France trip, Chapter Deux

Next morning up at 7:30.  H had ordered breakfast in the salle de petit dejeuner.  We had the room to ourselves.  A man greeted us and asked if we wanted cafe´ noir or tea, then brought us orange juice, croissants, rolls, butter and jam.  There was fruit in a basket on the counter.  The coffee was mmmmm!!  All the coffee we had in France was espresso, and fabulously deliciously good, even without my hard-won boisson de soja!  Where do they get such good coffee?  Is it all in the preparation?

We wanted to stock up on food for the weekend, which was some holiday or another, so back to the marche´.  We got produce, bread, olives, pastries for H, and a couple herb mixtures, and headed back for the hotel.  Our stuff was stacked in the corner because they were cleaning our room (oops!)  We jammed ourselves and our hastily collected belongings into the little lift, and down we went to the dreaded parking garage.

The receptionist came too, to help H negotiate the exit.  The two of us waved, called, gestured, laughed, and sweated while H backed, inched, revved, and finally made it to the exit!  Free at last from the Hole of Doom!

We had studied our maps, figured our route, and headed out into the maze of one-way, angling, narrow streets.  We crossed the canal, with it's pleasure barges,

hit the perimeter road, and we were off into the countryside in no time.

It was the wrong countryside, but it was lovely.  ;P  We got almost halfway to the Med before we figured it out, and turned around to go back to Toulouse and get in the right direction.  Ah well.  That pretty much set the pattern for all our adventures thereafter: start off wrong, but figure it out, and enjoy the detours anyway.  Too bad it was le peage (toll road), so that we had to pay twice.

We did fine after that for quite a ways, found our exit, but got turned around in the village of Montrejeau, not far at all from the gite (the rental home we were headed for).  We decided to pull off at a sort of park, eat our lunch, and get our feet back on the ground.  With a little food to sort us out, we figured out where we were, and we headed back through town to a supermarket we'd seen on the way by.  We stopped in there for a few more staple-type foods (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, eggs, pasta, canned tomatoes), including a bottle of red wine for 2 Euros.  Wine is cheap there!   

Groceries in the boot, off we went.  This time we did it right, and wandered down into the valley, green with spring, sheep and pale fawn cattle in the fields, two more stone villages, a roundabout surely designed for foot traffic (not cars!), more fields and forested hills rising into hazy skies, and there's Generest.  Turn left, hm, there's a truck tire in that tree, cross the tiny bridge, turn left then right, and here's our gite, behind this wall and gate.  

Our host and hostess met us, got us parked, and showed us our gite.  It was so homey we both thought they were bringing us into their home at first!  Matt and Karen are British, about my age I guess, talkative and friendly.  They showed us the bedroom, heaters, appliances, bathroom, out the back to "our" garden dining area, the other gite's dining area under a tent-gazebo (which we had the use of since the other gite was vacant), the pool.  They told us about the bakery truck (which we never did see), the weather, trails, etc..  Once we were alone, H unloaded the car, and I turned on the "electric fire".  I regret not getting a picture of this contraption.  It has colored lights which you can change the color of, but not turn off.  This, at least, is H standing in front of it trying to warm his buns.

  The kitchen, after a day or two of getting domestic:

Our outdoor dining area, before the rain forced us to take off the seat cushions and tablecloth to dry indoors the rest of the week:

Out our front door:

We were told we could use the herbs planted here in front.
The pool area at the top of the garden:

Most of the interior, as seen over my fleecy-toed foot as I sit on the couch:

The bedroom you can see through the arch on the right, we slept in ... two nights, I think.  It was very uncomfortable (spring mattress, supposedly new, but with zero padding!)  We ended up comfortably on the futon-couch in the living room, in front of the "electric fire".

We settled in for the evening.  PJ had introduced me to the concept of comfy pants in the evenings, and this time I had packed accordingly.  Fleece pants, fleece socks, turtleneck and fleece jacket, and my scarf wrapped around my head and neck.  It was chilly!  H got dinner started while I caught up on the trip journal.

Mmm!

Pasta with our market veggies and herb mix, olives, wine.  Gets H's Gallic pursed-lip "somptueux!"
























I cleaned up the kitchen, H read the gite info packet, then I went back to the journal, and H flipped channels on the little t.v. 'til bed was irresistable.

It was a lll-ooong night, half awake, awake, dreaming, trying to get comfortable.  I woke from a great dream, elated, and didn't go back to sleep for an hour or more.  I can't remember what it was about now, but it seemed revelatory at the time.  Should have written it down in the darn journal!  :P


~~~  End of Chapter Deux