2005 Dieulivol

Sat 2005-09-03 {18772}

To La Barthe, "cottage" at N44d0.35m E0d6.73m, near Dieulivol in S France. Up at 03h15 BST & away at 4h, Focus, to Birmingham airport. Long term car park 2 (B3) & bus to T1 (quick). Flybe (British European cheapie) BAe146 to Bergerac. Cold at Birmingham, hot at Bergerac. Bags just pushed down a line of rollers in a temporary shed, then just 2 customs men at the door. Then a long queue in the sun for the rental car; but 3 of them working & decently quickly so it wasn't too long (Europcar, in a portable shed). It's a silver Renault Mégan BK (estate) 1.5 diesel. \theta drove us at first, via a Le Clerk supermarket, then to locate Monségur & the owner's butcher's shop, which is closed for lunch at this time. Then back to Duras for lunch in a lay-by, looking out from a height over the countryside. Then back to Monségur. Arr at 16h as arranged, but there is a problem, the cottage is not ready. Back 1h later, after sitting in the shade in a little park, & he pilots us out to the village. The setting is idyllic, rural, near a cowshed but no houses, on a long track down from the road. Owner has us wait outside for 2 mins while he prepares the first sight with lights on & music playing. It's huge. Vast kitchen, sun porch with breakfast table, sitting area with open fireplace & stone sink, utility room with washing machine, downstairs bog & storage area with 2 bikes. Sun area outside to the side. Upstairs 2 bedrooms, bathroom & bog, with mezzanine looking down over the kitchen. Upper rooms have mostly roof lights. All this for just 2 of us. Bottle of wine for free as well, for the confusion on times. Stable building nearby has the electricity supply with the RCD to fiddle if lights fail. 150E cash deposit paid. Phone works well even inside, with the half-metre-thick walls. Eve eat in & relax with a few beers, watching the lizards darting around the front step. It's only warm inside, but even by eve hot outside. Car was showing 37degC, but the A/C worked well. It has 4 electric windows, auto start with keycard, cruise control & can get 198kHz quite well for the cricket. The radio in the cottage has LW as well & you can hear the cricket but can't really listen to it. Eve many stars out, & insects chirping and buzzing everywhere.

Sun 2005-09-04 {18773}

Dimanche. Overcast, some rain & thunder, & just pleasantly warm instead of very hot. Lazy day. \phi biked (& walked) up to Dieulivol, from the viewpoint by the church can see the farm next to the cottage, but the cottage itself is screened by trees. Also out to the River Drot (or Dropt), which is very slow flowing & green. Lunch in, then out to Monségur to walk in the local park area by the river, a decent drop below the town. Then more reading, pleasant outside; some few glimpses of the sun later. Pleasant that is in shorts and T-shirt, despite no sun. This building was previously bigger, can see evidence of old walls & sockets for rafters. Some bits are crumbling, presumably repairs are being done over time as more of it is modernised. Photos of it in its old state, dated 2001 (APS) show a great amount of dilapidation but still a bed & cooking equipment, so assume someone lived in it until quite recently in some squalour. Don't know how many of the local houses are let, but I saw at least one large dustbin labelled "bottles only" outside one of them. There are at least 3 lizards on the step, as that's how many we have seen at once, but they're proving difficult to photograph.

Mon 2005-09-05 {18774}

Lundi. Overcast again, but warm. \phi into Monségur for bread & croissants. Then out to explore the Canal Latéral à la Garonne. Joined it at Bernès [022 N44d29.59m E0d4.17m] where there is a lock and walked 2.5km NW to the next lock, where the road changes sides. Automatic locks, operated by pulling a cord slung over the canal, with traffic lights to show the lock status. Saw one boat, a small cruiser, leaving the first lock & two others moored. Water very green. Then on to Marmande [023 (car) N44d30.04m E0d9.64m] for lunch sitting outside a brasserie in the square. \theta got some more euros out of a cash dispenser. Then on again, following some little roads, thro' Lagupie, St Géraud & back to Monségur & home. Eat in, off this morning's bread. Eve watching it getting (very) dark & listening to music. The car's "service" light lit this morning, but disappeared after the canal walk stop. Monségur has a boulangerie and a pâtisserie, both do bread, the former closes on Monday, the latter on Tuesday. Don't know if the butcher gets a day off, suppose it's Sunday, prob both bakers are open then. Most shops in Marmande close 12..14h & the car park was free for those 2 hours.

Tue 2005-09-06 {18775}

Mardi. Started relatively brightly, but it was not to last. To the other baker in town, only bread and croissants, no nice tarts, but a bit cheaper (2E76 for 2 baguettes & 2 croissants cf 2E80). Then out to the Atlantic coast, along a bit of autoroute (toll 3E10) to Bordeaux, then down to Arcachon & across to Pyla-sur-Mer (30T0642603/4943569), a nice beach but it was empty, probably because it was blowing a gale and raining. Anyway, walked along the beach & \theta had a paddle. Then to la Salie (nord) plage (30T0639138/4932055), where you have to walk over a big dune to get to the sea. Fortunately there was a wooden walkway to help as it was very hard going on the soft sand. One man fishing & 2 surfing on the otherwise deserted beach. The restaurant was closed of course, as were nearly all of those on the coast, tho' the bogs were open, if lacking a little in privacy. Then via Biscarosse plage, but a long way from the road & we went on to the lake, a huge lake Etang de Cazaux et de Sanguinet, but Biscarosse also seems to claim it. Had a dry baguette here & our water. Then change drivers, \phi from here back via pretty sideroads thro' the forest (D652, D46, D216) then back onto A63, A630, A62 & home. To the Shopi for some cakes to compensate for the disappointment in not finding somewhere convenient & scenic for lunch. Got a 1:25000 showing Dieulivol & the cottage. From the map I'd get 31-271200/4950700 cf the GPS 31T0271106/4950634. The map has 2 scales, one in UTM & the other in grads from the longitude of Paris, typical. The "service" light came on for a time yest then disappeared. It has reappeared today & stayed on, along with a message: "niveau huile à réajuster", & indeed the oil is at low. Europcar say just top it up at their expense. A tiring day with all the driving. Pity the weather was not better. Eve in watching the local farmers trying to round up a herd of bullocks, at first between two of them, then, failing, with three, then using a Citroën van chasing them around the field, horn blowing and lights flashing. Then they let most of them back & loaded the rest into a small truck. By then it was almost dark. Eve more mp3 from the 1G player on the cottage's 3-speaker sound system that was probably meant to work with the satellite system but which was not connected, just leaving a convenient 3.5mm jack dangling.

Wed 2005-09-07 {18776}

Mercredi. \phi took the car to the Renault garage in Monségur. A nice reception area & a garage area, no parts counter; the man put the oil in for me from an all-purpose can (tho' he probably topped it up appropriately), added quite a bit (he had to go back and re-fill his can) & charged just over 10E. Then 2 tartes aux fruits & 2 pain au chocolate from the pâtisserie. Diesel from the Shopi, 34E for about 30l, paid with the Visa without PIN or signature. Then to Duras & the château, which was interesting with many of the rooms having exhibitions of paintings, artworks or old agricultural equipment. Lunch at a pizzeria in Duras, then home for a short trip out on the bikes to the river. Then read & sew in hot sunshine. This was not presaged, the morning was dull with some rain. Owner came by eve in a white van to "collect the refuse". A small snake, maybe 5mm dia and 30cm long, darted away from the step when I approached; the lizards are everywhere. But no nasty insects so far, except pestilential flies. Some cute red bugs on the figs. Also in the garden are peaches. As we were closing the shutters, we saw a mantis, maybe 5cm long, on the kitchen window.

Thu 2005-09-08 {18777}

Jeudi. Both into town for crosissants & to dump bottles. Then a local potter looking at villages, starting with Sauveterre-de-Guyenne, a walled town with remaining towers at the 4 corners. Here is a big winery, going full tilt, with a queue of tractors & trailers full of grapes (green & black) being tested and then dumping into big hoppers. Rows of tanks and pipes behind, & grape mush coming out into other tractors & trailers. Then looked at Cleyrac, Soussac, Cazaugitat. Tried Pellegrue for lunch but nothing suitable, so on to Ste Foy-la-Grande where we had lunch sitting on the pavement outside a crêperie; having galettes & cidre. Had rained early, but by then hot & sunny. Before lunch also St Ferme where saw the outside of the abbey. A few more twists thro' the local villages on the way back to the cottage. After a little while it started to rain again, & rain hard. Eve drove out to Monségur & ate in Les Colonnes restaurant, the 19E menu inc pâté-fois de canard, which was amazingly rich. Three parties of English, not quite outnumbering the French. Paid by card, the PINs seem to work seamlessly. Surprised a hare in the headlights coming back to the cottage. Saw an ancient Citroën van with yellow headlights.

Fri 2005-09-09 {18778}

Vendredi. Into Monségur, much busier this morn, just got into a space in Place 8 Mai, market day. The market square is shut off for cars & stalls are all around outside & inside the covered area. Seafood, veg, meat, fruit, spices, clothes, jewellery, &c. We bought only bread & croissants & earrings. After breakfast to the canal again at Meilhan (parking in a tight spot on a hill). One boat registered Sheffield UK was moored by a café called "Les Amis des Peniches" & its crew was outside the café talking loudly in English. Another English couple in a UK-reg Daewoo also spotted. Several boats moored in the local port, one Dutch, the others prob French. Then drive to Hure a little further on. This boasts an English pub, but at least at this time of year it opens only eves on Thu..Sun. Nice church tho' and a bridge over the canal. From there to la Réole for lunch at a pizzeria, then home to clearing up & packing - or sitting in the sun with a bottle of wine. The beer has just lasted (we bought 24 small blondes and 12 small brunes).

Sat 2005-09-10 {18779}

Last day. Lovely thunderstorm overnight, heightened by the absolute darkness and the only window being in a shallow-sloping roof. Later the sun came out again, so the last day was pleasantly warm. Into town for croissants for breakfast and lunch today; had to go to the patisserie again as the baker was shut for the weekend while the girl got married. Met our butcher and confirmed that he'd come at 10h00, and dumped the last of the bottles. A little final clearing up, then he came roughly on time, declared himself well satisfied after looking at just the lounge and kitchen, and gave me back my 150E. Then off. Topped up the diesel at the LeClerk at Ste Foy (auto pumps would not take either of my UK cards), then on to Monbazillac, a pretty château and village on a hill with nice views. Toured the château, which was not very interesting, mostly odd old stuff shoved in to try to make a show; the building itself was not stressed. Nothing about the current vinification process, but free tasting and we bought a couple of bottles of the local. Then had the croissants in the car until time to go to the airport. Car accepted despite being a bit dirty, and they refunded for the oil in cash. Easy process through the tiny airport. Only our flight was going, checked in and went to sit outside at the café over a glass of wine, then in thro' security, opening about one bag in two, belts off, but lots of joking. Waiting area just seats and a bog, plane comes in, you walk out to it. Bogs on the plane, another BAe 146, not working; we were advised to go at the airport. There was only a single WC. Back in Birmingham it's cold and wet. Car park was 8 days * 7L50. Home in time to hear the Proms last night.