Selling Peaches...

Grow them in the garden, sell them from the garage...........

The Corbieres...

Perps Choir...

About 45 men and women, Bass and Tenor are men..... Alto and Soprano are women. I like singing Tenor and Bass.....

Perpinan Choir

We went to visit the Perpignan Choir tonight and it was really good.

The standard was extremely high and a totally different style and vibe to Barbershop.

The music was classical, high brow choral, so not really my favoutite stuff but there were some lovely melodies and harmonies going on.

The thing they have in common is the joy and passion the singers have for their music and their friendliness....

Generally they were accompnied by an excellent pianist but they did do a couple of sessions of acapella and we very good.

The MD asked us to come and audition.... flattering but not sure we have time or it's really for us. Would be good to keep the voice and breathing in good order.... for when we come back to Barbershop....... mmmmmmmmmm

Blue Convulvulous....

I love this wall of blue convulvulous and want to find some for our garden.

Honey .....

Goats Cheese Please !

We love a bit of Goats Cheese and this is about as fresh as you get other than making it yourlself.

Last of the seasons peaches

They have been stunning this year, sweet cheap and plentiful....

We favour the white peaches and nectarines but they are all lovely.

Beautiful Chestnuts at the Farmers Market

We stopped yesterday during out walk as we saw these HUGE furry balls on the ground under our neighbours tree.

They were about the size of peaches and a way away so it took us ages to work out that they were Chestnuts....

The French ( and us ) absolutely love them .....

15 degrees yesterday, 25 today... lovely

The Band

Fabulous Jazz Band... the best bit for me

Literary Festival...

Looks a bit Mills & Boon...

We went to Rivesaltes looking for the Antique Market and stumbled upon a Literary festival where some local author was being feted and the local Mairie put on nibbles and ofcourse Muscat de Rivesaltes as well as Orangina ;-)

In their usual fashion the back slapping and general bon hommie took about 45 minutes of speed talking interspersed with some fabulous Jazz...

We sat in the Square in about 25 degrees with a gorgeous breeze, listening, learning and watching the locals have fun, nursing a delightful espresso....

Bliss... sheer bliss

Christian Oster at the Rivesaltes lirerary Festival

Hehehehehe !

Daniel and Andres Almonds

Our neighbours Daniel and Andre have invited us to watch them press their wine in their own press tomorrow morning and also to see the almonds being shelled.

We have some wild almond trees on our walk round the hill.

Daniel sings in pretty highbrow Choir in perpignan and has invited us along on Monday night to have a listen and maybe a sing.

Not at all sure as I'm not a big fan of Classical choirs and singing in Latin isn't my favourite thing, I especially hate singign alto so I said to Pete I might sing Bass with him, there are only about 2 notes he sings I cant get. Hmmmmmm we need to sing though to keep our voices conditioned and also keep the breath support going..... cannot imagine me in a black skirt and a ceam polyester blouse........... jeeeeeeeeez !

A Funghi to be with...

There are loads of edible mushrooms in the woods but I am too scared to try them.

You can take them to any Pharmacy and they will identify them for you, may do that one day.

We get grey days too, 15 degrees !

Insulating the tunnel...

Doesn't everyone have a tunnel under their lounge?

We do and prior to Pete's efforts you could see daylight through the oak floorboards so not ideal for keeping cosy in the winter...

Catalan Fabric

Am loving this Catalan upholstery fabric. Think we will cover our antique Chaise and Sofa in Either the green or the blue stripe, It will be very very cool.

Nice Art....

There was some really cool art in this Gallery, not in our price range unfortunately !

Still I got to take this nice man home ;-)

Birthday browse

Yesterday it was my Birthday and we went to have a look at some Art Galleries and also had a browse in some of the old junk shops...

This one was in a quaint little court yard.

We didnt buy anything as we are saving up for the big building jobs but it was nice to gather ideas....

Autumn is here...

Today 2nd October started off a grey 15 degrees and cloudy and stayed that way all day... first time that has happened since we got here.

We made the most of the cool weather and Pete got on with some insulating work on the tunnel, pics to follow... I cleaned all the windows and phoned the Wood Man ( he isn't really made of wood ) and ordered the wood for the wood burner... He had sold out of OAK so we have to have Beech which I understand is Calorifically similar to the Oak has less acrid smoke but throws out a lot of sparks... we will see.

This is now operation warm up the big house. Last year Big Bertha ( our big 12 KW woodburner ) failed to warm our room and we have identified a number of possible reasons.

1) Our front door fits the door frame so badly you can see daylight around 3/4 of it.
2) The floorboards are so gappy you can see daylight below them
3) The French doors are single Glazed with no Curtains
4) We burned unseasoned pine wood....
5) We hadn't learned the way of the shutters... shut in warmth in winter shut out heat in summer close when the sun moves round !!!

Had a good walk round the village, checked Jess and John's house is OK after the freezer de frosted itself.. The smell is almost gone now ! Also checked "Les filles'" garden where thay have kindly agreed to let me Park the Z3 when we go off to UK so its relatively safe. It's not famous for Car incidents here but with a soft top you never know...

Off to watch X Factor now ;-)

Visiting....

Sometimes Josephine likes to entertain in her own house !

"It's a bit chilly Grandma isn't it?" she said....

I was a bit jealous of that cool mac !

Josephine and Grandma have a chat

Come and sit in my house Grandma.....