Hallelujah !

The wall is finally finished.


18 months after I started, it’s done. No point in hurrying these things. Actually, as there was no pressing urgency, it’s been very much a stop-start affair. It all depended on the weather forecast, visitors, my levels of energy and enthusiasm, etc.

I’d mix a bucket full of the sand and lime mixture, prepare a section of the wall, plug in my earphones to listen to an audio book and do about a square metre at a time. 


I have to say that seeing the wall being slowly transformed was very rewarding. And though I won’t be hanging my shingle out any time soon, I feel I’ve got a bit of a handle on something else now. The very least 'fun' bit was getting off the concrete rendering - made a little easier when I borrowed a compressor and percussion drill thing. Now that WAS slow work. I wasn’t able to complete the whole project myself – I guess I did about two thirds. It was just too high and I had to get someone in with scaffolding to do the very high bits.

A little recap:

The east wall: BEFORE

The east wall: DURING - and to the height I was able to do

The east wall: AFTER

The west wall: BEFORE

The west wall: AFTER

It did involve draining and moving the fish pond while I did the section of the wall behind.

And while the fish seem happy swimming around in a large rubbish bin - their temporary home for more than a week now - I reckon they’ll be pretty pleased to be back in the pond.

And here’s an aside - and nothing to do with walls. 

Lunch in the nearby village of Ginestas last week with a group of friends. Nic drove, and we had trouble finding a park nearby. We finally found a place, didn’t notice a ‘no parking’ sign (really…) and parked the car.

After lunch, walking back to the car, we noticed fire engines AND police – we heard later that they were trying to get someone from a building, perhaps a stretcher case from an upper floor? There wasn't any smoke or any real sense of urgency thank goodness. Anyway, we stood by, wondering what was going on – this was before noticing the ‘no parking’ sign – and realised we were getting tickets. Well actually, one of our group was.

And here he is (to remain nameless) – hot-footing it down the road. To no avail – a €35 ticket was given out on the spot. Ouch.

 

Nic and I and Barbara ran to the car just as one policeman was preparing to write a ticket, but we managed to drive away before that happened. Well, we didn't exactly do a runner, we proffered our apologies and said we were just moving (?). 

But not before he pulled out his digital camera and took a photograph of the number plate. 

I think a ticket will be heading to Bize in the post some time very soon….

Domaine Borie de Maurel

I recently went with three friends to the Domaine Borie de Maurel in Felines-Minervois, and enjoyed a great lunch and tasted some delicious wine.

 
Felines-Minervois – about 25 minutes form Bize-Minervois – is one of the six villages that come under the La Livinière appellation – recognised as the best of the Minervois wines.

And who was our host? - a local Bizoise – the lovely Marie Binisti previously of Les Raisins des Soleil here in Bize. 

She has now moved on to the Domaine Borie de Maurel, sharing her passion and extensive knowledge of the Minervois wines.  




 

It was just one of those days – temperature mid 20s (not quite spring yet, but it certainly had that feel about it), not a cloud in the sky, a gorgeous drive through the vineyards, excellent wines, food and company. 



It’s not set up as a typical restaurant and there is no set menu. What you get is a plate of delicious tapas-style food – Tapas Occitan – and you get to sit under the shade of an enormous pine tree and gaze over the vineyards towards the Black Mountains.

All of the food is locally sourced, with the fruit and vegetables coming from the Domaine’s own gardens and the unpasteurised Lucque olives from Bize.

Our Tapas Occitan lunch consisted of a plate of olives to start with, toasted bread with tapenade and confit of onions with anchovies, slices of dry cured ham, a bowl of tomatoes, sliced dried sausage, thinly sliced raw yellow courgettes, braised courgettes  - all in olive oil. And after, a small plate of three different cheeses with sliced figs, and finally a bowl of watermelon and rock melon/cantaloupe – or as it’s known here in France, simply melon.

Food is served only during the summer, and as they are now gearing up for the vendange, we managed to get one of the last lunches of the season. 

The vendange started around here about two weeks ago – very early this year. “The word” is that it’s going to be a very good year ….

We’d done our wine tasting before lunch, so when we were ready to leave we collected our purchases. My favourite was definitely one of the reds - the Belle de Nuit. Divine.

And while I’m looking forward to drinking this, I’m not sure I’ll be cooking tiny wild birds, on a stick (brochette) or otherwise – as suggested on the website write-up:

Accompanying dishes: young, Belle de Nuit goes well with spicy dishes, a beef stew or paella. When it matures it’s time to imagine higher flying dishes such as a song thrush with streaky bacon or a brochette of skylarks.

 


Marie suggested that it’s best served slightly chilled – definitely not warm. Sounds good to me, and I can’t imagine a thing that it’s not going to go well with!

The courtyard - with its own outdoor chandalier

Kids in a lolly shop....

Look at these hands - what an amazing image .....

Water jousting on the Canal

Each year, there is jousting held on the Canal du Midi at Sallèles-d'Aude, 15 minutes from here. 

I tried to go 3 years ago, but got the times wrong and missed it all. The last two years, it’s been on the same Sunday as Bize’s own Olive Festival. This year it was a week after, and I made it at last.

The boats are brought up from Sète, where water jousting has been a tradition since 1666. They have their big festivals in July and August, but take time out to come up to the Canal for a day of jousting. 

Given the quality of the water in the Canal (!), I know where I’d prefer taking a dive….

The place was crowded – canal-side markets, food stalls, a huge vide-grenier winding through the streets, and thousands of people. But I managed to get a good position on the other side of the safety rail.  

At least I wasn’t the only one with legs hanging over into the canal – and it certainly did afford a great front-row view.

Crackers

Fire-crackers are a common thing here at festivals – well, any celebration really. Unlike Australia – where they’ve been illegal for more than 40 years. They can be bought just about anywhere. Here in Bize, you can get them at the local lolly shop – where else....

And there were a fair few of them around at the recent Bastille Day celebrations. Most of them were being let off by the young kids of the village. But not all of them.

There were a couple of women of a certain age (well, perhaps only one was of a certain age) who sat on a balcony, enjoying a wine in the late afternoon, and who sent the kids off to the lolly shop to buy a packet of Tom Thumbs.

I haven’t had so much fun in a long time!

We were quite restrained - resisting the temptation to drop them onto unsuspecting people below - instead we dropped them into the olive tree. 

Some of those little guys had surprisingly short fuses - here's Nic getting a couple away in good time though.

The Olive Festival:

Another one been and gone - I was a little late getting down to the aioli-making competition, and arrived just after it had finished .......

Bize Old Boys' Club a.k.a. Aioli judging panel

Many of the usual food and handicraft stalls ...

... and a few new ones, including this man selling knives, axes, scythes and many sharpening stones.

Pony rides - outside the Maire's office

At the end of the day, fireworks on the river.

And all this under a beautiful full moon.

 

Porto

Summer – Nic’s kids on the school summer break – cheap Ryanair flights out of Carcassonne. Portugal: 3 day break. Sounded good to us, so that’s where we’ve just been.

The trip didn’t start without drama though. Just before we were heading to the check-in desk at the airport, I got a blood nose that wouldn’t stop. I’ve only had about three in my life, that last one about 25 years ago! Talk about bad timing …. Another traveller suggested I might need to see some first aid people if I was going to get on the plane – and she offered to go and find someone. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered, but given what was at stake, I agreed. Sod’s law – it had nearly stopped when the pompiers (!) arrived with a full emergency kit. That was all a little embarrassing… 

Anyway, we went to check-in, and lined up - me with bloody tissues to my face. But while waiting in line, it all started again... deargod …. and then because we were now running so late, we were called to the front of the queue. 

What is really interesting is that I wasn’t questioned at all about what was happening, we were checked in and sent straight through. But on the plane, it wouldn’t stop. Again, no questions – just being looked after really well by the flight attendant – ice, tissues, bags. Because we were the last passengers on, there weren’t any seats together and I needed Nic next to me to help with tissues and moral support! I’m sure all the other seated passengers were praying I didn’t sit next to them. So a rearrangement of seating was done. 

I have to say that Ryanair have certainly gone up in my estimation. They said they’d need to make a call to see if there was a doctor or nurse on board if it didn’t stop during the flight (it did eventually), or make sure I saw a doctor on landing. Again, I was just so surprised that I was allowed on board the flight at all. I’d already taken Nic’s car keys at the airport, fully expecting to be turned back at check-in, and having to drive back to Bize and forfeit the holiday. Amazing!

But we made it to Porto with no other dramas. We stayed in a hotel quite close to the centre, but not on the river-side. So a fair bit of walking was involved each day – those streets are certainly steep.

Except for day 1 – when we had a different mode of transport – definitely the highlight of the trip. We’d planned to do a guided bicycle tour of the city, but the weather was looking a bit dodgy for the last two days. We found the office of the Bluedragon Tours and they said they weren’t running bike tours on that day. But would we be interested in a Segway tour? Well, yes – we’d been talking about it, but noted that the minimum age was 14, and Indigo is only 12, so we’d discounted that idea. The guide said it was more a height than age thing, and she would be just fine. 

After a half hour ‘training session’ on a flat section at the edge of the river (with spectators), we were off. 

They’re the only Segway operator in Porto and Bruno the guide told us that they have an arrangement with the tram operators – we were allowed to use the middle of the tram tracks, and that when the tram drivers saw us, we would be given plenty of time to get off. 

It was a little disconcerting, but it worked. It was preferable to using sometimes very crowded pavements on steep streets! We started off along the river – the flattest part – to get used to it. I have to say it was easier than I’d thought it would be. 

Having said that, I would like to say that it was without incident. But it wasn’t. Only one of us came off and it was me ….. 

Heading into the markets, I was probably becoming a little complacent and chatting to Bruno – didn’t line the two wheels up straight when mounting the rise to the entrance of the markets and shot off – but managed to keep one foot on, and hang on to the handles. But it had a bit of momentum and I was left doing a ‘Segway dance’ until I got it under control! 

No harm done except a slightly grazed leg from the wheel – and I’d provided a huge amount of entertainment for Nic and the kids and a few onlookers. I loved the whole experience – so did the kids - and I’d do it again at the drop of a hat.

Porto is a lovely city. The city skyline on the north side of the River Douro is spectacular – the other side has all the port houses. And there are many of them. 

 

Lots of buildings in Portugal are completely tiled
- gorgeous and definitely low maintenance.

The famous Majestic Cafe where we treated ourselves to a breakfast

Morning Glory gone bad

A view over the roofs of some of the port houses
on the south bank of the Douro River

We spent the rest of our time walking around the city, seeing the sights, a little shopping, and a river boat tour on the River, taking in the six bridges.




We did get a recommendation of a restaurant for lunch the "Restaurante Pescador" – in the small fishing village of Arafura, a few kilometres out of the city near the mouth of the river. 

Arafura tiled houses

This is very much a working fishing village, and quite a few of the restaurants had their charcoal barbecues on the pavements, ready for the lunch crowd. And obviously the local residents also do their fish cooking out on the street – this lady was happy for me to take her photo. 

As we've become so used to drinking rose wine with meals (in summer, anyway), that's what we ordered. But what we got was a real blast from the past - a bottle of Mateus Rose!

I can't remember the last time I saw a bottle of this - let alone drank it. It was fairly sweet compared to what we have here, and I have to say I prefer our local drop.

The kids ordered whiting fillets – bigger than the whiting I remember – but they were delicious. Nic and I ordered barbecued squid – hoping it would be as good as the squid we used to cook at Cheyne Beach on the barbecue. 

While it was good, I think our way was better! That's the squid in the middle of everything else, cooked whole - the kids tried it and didn't even baulk at the fact that it was uncleaned in the middle and needed a bit of work before eating. The servings were huge - though this was for two people. And it was so nice to eat in a restaurant frequented by lots of locals, away from the tourist spots. 

What we should have ordered was the grilled fish that were being grilled outside on the pavement:

Even though these ones had been cleaned, they reminded us so much of what we grew up with at Cheyne Beach. We called them Herring Guts Feathers ‘n’ All – which were basically whole herring, fresh out of the net, grilled on the open barbecue. They weren’t scaled or cleaned – hence the name that Dad coined, and it stuck. 

The guts just shrivelled into a little ball and the skin could be easily lifted off. Then the fillets were lifted onto a plate, smothered in butter, salt and pepper – and that was it! The table was laid with newspaper which was later rolled up with all the scraps. I’m in the process (it’s taking a long time….) of scanning all the old family photographs, and a few weeks ago I came across these photos below:

Dad and Paul - chefs extraordinaires

Sage, Paul, Dad and Joyce - given that Sage is now 14, I guess this was more than 10 years ago!