Ok – it’s official. Chris has found his spiritual home and it’s right here in the South of France. If there was any doubt about this, it was cast aside yesterday as we drove through the French country side on our way to the Gaillac wine festival, with Chris asking every few minutes “What about that house? Wouldn’t you love to live in that house?” For me, the answer is negative – I love holidaying in this part of the world but in no way does it feel like home. Perhaps because of this conversation, I have a big bout of homesickness today. I woke up feeling a bit blue and then I received a picture of Pepper looking particularly adorable – ears back, big black eyes shining with love – and sank into a full blown slump. The sun is shining, the sunflowers are smiling happily at me and the local baguette is more delicious than ever, but I feel droopy today. Don’t get me wrong – I am not ready to go home yet – I just miss my dog and my friends.

Anyway, yesterday we went to the Gaillac Fete de Vins. In the local park of this lovely town, were dozens of identical mini chalets, each with a local wine maker promoting their wares. We bought some tasting glasses for 3 euros each and then off we went! Nearly every chalet had a wine maker who spoke English, much to Chris’ delight – he took notes, asked many questions and went into raptures over many of the wines. The kids had plenty of room to run around and there were French carnival acts and games set up throughout the park. Because we had to drive, we had to be somewhat circumspect about the number of wineries we trialled. But in the course of our exploration we discovered unwooded Chardonnays, wooded Savignon Blancs, dessert wine made from Cabernet Sauvignon, a sweet Rose, sparking wine that tasted like green apples and the smoothest Syrah I have ever tasted. At the end of the afternoon we strolled happily out of the park clutching several bottles of truly unique wine (most well under 10 euros). We decided to have an early dinner at Gaillac and and sober up a bit before we drove home. We sat outside and enjoyed some lovely pizza – I had a pizza called Alsacienne which had a white sauce, sweet onions and melted white cheese. Delicious!

I haven’t written a blog for the last few days because we haven’t done very much of note. We had a couple of lazy days hanging around “home” – one of the days helping Cecily and the twins to pack up and leave. What a sad day that was! Packing up at the end of holiday is miserable at any time, but to add to angst, first Cecily returned her hire car to discover there were scratches on the bonnet and they would make her pay for it, then Blaise got really sick. We didn’t want them to go as we knew the house would feel so empty without them. When Chris returned from the airport having dropped them off, we had a very quiet dinner by the pool.

Chris and I were full of resolve to hit Carcassonne early the next morning, but Nick and Michael started to complain of feeling sick, so we left them at home and went to St Julia for lunch instead (yes I realise that makes us sound like terrible parents but they really didn’t seem very sick to us!). St Julia is another tiny medieval village about 5kms away and it is very pretty (but I still love St Felix the best!). The restaurant was packed, (mainly with gay couples as far as I could ascertain, which gave us great expectations of the quality of the fare), but they found us a small table, and we had the menu du jour. Chris and I have decided that lunch time menu du jour is a great way to go – it usually includes at least 3 courses, you usually get no say in what is served so you end up eating a range of local, seasonal dishes that you would never have ordered for yourself, and it is nearly always delicious! The meal was very pleasant, not least because there were only two people vying for each other’s attention, and we spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool and reading books.

This morning felt like ground hog day, but we actually made it out of the door by 9.30 a hit the road for Carcassonne. On the way there I tried to engage the children by telling them some of the interesting stories that surround the castle. For instance, it was originally built by the Celts in 500BC, but when the Romans came to town, around 100AD, they built their fort right on top of it. Carcassonne used to be in the southern point of France so it was the scene of many battles and saw several changes of owners over the centuries, including the Moors around 800AD. There is a legend that Lady Carcass, the wife of the Moorish king who lived in the castle, won a battle against the attacking Francs, using only her wits. Her husband had been fatally wounded in battle and the people within the castle were beginning to starve. She responded by getting one of the last remaining pigs, feeding it up on grains and then throwing the fattened pig off the castle ramparts at the attackers. Her message was clear – “We have so much food within the castle that we could stay here comfortably for months yet”. The Franks turned around and went home.

Then of course, Carcassonne was the scene of a potentially huge siege in 1204 AD when the Crusaders were hunting the Cathars. For some reason that is not clear, Roger Trencevel, the nobleman of the castle, surrendered and ended up being thrown in the dungeons of his own castle where he died 3 years later.

So the castle has seen some amazing events and we were all really looking forward to seeing it, but as we crossed the river into the heart of Carcassonne ,we were unprepared for how big it was! It was restored in the 1800s and it is really an amazing sight.

We crossed the draw bridge and Michael was especially fascinated to learn about all of the techniques that were used to keep intruders out of the castle (see his blog) including moats, drawbridges and murder holes! Inside of the first set of castle walls (there are three) is a living town full of shops, restaurants and even hotels. We went on a guided tour within the heart of the castle and learnt some more about its design and history. It is an amazing and impressive place and both boys loved it!

Yesterday we got up early and headed into the town of Mirepoix (pronounced meer- pwa), at the foot of the Pyrenees, to explore the markets. This medieval town was transformed into a huge market place and we had a couple of fun hours looking around at the gorgeous food (check out the nougat!), toys and clothes.

We eventually found a little cafe for lunch where we had plates of charcuterie, fromage, foie gras, pate and baguette(!) and a glass of beer.

From there we drove the historic castle of Montsegur. Both Mirepoix and Montsegur featured prominently in the Cathar crusades but Montsegur had a particularly interesting history. The story goes that local Cathars became aware of the rising threat from Simon de Montford and the Catholic Church and asked the local leader to restore Montsegur castle for them (apparantly it was a ruin in the late 1100s). The local leader did this willingly and within 12 months the castle was restored, and around 200 local Cathars and 50 knights and their families holed themselves up within the castle walls. Eventually Simon de Montford and his troops arrived at the castle (look at it! Can you imagine seeing this castle and thinking, “yeah let’s lay siege to this thing”?) and spent 10 months trying to break in.

Eventually they were successful and 200 inhabitants refused to renounce their faith so they made a huge pyre at the bottom of the hill and burnt them all. It makes me feel sick even writing about it. I cannot fathom the bravery of the Cathars. If it was me, I would tell them anything they wanted to hear to avoid burning.

It was getting late and while we were considering walking to the top, we thought we might just squeeze in one more activity. Our next stop was the Prehistoric park at the bottom of the Pyrenees. Cecily and I were very keen to do the archeological workshop so the adults split up from the kids for 40 minutes or so. Inside the space, the ground was divided into multiple squares divided by string.

At first glance it looked like a random pile of rocks and old bones, but through careful questioning the teacher encouraged us to consider the meaning of what we were seeing (this was all done in French with Cecily translating for Chris and me). What gradually became apparent was that the site contained animal bones and appeared to be a butchery area for a Cro Magnon tribe. We could see from the fact that some bones had no marrow and that there were bone fragments in the fireplace and parts of the animals were used to fuel the fire (at the time it was very cold and there were no trees in the area so animal fat was used to fuel fire). Further examination of the bones showed that one bone had been carved to form a propulsion tool used with the spears. Another rock had even been carved to form a shallow bowl used as a lamp. A ring of rocks showed that we were looking at the remains of one of their tents. I learned a lot and for someone who had a secret desire to be an archaeologist at one point of her life it was fascinating. We learnt that Cro Magnom people were nomads who interacted peacefully with other tribes (cave drawings in the area show a similarity of ideas) and who did not battled each other (nomads typically have no sense of land ownership). The teacher later explained to Cecily that French archeologists look to the Australian aborigines (also nomads) to better understand the Cro Magnons. After this, we had time for a quick spear throwing workshop using the propulsion tools of these people, a blat through the labyrinth and a quick squiz at the different types of tents used by people around Europe at this time.

By this time the park was closing so we had to leave. The experience has given us a taste for leaning more so we will try to book an excursion to the Neanderthal caves in the area next week.

I woke early in the morning to thunder storms which did not bode well for the day ahead, but thank fully by mid morning the weather cleared. We spent the morning doing domestics and getting ourselves organised which made us all feel better, before walking up to the village to see what was happening on this day of the fete. There was quite a bit of activity with a few market stalls and the square filled with medieval games for the children to play. We all had a go at walking on stilts, a medieval version of table hockey and throwing the horseshoe.

Finally the boys participated in a pole climbing competition to see who could reach the bags of food at the top. The pole was really slippery and unfortunately no one reached the top!

Eventually the lady who had fitted us out for our costumes approached Chris and told him off for us not being in costume. We hurried back down the hill, got dressed up, took lots of photos of ourselves (the boys especially looked GORGEOUS) and drove back up to the village.

By now the fete was in full swing, there were people in costume everywhere and the medieval music was very loud. We sat at Cafe Sybella to watch the action while we drank a kir, before joining our other costumed friends at the Chateau for the parade. The parade was divided into three “sections” – there were peasants, Renaissance people and Louis 14th people. We were part of the Renaissance section. Finally the parade started, led by medieval troubadours juggling, playing bag pipes (!!!), clarinets and drums and we paraded through the village twice waving at the spectators. It was hilarious and there were many jokes among the participants. Chris and I have got to the stage where we can understand some basic French and so we were able to laugh along with them. For instance, when someone commented on how small the feather in his chapeau was Chris responded “C’est petite mais c’est tres belle!”

At the end of the parade we walked back to the chateau to be seated for dinner. What an amazing atmosphere. It was magical! Here we were, in a courtyard of a chateau that was around 1000 years old, at long tables, being served venison, lentils and vin rouge listening to medieval troubadours and watching a whirling dervish!

Let me digress momentarily to talk about this whirling dervish. I have never seen anything like it before. Apparently around 700AD the Moors made their way into France and got as far as Paris. The Moors are a part of the history of the south of France. I wish I had enough space to upload a video of this spectacle. It was entrancing and spooky watching this amazing man spinning himself into a state of ecstasy as he whirled for over 30 minutes. The music was hypnotic. Even the children were completely engrossed.
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After dinner we went back to the square to listen to more music and dance. The dancing started with minuets and then evolved into Zorba the Greek. We all danced and laughed and clapped. It was really joyful.

The kids were flagging so finally around midnight we called it a night. What a night!!! I will never forget it as long I live.

It was a beautiful warm day and so we met with Cecily’s friends Theresa and Mike and their son James for a picnic at Lac de St Ferreol. After a lovely lunch in the sun shine we walked down to the “beach” (pebbles and rocks) and hired some kayaks and peddle boats. The Lac was completely still and it was perfect conditions for exploring by boat. Michael paddled a kayak all by himself which surprised me and made me realise how he is growing up.

Around 5pm we all returned to the house for aperos and dinner and we were joined by Cecily’s friends Sunny and Brendon. After a lovely BBQ dinner we let off a ton of fireworks we had bought the day before. It was thrilling for everyone and brought back memories of Guy Fawlkes Day when I was a child. In some ways it’s sad that that was the first time our children had been that close to fireworks. We let them off until the air around us was thick with smoke. To finish off the evening we had Banoffee Pie (banana and toffee) which Brendan had made with some beautiful dessert wine I had bought earlier in the week.

Cecily made an appointment for me at the local hairdressers today. Danielle does the hair of everyone in the village and has done a very good job of cutting Nick’s hair and Cecily’s hair. Cecily was supposed to accompany me for the first 5 minutes to help me brief the hairdresser but a last minute crisis in the house saw me going it alone. I was slightly concerned because Danielle speaks no English and my French is TERRIBLE! I tried to indicate with hand gestures that I just wanted the roots touched up in the same colour. She seemed to understand and 90 minutes later I emerged from the salon with a fabulous colour and blow wave for 35 euros! Wow!

The rest of the day was a “green light” day – the sort of day where everything goes according to plan – and we achieved a lot around the house and outside of it as well.

In the evening, we visited a local friend of Cecily’s for an “apero”. She is the Baroness of the region, a very talented artist and a maker of foie gras. We sat in her gorgeous courtyard under a mulberry tree drinking wine and brainstorming about how they could launch foie gras onto the Australian market. It was a lovely evening and it was just very lucky that we didn’t have far to drive home!

Darren left first thing this morning to go to a conference in America, and now we are only seven.

It was cold and raining this morning so we decided to drive up into the mountains (Montagne Noire) to explore more Cathar country. In the beautiful village of Saissac was a gorgeous old ruined castle and medieval village. Our first point of call was a restaurant that had a panoramic view overlooking the gully and mountainside including the beautiful old castle. (See the view from our restaurant – it was still cloudy and wet at this stage which made the view all the more atmospheric).

We then proceeded to have one of the best lunches I have ever enjoyed! First course – bread and several type of pates and local terrines, second course – foi gras on soft gingerbread with fig jam, third course – scallop mornay on the shell with small local freshwater lobsters. At this stage I really thought I couldn’t eat any more, but then the fourth course arrived – confit of duck with green beans. By this stage we were groaning – but then we were served reverse bomb Alaska (Praline and nuts on the outside of an ice cream ball with meringue in the middle). By this stage we were truly stuffed and received the bill that was quite a bit higher than we had expected (huge mark up on the wine and coffee). The meal finished with the owner of the restaurant driving me to the neatest ATM, flying through the tiny streets in his little car smoking a cigarette, wearing no seat belt talking to me nonstop in French!

We rolled out of the restaurant and down the hill to explore the castle. A very interesting history accompanies this castle – it is a small castle, but well designed and perched on the edge of a very steep cliff. In the early 1200s, Simon de Montford and his troops spend 10 years trying to break into this castle in their crusade against the Cathars. In the end the noble man who owned this castle and was sympathetic to the Cathars, handed himself over to Catholic troops and the residents of the castle were allowed to leave and resettle to establish the village). My French is still completely terrible, but pictures within the tourist site seemed to suggest that residents of the castle were made to leave in the nude (I may have misinterpreted that although I am not sure what else the picture would have been conveying!).

The castle was a beautiful ruin which we were allowed to roam through and explore freely. It was an Enid Blyton moment where we could walk through the rubble, peer into old dungeons and position ourselves behind archers’ slits and imagine ourselves firing at Crusaders below.

While I have been here I have been learning a lot about the history in the local area which I have found absolutely fascinating. The whole area is broken up with old villages every 5kms or so and I never get sick of wandering into an old church and seeing the wonderful frescoes and art works within them.

I have become particularly fascinated with the history of the Cathars who lived in this area around the 1100s and were exterminated by the Catholic Church over a period of 100 years. From what I can understand, the Cathars were a Christian sect who had rejected the materialism of the Catholic Church and tried as much as possible, to live like the early Christians. Their sect was gaining popularity in this region as well as Spain and parts of Italy and the Catholic Church decided to lead a “holy” crusade against their fellow Christians to eliminate them. Over this time thousands of people (men, women and children) were slaughtered or burned at the stake. One village nearby has a plaque explaining that 50 people were burned at the stake in their square at the same time. In the town of Beziers, the priest in charge of the crusade allegedly instructed his army of noblemen and mercenaries to kill everyone in the town, Catholic, Cathar or atheist, as “God would know his own”. It’s easy to think that men in power in those days were completely ruthless and we know so much better today, but then we watch the news of what is happening in the Gaza strip this week in the name of God, and we realise that not much has changed in 1000 years.

I’m not sure what happened in St Felix during this time. In those days it was called Belle Vue but was named after a French Saint Felix (a hermit who devoted his life to God and returned soldiers) around this time.

There are many ruins of Cathar castles in the Pyrenees and Andorra area which I hope to visit in the next few weeks.

Riley is heading back to Singapore today so that last two days have been devoted to kids’ fun, to give him some lovely memories to send him off. Yesterday we all headed to Cri de Tarzan which is an outdoor adventure play area with big trees to climb and flying foxes. When we arrived with five very excited boys, we found out that Michael could not participate because he was wearing the wrong shoes (crocs instead of sneakers). Michael bore this news pretty bravely and luckily he was allowed to go into the little kids area where there was a less challenging parcour course and a jumping castle.

The big boys were briefed in French regarding the safety equipment as they climbed into the tree tops, with Blaise translating for Nick. (Blaise has acted as a translator for us several times over the last week and Nick has started to become interested in learning French – he downloaded a French learning app onto his iPod and has been practising in the last couple of days). And then the boys were off – climbing trees onto high platforms, walking across rope bridges and sailing across gullies on flying foxes. It was absolutely excellent boy fun and hopefully we can return before we go home so that Michael can participate fully.

Today we drove into Toulouse to have lunch at an American Diner, which the boys loved, and Go Carting, before dropping Riley off to the airport. He is such an experienced traveller that he is flying to Singapore by himself with a changeover of planes at Heathrow. He is the oldest of the boys in the family and a really lovely person who has made Michael especially feel very welcomed and included. We miss him already. Tomorrow morning Darren leaves to give a paper at a conference in America. The house will be much quieter and emptier without the two of them.

It’s been a few days since I’ve written in the blog because life has been so busy and fun. Generally everything runs later here – we all get up around 9.00am, have lunch around 3.00pm and eat dinner around 10.00pm and go to bed around midnight. The day start off coolish and then the cloud burns off and the afternoons and evenings are hot. Sunset is around 10.30pm.

Darren and Cecily have a few friends around the area – mostly English people who live in the area. They have introduced us to most of them and there have been long, boozy lunches and dinners with amazing food.

Two days ago Cecily took me for a walk into the village. We walked past a local fig tree, found a perfectly ripe black fig which we picked off the vine and ate, and then climbed the steep hill into the town. As we rounded the corner of Rue des Nobles into the village square we walked past the tavern where the locals were sitting outside having an “apero”. An old friend of Cecily’s who had also lived in Singapore was there and bought us un kia and we sat outside for a few hours shooting the breeze and enjoying the ambiance.

The next day was market day in the neighbouring village of Revel so we set off with plenty of shopping bags and bought a feast. Culinary treasures included Brie en fig, cathar cheese, salami, cherries (big box for 3 euros), two different types of olives, Roma tomatoes, baguette (of course) and the most flavoursome rotisserie chicken I have ever eaten. We brought it home, and sat in the sun by the pool for a beautiful Saturday lunch.

In the afternoon we walked up to the village to be fitted out for our costumes for the village parade next Saturday. Every year the whole village dresses up and parades through the streets in medieval costume. This year we will be a part of it. The church hall has over 1800 costumes from different periods in history which they often loan out to people around the world (including Melbourne). This year we are all dressing as Renaissance people. The boys look beautiful in the jackets, pantaloons, and chapeaus (photos to follow on Saturday). Cecily and I will be wearing Renaissance style dresses with head dresses (more photos to follow). The parade will be followed by a medieval feast in the chateau. Apparently they didn’t have vegetables in medieval times so we will be eating venison and lentils! I hope they had cutlery in those days!

When we got home, Cecily had some friends over (an English lady who has lived in Australia for 14 years and her French husband). We cooked coq au vin and peach crumble for dinner and drank lots of delicious wine (the wine is so cheap and so good here that I could become a total alcoholic if I stay here too long).

Today we got up early and drove to a nearby village where they had a dog show. Lots of dogs were running though obstacle courses with their masters and plenty of puppies were on sale (we all fell in love). Nick had a go at archery, shooting at a fake rabbit and ordered a ball of candy floss that was bigger than his head!

At lunch time we met with a group of Cecily and Darren’s friends at a restaurant next to the Canal de Midi to celebrate multiple zero birthdays (some were turning 40 and others 50). We enjoyed a degustation menu in the sun, had plenty of laughs and enjoyed the wine so much bought a crate of it to bring home.

Chris is more happy and relaxed than I have ever seen him. The kids are enjoying exploring and hanging out with their friends. I’m enjoying the unique experiences on offer here and am beginning to relax enormously. It’s such a beautiful part of the world with the old villages and rolling green hills of sunflowers…..totally happy. 🙂