Exploring Some Mediterranean Towns in S. France (May 5 - 15)

For the last week and a half of our time in southern France, we explored a few towns along the Mediterranean coast. Here's a few photos ...

Train bridge in Cerbere, near the border with Spain

Village of Cerbere

Coastline between Cerbere and Banyuls-ser-Mer

Blue shutters and doors in Banyuls-ser-Mer

Harbourfront in Port Vendres - we watched the fishermen bring in the days catch

Picnic on the beach near St. Cyprien a favorite European playground in summer

Near to Collioure

Exploring the Royal Castle in Collioure

Wandering the narrow streets of Collioure

Bottle brush tree

I stood here in awe every morning on our walks

Walking Loupy on our last morning in S. France - I got pretty attached to him

Exploring the Pyrenees in S. France (Apr 29 - May 4)

As we enter the 3rd week of our housesitting arrangement in southern France, life has taken on a routine that we have not had for a long time. Olive has been able to spend quite a lot of time working on her PhD thesis while I care for the animals, house and yard.

This weekend we both felt like we needed to be a little more active so we headed for the mountains. On Saturday, we headed for the village of Vernet-les-Bains which is at the base of Mt. Canigou (the peak we see from our house). Along the way we stopped at one of the towns to browse the market, then once in Vernet, we enjoyed lunch and a hike up to two waterfalls.

On Sunday, we hiked up to the summit of Mt. Neulos. From the summit, you get a great view of France on one side and Spain on the other.

Saturday market at village of Thuir

Abundance of olives

Assorted French breads

Village of Eus, in the Pyrenees

Lunch in Vernet - assorted platter of meats and cheeses

Hike up to 2 waterfalls in Vernet-les-Bains, one of them, Cascade des Anglais, was made famous by Rudyard Kipling

Vernet-les-Bains

Wild poppies popping up everywhere, Mt. Canigou in background

In the mountains seen from our backyard, the highest peak (directly above Olive's head) is called Mt. Neulos. We hiked up to the summit on Sun. May 4 

At the summit of Mt. Neulos. Olive has one foot in Spain, the other in France

Looking down on our village from the top of Mt. Neulos

Southern France 1 (Apr 16 - Apr 28)

Bonjour - on Apr 16 we flew with Ryanair (well-known European discount carrier) from London to Perpignan in the south of France. We rented a small car, re-adjusted ourselves to drive again on the right side of the road (after 2 months of driving on the left side in the UK and NZ), and then drove about an hour and a half to the small village of Villelongue dels-Monts, where we are pet and housesitting for a month. The homeowners, Erik and Anette (E & A) were originally from Norway and Austria, then lived in Denmark and Spain before moving to France about 20 years ago. They are a lovely couple who, like most Europeans we seem to meet, are multi-lingual including having an excellent command of English. They own a large house with a pool situated on an acreage that has vineyards and olive orchards on either side of their property. Their pets include 3 dogs, 6 chickens and about 10 semi-wild cats. Across the road from the property, where we walk Loupy (they took the 2 younger dogs with them) you can see the Pyrenees mountains, which this early in spring are still snow-covered.

E & A hosted us for supper and breakfast the next morning and gave us a glimpse into the importance the French put into enjoying good food and wine. They typically eat 2 meals a day, a large late morning breakfast and then a large evening meal. Before they left on their trip, they left us with maps and guide books of the area and Erik graciously took a couple of hours to take us on a quick tour of several nearby villages. Wow, what another amazing location to discover and experience.

House we are taking care of in Southern France

Back veranda where we eat when the sun is shining

Summer kitchen where we eat when the sun isn't shining

Sitting, dining and TV room

Back porch

Betty, Bianca, Laura, Molly, Maggie and Rosie provide fresh eggs daily

Loupy - our affectionate companion

View of the Pyrenees from the path where we walk Loupy each day 

Spotted from our bedroom window

Sunset over the Pyrenees

Vineyards with the Mediterranean Sea in the background

Fortress in Collioure

Someone's creative Easter decorations - taken on Easter Sunday

"Picture in a picture" of fortress in Collioure

What became obvious to us very quickly was that we could not assume that people would be able to communicate with us in English. For example, on the way from the airport to the house, we stopped to ask a man for directions and discovered that he had no knowledge of English. This should not have surprised us but made us realize that we need to learn some basic French ASAP. Olive is doing her best to try to remember any French from her early schooling days, we are both trying to figure out if we can use any words from a French song or two that we heard in the past (remember "Frere Jacques" and the lyrics in the song "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir" - wow, good thing I looked this up before trying it out on someone!) and, we are trying to see how much French we know simply from reading the dual labeling of all products in Canada!

Now that we have been here for almost 2 weeks and have gone shopping several times, we are pleased that we have managed pretty well with very limited French. Fortunately, we have met people who have some English and the language translation app on our cellphone has helped.

Here's a few things we have experienced/enjoyed so far:

• visiting the farmers market held on Saturdays at the nearby village of Ceret. All the central streets are closed off to vehicle traffic and stalls are erected that offer all kinds of foods, wines, juices, arts and crafts, jewelery, plants and more.
• exploring a village on the Mediterranean called Collioure. There are several fortresses here including one still in use by the French military.
• wandering around another small village called Laroque des Alberes. This village  has an underground spring from where E & A get their drinking water.
• the peace and quiet of the property we are staying at. It is somewhat isolated as we are told the French tend to live in community in the villages, not on their farms so although there are neighbours, we hardly see them.
• the wines - available in grocery stores here, you can pick up a bottle of wine starting at around $5 and for $15 you get a really good bottle of wine!
• the breads and pasteries - we bought a cream-filled cake for Olive's birthday and have tried several different breads.
• the cheeses (the farmers market allows you to sample cheeses & sausages).
• being "settled" in one place for a longer period so that Olive can focus again on her writing.
• hearing the church bells from churches in 2 nearby villages on the hour and half hour.

Our plan is to stay here until May 15, then to catch a train to Barcelona.

England 2, High Wycombe, Oxford, Cambridge (Apr 2 - 15)

In the early afternoon of Apr 2 we showed up, as planned, at a large country farmhouse and met Rob & Susan and their 2 large dogs, 3 cats and 31 chickens to begin our housesitting assignment. They were busy packing up their campervan and making final arrangements for their holiday to Scotland. They provided detailed instructions on how to care for the chickens, instructions on how to use the aga (the stove in the kitchen which was heated by oil and was always instantly hot), contact information for neighbours and friends in case of emergency and encouragement to eat all the eggs we could possibly consume!

Rob & Sue and dogs

Rob spent his whole life in this area, including the past 30 years in the house he built, which we stayed in. It was definitely a farmhouse, animals were allowed in and out of the house at their leisure and the free range chickens spent a lot of time pecking the lawn in front of the door but also leaving plenty of evidence of their presence (which seemed to continuously get tracked into the house!) R & S were big into gardening, composting, cooking and walking the trails in the area. When we walked the trails we regularly saw deer, pheasants, red-tailed hawks and song birds.

One of the sitting rooms

Kitchen

The fields on two sides of the house had sheep and it was birthing time so we were able to watch the day to day changes as newborn lambs learned to walk and then days later, to jump and frolic about - great entertainment!

I enjoyed getting to be a farmer for 10 days

Lambing season

Ring-necked pheasants like I remember as a child in Canada

For 3 days while doing the housesit, we spent long days attending the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurs, an annual event held in Oxford. The forum was by invitation-only and attracted 1,000 entrepreneurs from around the world. Seminars were interspersed with networking opportunities, plenary sessions, an awards banquet, a Canadian delegate breakfast and some entertainment.

Catching the Park-and-ride bus into Oxford to attend the Skoll World Forum

A couple of featured speakers were Sir Richard Branson, head of the Virgin companies and Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban on her way to school a few years ago. She had a very inspiring speech. Our purpose for being at the Forum was to promote SPECT, the organization we recently started in response to Christina's (our daughter) vision to reduce the suffering and loss of life in Africa associated with poor surgical practices. We made many contacts and felt the conference was a great way to spread the word about our work. Oh yes, we also had supper in the grand halls which were included in the Harry Potter movies!

Malala Yousafzai speaking at Skoll World Forum

We left the housesit on Apr 13, then spent a day in Cambridge (another beautiful and fascinating place to visit) and then spent a couple of days in London.

At Cambridge Univ Botanic Garden

Popular way to spend Sunday afternoon in Cambridge

Corpus Christi College

Corpus Christi College reflected in window

King's College

Christ's College

One of Christ's College more famous students

Springtime in England, at Christ's Pieces, Cambridge

From here, we have arranged another housesit, this time in the south of France, near to the village of Villelongue-dels-Monts where we plan to stay from Apr 16 to May 15. We hear it is a big house ... anyone want to join us?