Oh boy!! Snow!!

Well! We had a bit of trouble motivating ourselves to get out of the house today, although it was cool, clear and sunny. Just Sunday laziness I guess but once we got to Le Caylar, our first stop, we were very pleased we had made the effort. The village of Le Caylar is about 40 km north of here, up in the mountains, and as we gained altitude we noticed icicles hanging off the rocks by the road. Then E spotted ice on the ground between the trees ... hang on - that's not ice, it's snow! Immediately the excitement level cranked up several notches (it had been hovering around zero in the back seat anyway). We squeaked to a halt in the first parking lot we came to and tumbled out of the car like puppies needing to pee. There was just enough snow left to make a very small snowman and to chuck a few balls at each other, so after 15 minutes or so we set off, only to screech onto the side of the road again (and I do mean screech, you could have measured the excitement in decibels by this time) to look at a frozen pond. You probably could have slid right across to the other side, but we didn't dare try it ...

There was even more snow at La Couvertoirade, which is a fortified medieval village, built by the knights templar. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful villages in France, and it is very pretty and also very well-preserved. The walls are several stories high. Inside the walls are many houses - one website said there was a population of 153 - and a church, with an ancient cemetery, unused since 1439. That means that all those strange circular gravestones are very, very old ...

In some fields to the south of the village there were deep snowdrifts and E and Al got completely out of control, throwing themselves into the drifts, making snow angels and then just people-shaped holes. I lost count of the times E's shoe came off, her socks were soaked when we got home. The randonnee track back to Le Caylar lay tantalisingly before me and I tried to persuade the others to take a walk with me ('only 6 km!!' ) but they weren't keen. However there is another shorter walk in the area that they have promised to do with me soon ...

Some pictures

The Le Caylar snowman



The rooftops of La Couvertoirade taken from outside the church (the two towers on the right are part of the fortifications)



The very ancient cemetery, with strange circular grave markers.



The path to Le Caylar. Don't you just want to walk a while, see what's around the next corner?