Same Shirt, Different day-2012 Adventures of the "Devonport Wonder Babes"

Friday 14^th September 2012 Paziols France

Pre breakfast visit to the top of the village to the local church, which is in a very good state of repair and also to the local spring and village communal picnic area, just a short distance away from the houses. We were guided by Lin the owner of the house where we are staying. The church clock tower has 2 bells, the smaller one strikes a minute before the hour and the larger one right on the hour. Such a nice sound even in the middle of the night.

Another nice thing that happens here is the villages announcements over the loudspeakers scattered around the village, including one just above the house. It starts with the ding dong  tone  that seems to precede all public announcements in France , then the French  “hello hello”  and she tells you that “the butcher has lamb and pork today and a special on one of them” or that “there will be gymnastics at the school down in the main square at 10.30 am on Friday”. We all stopped what we were doing to listen. 

Whole household two car excursion today to Castlenou  and its fortress/ Chateau in a secluded valley south east of  Thuir. We had to make a diversion from the main road near Thuir where power lines had been blown down in wind and when going down very narrow road  scrapped side of car (just slightly ) when getting around another car. B@*#*$* !!

The town and chateau are perched high on a hill at the top of a narrow valley approached by quite a twisty road so you don’t see it until you come over the last hill.

We had lunch of croques and crepes in small café set into the rock and then 4 of us climbed right up to the top of the chateau from where we had views across the surrounding hills both to east and to west.

Uneventful drive home to Paziols as power lines now fixed and headed down to river for a final swim. Very windy down there and water in pool was much colder than previous time. Very short swim.

While down at the river I also took some photos of the grape pickers and their crops. The vendage is now in full swing in this area and we have seen both hand picking  and machine harvesting  in many places.