Autumn Camping Trip

Ben's always loved the idea of going camping on his birthday weekend.

When the boys were younger it used to be exhausting for them, and we stopped after a few attempts, but now they're big and strong and setting off after school and setting up the tent seems to be no big deal any more.

We stayed at our favourite campsite in the Ariege, where the flora is a bit different in the autumn!

Autumn crocus flowers stick their little green spikes up through the damp grass or the leaf mould every morning, and purple petals slowly unfurl as the sun strikes them.

Son 1 got very interested in photographing the fungi which surrounded us, and we foraged for hazelnuts, walnuts and blackberries, although we didn't take any photos of those as we were too busy eating them!

On the Saturday morning, the boys lolled around the campsite (freedom!) while Ben and I headed up the hill opposite, following a track Ben had discovered a few years ago.

The Ariege is a wonderfully quirky, alternative/vintage sort of place.

The walk took us past a dissenters' graveyard (unlike similar groups in the UK, these Christians were refusing to worship in Napoleon's state church) and a little shrine to a saint who may be as much a pagan memory as an actual Catholic personage.

There was a tiny, dark shepherd's hut, which seems to have been used within living memory.

And then we burst out of the shade of the trees and up to the little peak, looking down over the village of Biert and towards Massat.

In the afternoon the boys and our increasingly elderly Raja joined us for a walk around some hillside farms and hamlets a few mile further away.

Raja had the time of her life, sniffing among the autumn crocuses and in the very best of company.

We saw some of the culprits who attempt to keep us awake at nights with their traditional mountain cowbells. You have to forgive them when they look this cute... and anyway, after those walks, nothing stopped us from sleeping!

It was a really wonderful weekend away, a beautiful break from the term-time slog, and a reminder of family holidays past and those yet to come.