Word Of Mouse

Anyone wondering about our precipitate dash to the South of France, past all the myriad attractions en route, can wonder no longer. We had a deadline we had set ourselves: to meet Jane and David, Ali's parents, for a week in a gite at Le Cayla, near Realmont, a little way short of Albi. We made it, despite ticks and having completely misread the scale on our map of France (leading us to erroneously conclude that France was half the size it actually is) with a day to spare.

It was a wonderful week, punctuated by trips to the market, cooking big delicious dinners, and cooling off when the heat got too intense in the swimming pool. The highlight of the week was walking along a disused railway track to the nearby village of Lautrec (made famous by association with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to whom a substantial museum is dedicated in Albi). We ate fruit along the track, had a very pleasant lunch, admired the spectacular views towards the Pyrenees from the top of the hill and had a look round an old restored and working windmill, operated by a charming and funny man in a red hat. The lowlight for us was our daytrip by bus to the neighbouring town of Castres- pleasant enough, but unremarkable in contrast to Albi and quite devoid of anywhere nice for a picnic: the public spaces in the town were all hot, bare and full of either cars or workmen sawing up paving slabs with motorized cutters.