hill are only part of the charm. The 'new' city is filled with meandering paths (I think they call them roads here) and all manner of quaintness. The weather has taken a nice turn for the better and is all sunny and warm again after a few colder days in Prayssac. Of course we're a bit closer to the Mediterranean here. We're very fortunate to be together with our far-flung family (!) and we perched on one of the many ramparts for this photo op. Tomorrow we'll return 'home' and along the way we'll stop at the Millau viaduct - the tallest bridge in the world. From a 13th (?) century marvel to a 21st c...

It seems like Halloween is celebrated in France similar to Canada.  Children dress up and say "bonbon ou un sort" (trick or treat?) and we did see a few costumed kids in town yesterday. This has become more and more popular in the past 10 years. We live on a quiet little road a bit out of town so we had no one knocking on our door. There are no decorations in stores or homes and we never saw a jack-o-lantern (in fact few pumpkins).  But the real 'celebration' happens the next day sometimes called Toussaints, or Jour des Morts (Day of the Dead), or All Saints Day.  It's a public holiday and knowing what I know about Nov. 1 in schools all over Canada, it likely should be a holiday there as well! On November 1, people take flowers to the cemetery and we noticed quite a few cars beginning to stop by the local one yesterday.  Apparently chrysanthemums are popular and there have been a lot on sale lately - now I know why. At other times of the year there are a lot of ...

Food is an important part of the travel experience wherever you go.  You mostly want good, inexpensive, available food.  In this part of France food is much, much more than that.  Three course lunches are in the12-14 € range.  Dinners can be 20-35€ for 3-5 courses. There are several foods that define themselves as being specific to this region (Midi-Pyrenees).  Of course, there's the Cahors wine (dark, full-bodied), but there is also duck, foie gras, walnuts, cabécou cheese, saffron, tourtiere and truffles. There are other specialty foods, such as figs and melons, but they are available in many places. Saffron (spice) - extremely labour intensive to harvest, everything is done by hand; the flowers are just being picked now; made from part of the crocus flower which blooms in the fall; the farmer we talked to and his wife do all the work and make saffron products such as chutneys and honeys; we purchased 0.1 g for 3.50€ (which translates ...

Even after visiting several of these 'entire villages/fortresses' built on a cliff it's still pretty impressive when you drive around the corner to this view.  Garry and Alanna arrived Friday and yesterday we headed about 1.5 hours north of here to Rocamadour. This castle/church from the 13C became an important pilgrimage site with pilgrims climbing the steps on their knees with chains around their arms and necks.  By the time we had climbed to the top we felt a bit like that ourselves, even with the elevator ride part way! Lucky Alanna found some shops that were open.  Actually it was quite a touristy place but because of the time of year there weren't that many people around. 13C grafitti? The view from the top of course was spectacular and since we've had a couple of days of intense winds and some rain the appearance of the sun was very welcoming.  Turned out to be a be quite a warm day  - 24 degrees or so. Our next stop was a ...

Bordeaux is renowned for wine of course, but it is a very beautiful city with many old buildings.  It also has quite an open area by the river, which seems quite unusual for most European cities.   We stayed at a chateau and Francois, our host, found us a winery tour that was available that morning - many are too busy with the harvest right now to have tours. The grapes were still being crushed and pressed and the winemaker was busy doing a lot of testing (and tasting). Yesterday we drove east of here for the first time.  In places the Lot river is lined on both sides by huge limestone cliffs, often with tunnels. Of course the French (and whoever else occupied this place) found it necessary to build their castles, fortresses, churches, villages on the highest spots. This is a lovely little village called St-Cirq Lapopie and we climbed to the top to get a good view (although this photo is from below).   They even decided to build some castles ri...

As well as the difference in the products there are other differences between Market Day in St. Andrews (see post from August) and Market Day in France.  The biggest difference is perhaps in the way it's viewed by the people who live here.  Market Day here is really a way of life, all year round - my French teacher informed me that she never buys her vegetables at the store, only the market.  People wait for market day to buy their produce, cheese, meats, fruits, eggs etc. rather than going to the local supermarket. People will go to the market in the town down the road if they need to.  Everyone seems to know when each of the markets are. At Mike's market (similar to Vernon) there were predominantly crafts and prepared food with a few farmers' stalls thrown in.  Here it's mostly vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, NO crafts.  Also surprisingly, few bread stalls (maybe 1).  Perhaps that has to do with the fact that there are 3 or 4 boulangeries/patisseri...

On Cathy's suggestion (the owner of the house we are renting) we meandered our way past the small town of Gourdon (about 30 km from Prayssac) to visit the caves.  The mist of this morning gradually morphed into a bit of a downpour but by the time we reached Cazals for lunch it was sunny and warm.  Our 4 course meal (soup, salad, plat du jour, dessert or fromage) included a carafe of red wine for 12 euros.  We thought it was a pretty good bargain, even if we didn't know what the main course was when we ordered it.  It turned out to be roast lamb and was quite tasty. Along the way we also stopped at Les Arques which is a small town made famous by the book I recently read called "From Here You Can't See Paris" and at first glance the town appeared completely deserted. We parked the car and got out to walk around a bit although there really wasn't much to see.  I had read about the famous sculpture Zadkine who lived here and the restaurant described in the book....

I'm sure we'll be tired of them in a short while but we visited our first chateau today.  This one was built in the 13th century and had several lines of defense. Chateau Bonaguil The view from the top The little village of Puy L'Eveque is just a few minutes away and is positioned beside the river Lot.  It seems to be built up the hill and many buildings are made of the golden coloured limestone which seems to be the predominant building material all over the Lot (the 'province' we're in). And the grape harvest continues across the road from our house.

Ross tells me he was woken up this morning by the sound of the grape-harvesting machine.  Since we look out across the valley filled with vineyards, it seems entirely possible. View from the across the road. Harvesting this year has just begun, considerably later than most years because apparently it has not been a good year for grapes and the farmers think that if they can leave them a bit longer they might get better.  A cold and wet spring, followed by a hot and dry August didn't do them any good and the wine makers are not anticipating a great vintage.  Most of the wine made here is under the (brand) name "Cahors" which means it is a rich, dark, full-bodied red made mostly of malbec grapes.  We're having to test quite a few! Most of the grapes will be machine harvested, except perhaps for the older vines, which are 200 or more years old.  They will be hand picked. We're becoming quite accustomed to following the tractors with their wagons full o...

The word commune conjures up images of 70s hippies all happily living together, growing organic vegetables and weaving their own clothes.  I don't know if that's what happens in Prayssac but it's one of more than 36,000 communes in France; we might use the term municipality.  About 2500 people live in this village in the Lot Department, in the Midi-Pyrenees region (different levels of government I suspect). The cemetery on the way into town, church in background. The church is the physical, and perhaps the cultural, centre of the commune with its spire sticking up and visible from just about everywhere.  Surrounding the church is a kind of circle road, with all the other roads radiating out from it. Yesterday we drove into town for a brief look around.  By then it was noon so after a delicious 3 course lunch we began to wander around the town.  It seemed odd that all the stores were closed.  Sure it was Thursday in October and tourist ...

Spending a few days in Paris just isn't enough although we really didn't have much on our agenda except recovering from jet lag which I managed to do by sleeping from 6 pm until 9 the next morning. Even though our hotel was directly outside the large train station Gare de l'Est which was non-stop all hours of the day and night. We climbed the almost 400 steps (narrow, winding) to the top of the Notre Dame bell tower (think Quasimodo) to enjoy the panoramic view of Paris. The largest bell has a clapper that weighs 500 kg. but it doesn't appear to be used now. A boat ride on Le Seine (partly to recover from the climb) and then after dinner over to the Eiffel Tower for a brief but spectacular light show. Only a fraction of what was offered at this little shop.  I had the pain au chocolat (surprise). Marvelling at the incredible array of bread, baguette, pastries, at every little corner or patisserie - very common to see people just walking down the street munchin...

The torrential rain of yesterday has eased to a steady, misty drizzle for our last day at Bantry Bay as we reflect on our time at the farm and anticipate our arrival in Paris and the south of France.  Our rental car is booked, train tickets printed off, and the internet has informed me that Friday is market day in Prayssac, the small village where we'll be living for two months. Despite the rain yesterday we've made the most of the warm fall weather here, lawn chairs outside the 5th wheel often serving as our informal happy hour spot.  We've managed several golf games at the fabulous coastal Algonquin resort (although one was rained out after 9). The next few weeks will bring changes to the farm as several of us leave and a few more arrive.  Rieteke, a 67 yr old WWOOF'r left yesterday, Kath's mom came last week and Luke's brother will be arriving shortly.  We'll miss the enjoyable camaraderie over dinners with 8-10 people gathered around the table every ...

If ever there was a quintessential Bed and Breakfast this is it. Huge (20 rooms in this house, 4 for guests), built in 1898, high ceilings, intricate moldings,etc. We're on our way to Boston to see the Sox at Fenway and stopped off not too far from Portland Maine in North Berwick. Found this place on the Internet this morning, amazingly we're the only guests tonight. It's unbelievably beautiful. Reminds me a lot of Sue's or Rosemary's houses. We actually have 2 adjoining rooms - the bedroom and the sitting room where Mike will sleep on the pull out couch. It's even bigger than the bedroom. Taking this photo required me to perch the camera on my sunglasses on the edge of the box of the pickup then make a mad dash for the steps. The hostess, Sally is enthusiastic and welcoming and she'll have breakfast ready for us at 8:30. I can hardly wait.