When we landed in Béziers, we were delighted to be greeted by the summer heat after cooler, wet weather in Stockholm.
Summer in the Midi is great! The temperature is usually above 20deg at night and in the high 20s to mid 30s during the day. The heat is dryer than when it is the same temperature in the UK, so not so oppressive.
Many fruit and vegetable stalls are open from June to September and are well stocked with melons, peaches, apricots, cherries, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines etc, all grown locally. Pat makes apricot compote to see John through the winter, gazpacho with perfectly ripe tomatoes, buckets of ratatouille and melon with ham from the local butcher - we are almost vegetarian at this time of year!
The village fills up with visitors and summer only residents from the beginning of July to the end of August, when the village is full and parking is difficult, the small shops are open 7 days a week. The highlight for us is the cultural festival, which takes place in the last week of July. Events, which mostly begin at 21.45, when it is just dark, are all open air and of high quality.
The first event is always in Thézan just before noon and takes place in a small street which is a flight of stone steps.
This year it was 'sacred songs of the east' by Al Jisr.
The next event was a concert performance of Carmen in the next village, Pailhes. Before the concert, there is a four course meal in the village where we join a table and practise our french.
We then hitch a lift out to the 12th century Chapelle de Montalarou where the concert takes place. The chapel is always locked when we walk in that direction, but does look interesting from the peeks one can see through door at the concert. At night, when it is lit, it is very impressively
and the audience just gets bigger every year.
On Monday, there was a modern dress performance of 'As You Like It' in french at the Domaine d'Asties, an olive oil domaine in Thézan. We had a meal at the domaine before the performance and then settled down to watch the play.
On Tuesday, we went with another couple from the village to watch acrobats in Causses et Veyran, a short drive away. This was a well attended event with a fast moving, excellent performance by 4 male acrobats. Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos of the amazing feats they performed as their manager was sitting right in front of John and wagged her finger at him.
We did our best to have some time off from continuous festival, so on Wednesday we had a meal with some Swiss friends in the village before our Thursday concert at Chateau Mus in Murviel, the next village going north and just 5 km away.
Madeline Peroux is a popular american jazz singer who has lived in France and is popular here; we saw many friends and neighbours in the audience.
We very much enjoyed the concert as did the rest of the audience and then we joined the long line of cars leaving the Chateau along a single wine makers dirt track back to the main road and home.
On Friday, we gave the festival a miss - it was just too French and intellectual for us - and went to a Jazz and Bossa performance at La Maison Vert. LMV accommodates various styles of singing courses and we often go to their end of course concerts. This one was great fun, and we recognized the group from last year. We started with a drink in the courtyard
before watching the performance
On Saturday we were back at Chateau Mus for another concert preceded by a rather good meal close to the chateau.
This was a jazz pianist, whose performance was marred by over amplification and we had to move further back and contend with the noise of the cicadas! The second act was a gypsy band, frenetic out of tune and not to our taste, so we left early and avoided the rush home.
On Sunday we were invited out to brunch with Mary and Barry who have just sold their house and are moving back to Ireland, naturally, this took all afternoon. We ate in their courtyard and cooled our feet in their pool.
Finally, we spent Monday awaiting news of the birth of our first grandchild, Ernie Jack Herrett and then it was our turn to entertain on Wednesday and make sure that the baby's head was well and truly wet! The lounge was packed with 20 people for les apéros - Pat made all the food which went down well, especially with our French neighbours.
This busy period was followed by another village meal in the little park in the village on Friday (more fizz with 14 of our neighbours to wet the baby's head)
and a 40th wedding anniversary lunch where we joined an extended family which has roots and many members in the village.
The celebration started at noon and only finished after midnight as we saw in the day of the anniversary.
We will shortly by leaving for London to see Ernie and help out for a few weeks.
Pat and John on tour
