Camping, camels, causses and canoes

We've just come back from a week in and around the Tarn Gorges, about four hours away from our home near Toulouse.

The landscape is high limestone Causses (ideal for keeping sheep so long as you can store the water) which are dissected by huge winding gorges. The Gorges du Tarn itself is 53 kilometres long! The motorway which cuts past the area has to cross a number of minor gorges, using viaducts like the one you can see in the photo of our campsite sheep, and of course like the famous Viaduc du Millau, visible in the distance on the high approach to our campsite.

Our campsite was a very basic one, with occasional hot water, showers, some 'French' loos and one highly-contested 'modern' toilet. There was also a large covered area with tables and a fridge (luxury) and beautiful woodland camping spaces, separated by green oaks. Did we take a photo? No we did not - we had real difficulty charging our phones and cameras, which was probably good for us.

La Blaquiere farm makes traditional sheeps' mik cheese, herds traditional tourists into the campsite and some beautiful historic gites, and leads treks across the causse with slightly less traditional Bactrian camels. This is not our photo - we saw lots of the camels but didn't pay for the trek, as we saved our money for the even more exciting canoe trip down the gorge. Did we take a photo of that? No, we were having too much fun getting wet! We canoed 10 kilometres, stopping for swims, a picnic and a chance to explore a riverside village accessible only by boat. We got a 10% discount on our trip, on the charming basis of a note on the canoe flyer marked, 'Bises, Manue' ('Kisses, from Manue'), as our campsite cheese maker is great friends with the canoe trip family! Here's a generic photo of the wonders we paddled through:

The area is full of history, from the medieval hermitage on the farm were we stayed:

to the also medieval troglodite church from which you can see the Viaduc du Millau:

all the way back to prehistoric menhirs up on the highest causses:

with attendant chambered tombs:

Not a bad fit!

As well as canoeing, walking and visiting, we had plenty of time for relaxing.

We spent several days around the campsite, cooking up fun lunches and playing games of Kübb or Trivial Pursuit. On one of those days some of Papé's (the grandpa's) bees swarmed and caused quite a bit of excitement! We bought some of the honey to commemorate the event.

One the other days there were just ordinary old camels to enliven the campsite...

Town Vide Grenier

Hello there - long time no blogging! Thanks to those who checked I was OK (thanks Kezzie) - yes, I've been fine, but blogging really takes a back seat when you work and parent full-time! But today I'm happy to share with you some fairly restrained shopping brought back from the local Vide Grenier. I found this charming, and very space-saving vintage camping stool for 50c on one of the first stalls. Ben is very impressed by its folding design. I like the fabric best! I then spent 3€ on the match holder. It should sit beside our fire (newly cleaned out) and I especially love the lettering.

Coming round the mountain in a vintage skirt!

We did a camping tour of the northern coast of Spain this month - another lovely chance to chill out with the family while visiting some wonderful places.

That's our tent, hiding behind the cornflowers, at the bottom of a high valley in the Cordillera Cantabrica.

This campsite was our favourite - lots of space and free mountain-goat jumping displays at unexpected times!

Both at the campsite (available for rent) and higher up in the valley, these herdsmen's huts called brañas are a feature of the area. They are thatched with dried broom! We saw the local cattle and a lot of farmers, out and about making hay. Choughs flew around us as we walked higher up the valley, and we spotted vultures and eagles on the craggy mountains. The bears and wolves kept their distance, though...

At the high, and rather distant, end of the valley was a beautiful lake. We took a (very quick) dip in it and Ben snapped this rare glimpse of me in this year's walking gear - yes, I was the only walker on that popular route who had combined hiking boots with a vintage floral skirt and a tie-die T-shirt.

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.

This is the campsite we stayed on

This is the campsite we stayed on... This is the farmhouse door on the campsite we stayed on.

This is the dog who guards the farmhouse door on the campsite we stayed on.This is where the owners relax with their dog, who guards the door of the farmhouse on the campsite we stayed on.

This is the wash block (hot and cold running water, two toilets, two showers) on the campsite we stayed on. Here is the dog (called 'Yes'), not guarding the farmhouse door of the campsite we stayed on.

This is the vineyard hut, which houses the fridge and table, but is not the wash block, as Sarah wondered, next to the wash block but far from the farm, on the campsite we stayed on.

This is the barbeque outside the vineyard hut and the wash block, burning sticks from the woodland of the farm of the campsite we stayed on.

This is the Coleman tent, which houses us all, on a field by that woodland, far from the loo block, far from the hut, and far from the dog (Yes) on the campsite we stayed on.

This is a campsite we'll go back to.

Vintage Finds while Camping...

I promised you some pretty vintage after all those DIY photos, and I found some... We took a long weekend camping this Thursday to Sunday. Our aim was to explore another area, not far from home, and we settled on the Tarn.

Camping a la ferme is a great set-up - the farmers only have to provide some basics (toilets, showers and hot water) and are granted the right to host a small number of tents.

There was one night when we camped on our own, and even at the weekend there were only two other groups of campers.

We chose to camp in a field far from the hot water and toilets (honestly, with three males, who needs those things?), and with no neighbours at all.

It all made for lots of mellow lounging about, or cricket-catching, in the case of Son 2.

j

But yesterday, the nearby village (about 2 miles away) was hosting an end of summer Vide Grenier!We parked in a field and ambled down the village street in some baking heat.

And this is what I found!

An admittedly battered enamel pitcher for 4€ - I'd just turned down a more usually priced, equally battered one for 12€, so under 5€ is always fine by me.

j

And a lovely selection of old threads, ribbons, buttons and delicately embroidered handkerchief cases.

It was fun going to a Vide Grenier in an area with a different history to our own, as very different things were for sale. Even though it was only a short holiday, I have lots to tell and photos to share. While you wait for those, don't forget to sign up for the Magazine Swap (below) if you'd like some new reading-matter in October!

Bloggers' Tents

We've had our tent since Son 2 was old enough not to wander off and get lost every two minutes i.e. since he was three, I think. It's still doing very well and we're awfully pleased with it. Look who else has got one! Vicki posted this photo - her family has the 8-person Coleman tent you can see in this picture, and Dawn's family is camping next to them in a Coleman 6-sleeper. I know that vintage caravans are the object of desire for bloggers, but perhaps a Coleman tent is becoming just a little of a theme, too.

They don't make the blue and green ones we all own any more. Now you can buy this whopper (for 10 people!!!!) on the Coleman website. But Vicki got hers on ebay so she's clearly the winner of the thrifty blogger prize.

We were living in Harrogate when we bought ours all those years ago, and in that wealthy part of Yorkshire the tent looked quite appropriate. When we camped in the more egalitarian Lake District, however, we felt quite embarassed by the size and swank of the new tent! Other people were there in their old canvas tents, or borrowed ones... It was the same with the car we bought whilst we were there - somehow you get tied up in a materialistic way of living very easily, even when you consider yourselves to be quite against it. Anyway, now the tent is a bit older and looks perfectly good in any company. It would be fun to have it keep company with Vicki's and Dawn's one day!

"Read When Possible"

"RWP"Son 1 announced when camping that this is his new motto:
RWP

Read When Possible

Fortunately, the concept has finally rubbed off on his younger brother, too.

Previously, although a big fan of bedtime stories, he wasn't keen to read himself.

But the discovery and purcahse of the Roman Mysteries (thanks, Serenata!)...

have made him quite as obsessive as his older brother!

So please don't think that my boys have been avid, regular readers for years...

it can come quite late, so don't despair if you have a non-reader or two!

Harry Potter and Twilight have caused the 'click' for many of my pupils,

and Lemony Snickett, Percy Jackson and the Roman Mysteries have finally done it for these two!

Now their dad has taken to reading them Terry Pratchett on holidays

but he's currently have to bid for bedtime story time, up against Son 2

who is determined to read the first Roman Mystery to the rest of the family!