In the country

We are now settled into the Gascogne, near Mauvasin, near Toulouse: The middle of nowhere, France. Being in one (very comfortable) place, after a month of travel and absorption is a welcome change.

mysterious Sainte Leonard

Our house is large with two sitting areas a big kitchen and rooms for all plus guests, the pool (yes the pool!) is freezing (a first world complaint), the stars are bright and the birds are deafening!

The riding is amazing too. I’m slowly building volume up, (in preparation for the arrival of Ted, later in the month and our 3 days in the Pyrenees (ouch!)) after our month of travel and sporadic exercise, and here it’s easy to slide out the door, and ride on quiet and rolling roads. The terrain is a little like central PEI, except with longer and sometimes steeper hills. There are some great flatter ridge roads but villages tend to be at the tops of hills or at the bottoms, so there is always a climb in or out, and an often twisty and fun decent out or in!

Today I did a 65km loop through places like Mauvasin, St. Leonard, Sarrant: a village every 5 kilometres or so, and roads that were like PEI for their volume of traffic.

It’s needless to say that I rode along, and dreamt up all kinds of metaphors about how a great ride is like life, and how perspective is best gained on the bike blah blah blah, but I decided mid-ride to leave those musings to your imagination, and avoid sounding like a slightly pompous Forrest Gump!

But the mist was heavy at the start, and each hill crest presented a new shrouded view of fields of growing grain, sand coloured farm buildings with tiled roofs. As the mist burned off, the views got longer, with a million shades of green, poppies providing contrast on the road’s shoulders. Fantastic. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief again and again. As I have frequently over the past 3 months.

Right now as I sit outside our kitchen door, I hear a cuckoo, four other birds with more complex songs, a woodpecker, bees and flies buzzing (and nothing else!) and I just spotted a little lizard dash across the stones of the patio.

Toby just walked by me and heaved a spontaneous sigh of contentment, and Meg said “oh, it’s awesome out today”.

misty view

growing