Nearly time to move on again, flying to Lisbon tomorrow. Our time in Perchede – our current house sit in south-west France – has been a bit on the lazy side. Still foggy and misty in the morning. Sunrises and sunsets still beautiful. The dogs – Medlar and Figue – love to rush about when they’re out on their walks, darting here and there, sniffing everything possible – digging like maniacs if they can smell something worth digging for. They’ve yet to unearth anything of interest but they seem to enjoy the process. We spend a lot of time untangling their leads as they continually crisscross each other. There are plenty of planes in the sky in the early morning – a real super highway – lots of vapour trails. Quite spectacular in the morning light. The horses – Squiggles and Doc – have been a delight. Very low maintenance. Happy to report that Squiggles has remained in good health while we’ve been here – 35 is not young for a horse!!!!!
The little extra highlight has been the daily drive into Nogaro to buy our baguettes – we now buy two! – and the drive home again. There’s a never ending supply of little back roads we can take – I know it probably sounds very repetitive and very boring but we still enjoy it heaps. We’ve now feel quite confident that we will eventually find our way home – even if it takes a while. We have our Tom-Tom with us but don’t use it unless we’ve somehow got ourselves completely lost!! There’s been the odd occasion when we’ve wondered if we have pushed things too far but most back roads – even when they deteriorate to little more than a goat track – lead somewhere. We’ve only had to turn back once when a dead end road wasn’t sign posted. One of the things I’ve noticed lately – apart of course from the beautiful autumn colours everywhere, the rolling hills, undulating open farmland, and beautiful villages (!) – is the size of the homes on the vineyards. Some are very large and quite grand; very well maintained, beautiful entrances and gardens, lovely views. The grape growers must do okay in this part of the world!
A lot of the houses around this area are “wattle and daub” – a very ancient building method. Sticks or small lengths of split wood are woven together and fitted in the open sections – mostly triangles and rectangles – created when building the timber frame of a house. Once in place the sheets are covered with a mixture of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung, and straw. Apparently a very effective way of water proofing and insulating your house. Some of these “wattle and daub” houses are in excellent condition – many still used as family homes. Others buildings – sheds or barns – can be a bit run down. Some are just ruins. However, their dilapidated, crumbling walls give you a little peek at the building method – so still very interesting to look at. There’s also heaps of old stone houses in this area – some with the natural stone still showing, others now rendered and painted. Not the same but never mind!! Then there’s the amazing variety of architectural styles used for building the many old local village churches. My personal favourites are built with pale/white stone – especially love the ones with the rounded walls or towers – but all the churches are worth looking at. Unfortunately most of the larger churches are locked – but you can find the odd smaller one with its doors open for visitors.
Well, we had a lovely day out today. Chris and Sally are back – so no animal duties. We headed south to the Pyrenees – beautiful countryside on the way. As per usual we stuck to the little back roads. Passed through the town of Lourdes – very famous religious/pilgrimage destination – but it was too busy to find a park and have a look. Lots of one way streets – yes we ended up down one of them going in the wrong direction!! One of the local shop keepers kept signalling to us – pointing her finger repeatedly in the opposite direction to the way we were going. We eventually caught on. We continued on, leaving the larger towns behind. We ended up in a mountain village called Cauterets – very popular in winter for skiing. Absolutely beautiful in the autumn – lots of colour, lots of mountain streams, lots of views. Wonderful!! Made our way home again, this time via the main roads. Grrrrrr. Not sure if the quicker travel time is worth it!!
Lots of love
Di and Reg
This entry was posted in Europe, France, House Sits, Perchede, Gers- back roads
- baguettes
- Cauterets
- dogs
- drives
- horses
- house sit
- Lourdes
- Nogaro
- Perchede
- Pyrenees
- stone houses
- wattle and daub
Your photos are amazing! What a beautiful place – the photo of the queue in the boulangerie reminded me of our sketch Reg! Enjoy Portugal! Love from us both xx
yes!!! That sketch was a laugh. It’s so beautiful in this region, even more so yesterday driving into the Pyrenees. But then most of France is really lovely. Glad to see that all is looking positive Erica. Many blessings and more good reports. Lots of love xxxx
Looks amazing and such artistic photos! Reg looks at home looking after the horses 😉
Hope we get snow here at Mourne Park this year, the photos would be fantastic. Really looking forward to having you guys back here!
We would be so happy to see snow at Mourne Park!!!! We only had couple of days with snow last winter – we were house sitting in Northern England – and then it was only light. Having withdrawals big time! xx