Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
now seeping sugar and beginning to drip gently on their wilting doilies, creating a gloopy
mush on the presentation table. I quickly nipped in on a mission and a euro later, began to
put a chocolate éclair out of its misery.
But it was the
boucherie
that caught Jack's eye. Amongst the usual assortment of
meats, it proudly exhibited a startling number of dead rabbits, still equipped with liver and
kidneys. They were all over the shop. Apart from being impressed by the carnage that could
only recently have occurred in a local field, I think his interest was also focussed on the
dissection techniques employed.
He mumbled unintelligibly to himself, fully appreciating the care taken to eviscerate
the innards, whilst still leaving the offal neatly in place. But none of this took long and his
window-shopping goodwill was soon exhausted.
We ambled over to a lovely café and sat under one of the shady canopies. Moments
later we were sipping thirstily at our long-promised glasses of Blanquette de Limoux and
the dogs lapped greedily at the '
chien
bar'. As we soaked in the relaxed ambience, we
chatted idly and languidly imagined what it would be like to live here. By this time it was
around five-thirty in the afternoon, without a hint of a breeze and according to the temper-
ature gauge which was fixed to the
pâtisserie
wall, it was still in the high 80s (30ºC plus).
What a great climate
, I thought.
No wonder there is such a thriving café-culture here!
After a further glass of sustaining fizz we ambled back to the
auberge
to feed the dogs,
shower and change for supper. We had a delicious meal starting with the inevitable wedge
of
foie gras
laced with a dollop of fig conserve, bread and a peace-offering to
our
livers of
lettuce and a sliver of tomato.
Next came the unavoidable
magret de canard
probably from the same bird. The sweet
course followed and the choice was easy. We were told that the town runs a
Fêtes des
Pommes
(Festival of the Apples), each year. This celebrates the apple harvests which were
always
magnifiques
, the produce of which is enjoyed by locals and others throughout the
year.
My precise choice was the sugary-but-delicious,
tarte aux pommes,
which by any oth-
er name is apple pie, semi-floating in a generous slug of Calvados brandy. The apple pie
was accompanied by both vanilla ice cream and runny cream making the possibility of
later movement increasingly tricky to contemplate. Jack chose a differently named dish that
looked identical to mine with the possible exception of even more cream splashed around
the base. Yes, we were seriously relaxed and practically horizontal with contentment at this
stage. We had already decided that this could become the place of our dreams.
“You know, it's so lovely here,” said Jack, half-seriously. “If the visit goes well tomor-
row, I wonder if there's any need to continue with the rest?”
“Well, I love it too. The climate's fab but, yes of course we need to carry out the plan,
darling. Just think, the others might be even better. And anyway I'd hate all that work to go
to waste.”
