Wild Boar, 'Le Segalar' & Albi

After just over 4 weeks the roof is finished and looks fantastic. Monday & Tuesday were spent putting the gutters up, fitting zinc flashing to the lucarnes, pointing the chimney & packing all their equipment away. At last we have our new roof & we can finally get on with building the bedrooms & bathrooms and look forward to living in more than one big room. On occasions it seams like years rather than just 12 months since we moved out of the house in Holcombe Brook we really are ready to get back to some sense of normal living & we'll be working hard to get things finished very quickly now.

Having said that we've been doing a little entertaining this week with Matthew with us until Wednesday and Jane & Derek, Barbara's sister & her husband, with us from Thursday. On Tuesday we decided to take Matthew to see the beauty that is Cordes, mentioned here several times. It wasn't quite as cold as the last time we were there with Sue & Jack but at least then we were able to pop into a couple of shops in search of a little warmth. This time Cordes was shut! We walked up to the main part of the village hoping that at least one of the shops would be open and that we'd be able to spend some time 'browsing' for things we had no intention of buying but it wasn't to be. We thought we'd hit the jackpot when we spied one of the dozens of cafés actually open and popped in for a coffee. It turned out that the café owner was the only one winning anything today - €3.00 for a coffee! Having spent such an excessive amount on coffees it was time to search out a reasonably priced lunch. Gilly had told us about a restaurant in Mihars and as it was on the way back from Cordes it seemed the ideal venue for a spot of lunch & what a great place it turned out to be. I had a slice of pizza to start followed by 2 eggs & ham then chicken & chips, cheese & a dessert. This was all washed down with a choice of wine & all for €11.00. The decoration & external appearance might not have been the best but we had such a good meal we returned on Friday with Jane & Derek. Matthew timed his visit well & earned his keep helping us to tidy up & make several trips to the tip. His reward was to take the Lightweight for a spin. Barbara took him back to Rodez on Wednesday while I worked on the loft space.

Thursday brought some more visitors. Jane & Derek arrived a day earlier than planned having made excellent progress on the French motorways. No 6 mile tailbacks on roads here, especially the ones you have to pay to use. As I mentioned earlier, on Friday we headed for the 'Le Segalar' and enjoyed yet another excellent VFM lunch. How do French tradesman manage to return to work in the afternoon having had a five course lunch with wine? Saturday it was off to Albi, home of the Toulouse-Lautrec museum and a really great market. We had a good wander around and picked up some really fresh mussels for supper & what turned out to be some very tasty agneau. For Sunday dinner & in-between mowing the lawn Derek prepared us an excellent Lancashire hotpot; he's definitely going to get a return visit invite. Sunday & it was another trip to the market at St Antonin-Noble-Val. Derek treated himself to a very expensive pullover (it was very cold) and we all enjoyed browsing the stalls looking for fresh vegetables for the hotpot. On the way back to Lagarrigue we had an narrow escape as a heard of wild boar crossed the road in front of us. They'd obviously heard about the wild boar & walnut saucisse we'd picked up at the market last week and didn't plan being on the menu any time soon.