A Gourmet Walk At Fleury D’aude

Each year a ‘wine and food walk’ is held - Les Sentiers Gourmands en Clape Vigneronne and a group of us got together back in May. Given that we had to pay in advance, the fact that it had been raining for two days and was continuing, we turned up on the morning. And the rain stopped.

The walk is about 6 km long and starts from a wine cave in Fleury.

We’re given a straw hat, and a pouch to hang around our necks for our wine glass, cutlery and a booklet describing the wines and food at each of the six stops.

What a great day …. food was delicious, so was the wine, and a walk in the ‘Clape’ region was a new one for me. And we got to see a man and his horse, ploughing between the vines in the traditional way.

So all in all a very good day. The menu was this:

Creamy cauliflower with shrimp coulis - Egg cake with mushrooms, meat juice vinaigrette, arugula and olive oil - Salmon mi-cuit, broad beans, ham and fresh black basil - Caramelized belly pork with sage jus, potatoes and red onion - Franceline with duck fat - Cheese - Salted butter shortbread, white chocolate ganache, raspberry and pistachio - Coffee

And delicious wines from 6 different wine producers at each course – with a selection of sweet wines  at the final stop. I’m not sure the 6 kms would have walked it off …..

Bonfire Night "Fête De La Saint-Jean"

The "Fête de la Saint-Jean" (celebration of St John the Baptist) is celebrated here on 24th June. Some villages built huge bonfires that are lit on the night. These things sometimes take days of preparation, and are huge. Bize had a beauty on the river bed, nearly a week in the making. However someone thought it would be a good idea to get things underway a bit early, and it was set alight in the very early hours of the Wednesday morning before. So come daylight, all that was left was a group of pompiers standing around a large smouldering mass on the river. Fortunately friends who live in Agel had the same celebration and I joined them for the evening – a meal first first, bonfire later. I have to say that their bonfire was a very well-structured affair with most of the timbers coming from the roof of Bonnie and Terry’s renovation project.  

But Bize rallied, and in fact another bonfire was put together and lit the following Saturday – a good night with live music on the promenade, and a MONSTER of a fire.

Nicky and Alan

A recent visit by friends Alan and Nicky (well back in June actually) – who will soon be doing a house-swap with me for a couple of months. As usual a good time was had by all, with good food and wine featuring heavy in the five days they were here this time. And good timing it was too – as their stay coincided with the end of year picnic for the walking group, as usual up in the Black Mountains beyond St Pons de Thomières, on the edge of the lake of Vésoles. And with the usual aperitif of Soupe de Champagne. 

Bize Bytes - moving to Google+

I’ve been absent from this blog for some time for various reasons, and have now decided to pick it up again, but to do it a little differently. I’m not really a fan of Facebook, but am going to have a crack at Google+ which I’m still learning about. And I think I will find it easier to post more frequently and perhaps just shorter snippets of bits and pieces. Especially as I’m heading off to Australia for a while and will be on the move a bit. I’m doing a house swap with friends for two months and am really looking forward to it. 

Although I am leaving the Minervois behind at my very favourite time of year – autumn/vendange. Only yesterday I saw the first of the tractors with trailers with a tail-back of cars behind it, laden with white grapes. I’d heard that it was going to be an early harvest this year. Nicky and Alan (my friends who will be staying here) will need to be prepared to be held up on the roads for at least the next couple of weeks.

So if you’re interested in following the new format of Bize Bytes, it can be found here:

Bize Bytes on Google+ 

Update:

I’ve decided to revert back to this Blog format – which now appears will automatically update Google+ anyway.  So in effect, I’ll be posting here intially and it will be synched to Google+. Yes, I’m obviously a little confused, but seems I’m back to where I started ……

I’ll be copying Google+ posts from the previous year (with the date of their originally posting) to bring this blog up to date. 

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Frozen flamingos

It was only yesterday that I was reading on The Guardian UK’s website about the plight of the flamingos in this area – more than 200 have died down near Gruissan where there are many etangs (lagoons). 

Here’s an article and the video clip that went with it – showing the firemen to the rescue.

And then today, I went with friends Miki and Ivan for a drive to check out various parts of the region that are affected by the ‘big freeze’ and we found ourselves involved in a bit of flamingo rescue ourselves.

We’d stopped to take photos at the lovely little fishing village of Bages, right on the edge of the Etang, which was surprisingly mostly frozen. Surprising because it’s very salty.  

And it was in the low scrub at the edge that we saw this poor bird …..

We didn’t get too close to him, but he was definitely alive, just hardly moving. 

I mentioned to the others that I’d seen the news item the day before, and that it seemed that the pompiers were involved in the rescue. 

So a phone call was made, and all the details taken, and we were told that someone would be there to arrange a pick up.

But five minutes later, down the road a bit, we came across a van with the back open, full of flat-pack cardboard boxes, and one made-up box. I commented that they looked like the boxes they were rescuing flamingos with - in the video I'd seen, so we stopped. And sure enough they were members of LPO (Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux de l'Aude) – the local bird protection society. 

We showed them where the exhausted flamingo was, and he was promptly picked up, packed away into a box and taken away to recuperate. Lucky bird!

Here’s the movie I took – I had to mute the sound in the first half of the clip as the noise of the wind on the soundtrack was dreadful. 

And here’s some other photos of around Bages……

We spotted a flock of flamingos flying across the etang - so not all of them are in dire straits yet ....

A few more of different parts of the Canal du MidI....

Miki and Ivan - near Le Somail

Ventenac

And lastly some of Lac de Jouarres. The wind whipping across here was unbelievably cold and strong – evidenced by the build up of frozen ‘icebergs’ on the shore nearly a metre high. Felt like we were in the Arctic. 

And I know we’re so much better off here than most of the rest of Europe (we've still got those bright blue skies every day!) – but I’ll be so glad when things warm up a little. Above zero degrees would be nice. 

There’s a change coming at the end of the week and it can’t come soon enough. Though I’m a little worried at what I might find when the fish pond thaws. I can no longer see anything through the ice. Fingers crossed ….

The frozen Canal du Midi

I was talking to someone today who said an old man in her village had only ever seen the Canal du Midi freeze over three times in his lifetime. It’s certainly frozen now.

At Le Somail. Someone's thrown a brick onto the ice (bottom rhs)
- to check the strength of it I guess!

A freezing Arctic wind

While huge parts of Europe (including most of France) have been suffering record-breaking freezing  conditions, here in this region we’ve just had the bitterly cold wind but no snow. And it’s been howling for days now, with not much relief in sight. Though we have had wonderful clear blue skies, so there is that to be thankful for.

Here’s the four day forecast – those winds of 75 kph and gusts of 110 kph (and chill factor of -10) are freezing. 

And they're a little destructive. Well, they have been in my courtyard, anyway. Yesterday it blew down the dividing fence, taking my planter boxes with it. 

So I’ve rolled up part of the bamboo fencing, as it’s not going to stay upright for long in this wind. Perhaps now’s the time to consider putting in a more permanent structure - some posts cemented into the ground or something …..

This is the longest cold spell I’ve experienced since I’ve lived here. We’ve had snow before but it’s not lasted more than a couple of days. And my fish pond has only ever had a thin layer of ice on it, and that’s not lasted long either. 

At the moment, the ice is about 2 – 3 centimetres thick and the fish are looking rather lethargic.

Some of my plants are looking decidedly unhappy – parsley’s a goner I think.

But what seems not to be suffering at all – and in fact is looking really good is my wattle (acacia) tree. It’s just about to blossom.

 
Here’s a photo of it taken two years ago, weighed down heavily with snow. 

I don’t know what I was thinking of, planting a wattle in a planter box – so back he went into the ground. And it’s never looked back. 

A bit spindly, and tied to the upstairs balcony with a bit of rope – but doing a good job of creating a bit of summer shade for the courtyard.

In about a week or so's time when it's fully out, it's going to be a picture ....

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And because I’ve been spending rather a lot of time indoors until it warms up a little, I’ve been trying to tidy up my photo folders. I’m a little lax when it comes to culling and categorizing. So I’m posting a few totally random ones that I stumbled upon which I quite like ……

At a vide-grenier in Argeliers last year -
a pumpkin seller who was more than happy
to pose and have his photo taken.

Newly pruned plane trees - Argeliers

A carving set no home should be without.

The shoe van that comes to Bize about once a month and
parks up for the morning on the Promenade.

The famous Blue Champagne ("La Soupe") being made in my kitchen by the lovely ladies of Bize. I had Christmas drinks at my place before I went to Australia - this brew had a total of 8 bottles of sparkly (there were quite a few of us!) plus all the other goodies. Delicious.....

Just a gorgeous window  ......

And this is one of my favourites. I took it on a group walk late last year - from the hills behind Bize. It's looking south to the Pyrenees. I used the maximum zoom of my little camera and stitched a few shots together, so they do appear closer than they are. They're actually at least an hour's drive from here, and can only been seen on clear days.