More of Albi

Another bite of the Albi cherry, if I may.

Funny name though, Albi. Reminds me of Alby Mangels, a faux-adventurer who shot to fame in Australia in the 1980's I do believe. He had long, sun-bleached hair, a perpetual tan, a boat and lots of bikini babes. He played the hero type, the alpha male. Turns out, a lot of his hair-raising adventures were set-ups. Ah ... television. As we used to say in journalism, "Why spoil a good story with the facts."

My camera loved Albi.

Cathedral interior

Cathedral exterior

I adore an old door

Cloisters

A ceiling in the Toulouse-Lautrec museum

The gardens of the T-L museum

The beauty of Albi

The beauty of Albi

Albi is a city lying on the Tarn River, about an hour's drive north-east of Toulouse.

It has a world heritage-listed 13th century cathedral, built entirely of bricks.

It has a wonderful museum housing the works of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, in the most amazing medieval tower.

Albi is a beautiful place, with open squares bordered by bistros, cafes and boutiques. There are narrow, cobblestone streets with half-timbered bourgeois houses, luring the visitor into shadowy lanes and cul de sacs.

Magnificent buildings dominate the skyline. They are a testament to the power and wealth of the Church in the middle ages.

Albi, an historic city on the Tarn

The Cathedral of St. Cecilia

The cathedral interior

Saint Salvi Cloister

Luring the visitor down olde worlde streets

Mouth-watering

Motoring nostalgia

So very French

Wine extravaganza

Every year at this time, in Bordeaux, there is an independent wine producers' expo.

It is held at Bordeaux lac, in the Parc des Expositions, on the north-eastern fringe of Bordeaux city.

To the uninitiated, with a fallable sense of direction, the site is tricky to find. In desperation, I reverted to a pre-technology ploy ... and asked somebody.

We got there and parked in a massive car park with hundreds of cars. At the entrance, people in small jovial groups were filing in. People with trolleys of wine were filing out. They appeared more jovial than the people going in.

We presented our tickets, which our friends Kerrie and Graham had kindly given us, and received two tasting glasses. Without tickets, entry costs 18 euros.

Spread out before us, a huge hall with seven aisles of small stands stretching 50 metres or so, each exhibitor had about a metre and a half of space, a small counter with bottles ready for pouring.

 A coloured disc on a long pole advertised their region, their name and the variety.

With 300 wine producers here, the choice was overwhelming. Where to start? In the end we walked up and down the aisles and chose styles we liked and regions from which we had drunk good wine.

There were food stalls too. One sold oysters, another Spanish ham off the bone, yet another old cheese with nicotine-coloured rind. The sandwich stall did a roaring trade.

There are 6000 independent wine producers in the association which organises these wine shows. It costs each producer 1500 euros to be in the Bordeaux expo. But with around 26,500 visitors over three days, it’s sure some at least will make a handsome return on their investment.

the day revealed

When the fog lifted, a bright, warm day was revealed.

We took our new bikes onto a familiar path, by the Lot, towards Fongrave, past the stately Chateau Caillac, past some stone ruins part-buried by blackberry, past the dream-house whose manicured grounds slope down to the shimmering river, past a fruit and vegetable farm, through a glade where tall, mature trees shade a manor house, an oasis in the vast, open cropland.

In the village of Fongrave, there is a tiny, 18th century church. 1749 can be seen on the lintel.

There are ancient half-timbered houses.

In a chair by the river's edge, a patient man sits with a long fishing pole.

He looks up as we pass and upon  my greeting of "Bonjour" he asks if we are training for the Tour de France.

Wondrous sights

Last night produced a full, blood-orange moon.

This morning, dense fog.

The first is something I've never witnessed before, awesome.

The second remains impressive, though a fairly common sight now I'm living in France.

Hoopoes not Woodies

More of these beautiful, exotic birds have come foraging in the colourful lawn-weeds in our front yard.

But I was mistaken, they are not woodpeckers. Thanks to a reader who corrected me. 

Apparently they are Hoopoes ... 

According to Wikipedia: The hoopoe (Upupa epops) is a colourful bird found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive "crown" of feathers.

This one came quite close to the house.

At one point, he actually splayed his crown, but my shot was out of focus thanks to a tuft of grass in the foreground.

About the same time, another colourful bird made an appearance.

We looked it up ... it's an Eurasian Jay.

And to our delight we also spotted this character making his way quickly across the front yard, disappearing into a neighbour's property.

I don't know what it is. Any suggestions?

Woody Woodpecker

To our great joy, we spied two woodpeckers feeding in the grass at the front of our house. I had to shoot them from inside, for to open the doors would've spooked them away.

Click on the images for a bigger, better resolution photo.

I love its crested, tan-coloured head and the zebra markings on its back and wings. This was probably the guy who gave us a start at 6.30 one morning when we were rudely awakened by a knock, knock, knock at the front door.

Half asleep and rather apprehensive, I opened the door to ... no-one there. But still the tapping continued. I stealthily walked around the house and disturbed my little mate on one of the garage window shutters.

Two holes pecked in a first floor shutter show Woody's work, one on the lower left and one on the upper right. Don't know why they are next to the brickwork.

Unfortunately my long lens is not long enough to do justice to the subject. But it is the best I could achieve.

Age and beauty

One of the joys of living in France is the opportunity to regularly indulge in the beauty of medieval architecture, of ancient villages so wonderfully preserved.

One such village is Pujols, atop a high hill overlooking Villeneuve sur Lot.

We took our friends Kerry and Graham there today. It was delightful to walk through the streets, admiring the houses, shops, restaurants and churches.

Pujols is in the "Les plus beaux villages de France" club.

An electric shock!

I made another trip up into the hills behind Castelmoron to see Monsieur Rigo this morning.

Our wood supply, which was supposed to last all winter, had dwindled to almost nothing.

This was because we had turned off all heating in the house and relied solely on the fire insert.

The reason? An electricity bill for just two months of 870 euros. Yes, 870 euros. You'd think we were running a foundry.

And, we thought we'd been using the power judiciously, nothing was on in the unoccupied rooms. The insert augmented the electric heaters, which were turned off through the night, except for our bedroom.

The bill was such a shock that EDF suggested we get an electrician in to check the house out.

Everything was working fine. Our electrician was bemused by EDF's suggestion, pointing out that any leakage would've activated the circuit breaker on the fuse board.

And here's me thinking South Australia's electricity supply was inefficient and expensive!

I wondered if maybe EDF needed the revenue to keep its infrastructure in good shape. After all, you wouldn't want to cut maintenance corners with nuclear power plants.

How people can afford electric central heating is a puzzle. Just another French mystery.

Retrospective

Reading Ken Broadhurst's latest post in "Living the Life in Saint-Aignan" has prompted me to go retrospective ... and put some photos up of my one-time South Australian hobby, growing oysters.

My old mate Steve Bowley, whose farm is on the Yorke Peninsula coast at Stansbury, gave me one of his lines to grow my own oysters, in return for helping him out from time to time.

I put about 3000 oyster spat in the water in 2012. By the time I left for France they were pretty much all gone. I'd eaten them or given them to friends.

Six months old

A little beauty

A back-yard operation

Harvesting

Captain Bowley

When I started out, Bowley told me that oyster farming wasn't hard work, at least no harder than gardening. Over the years I came to learn that he was a joker.