Our First Full Day in France

TUESDAY - September 4
We are here and loving it.  I won't write the boring details about getting here from Aberdeenshire - suffice it to say that it was a long journey - by taxi-train-bus-plane-car - the better par of 2 days.  But we arrived in Toulouse late yesterday afternoon and successfully found Christine and Pierre's car which they had left for us in the airport long term parking lot when they left for Mexico.  Fortunately, they kindly left a GPS so that we could easily find our way to their house in Magrie.

Our Home Exchange in Magrie, Languedoc, France

We were greeted by two of their charming cats:  Marcel and Couchou (may have spelled that wrong).  We did not meet the 3rd, Grisou, until morning when he came in for his breakfast.  Since we enjoy cats, even though we currently do not have one ourselves, we are happy to have them.  Couchou is somewhat elderly at 16 and stays in the house while the 2 boys like to be outside.  However, Marcel, a ginger colored cat, seems to be happy to be with us whenever we are available to provide a lap for him.  

Lovely Couchou - 16 yrs old Himalayan female

We were very tired from our travels and so did a little unpacking and then enjoyed a bottle of Blanquette (more about that wine further down) which Christine and Pierre left in the fridge for us along with some crackers.   That was enough for us and we trundled off to bed.

After a good night's rest we arose in anticipation of the arrival of the bread truck.  Magrie is very small (about 500+ inhabitants) and does not have any shops.  So, there is a daily bread truck bringing fresh baguettes and croissants and, there is a weekly meat and sausage truck.  A little after 9 a.m. we heard the honking which announced the arrival of the bread truck in the square a short block away.  Christine said they would also honk in front of the house but we didn't want to take a chance of missing it and so we walked over and had our first experience of shopping in French.  We successfully purchased a loaf of beautiful rustic bread and two croissants - lining up behind two elderly citizens.  Home we went with our purchases and sat down to enjoy the croissants which were more than wonderful - the likes of which we have not experienced in many years.  

Time to do a little exploring on foot - so out the door and around Magrie we go.  It is very quiet with few people on the streets.  However as we peer down a narrow street a women standing outside a doorway beckons to us.  She begins rattling away to us in French with us understanding next to nothing of what she is saying but she forges ahead with expressive hand motions and points to a newspaper article posted next to the doorway and we figure out that she is involved with the making of a sparkling wine of the region called Blanquette and further that it is made in the ancestral way right on that very street where we are standing.  She brings us inside to show us bottles, press, barrels and other wine making paraphernalia.  She demonstrates an ancient apparatus that puts the corks in the bottles along with the foil wrapper used in sparkling wines.  So we attempt to buy a bottle - and due to not really understanding, we ended up buying a case of six bottles.  Oh well - we're here for almost 3 weeks; I think we can handle it and it is a very mild sparkling wine of only 7% alcohol and not expensive.  Now we are preparing to head home with our purchase when I happen to mention to her that I speak a little Spanish.  Well, everything suddenly changes because she is also able to speak a little Spanish/Italian mix which I mostly understand and now we have a real conversation.  She starts over with the explanation of how the wine is made and further that there will be actual wine making going on while we are here and we are invited to join in the festivities.  She seems to think it will be around the 15th of September.  We can hardly wait!

Barrels for Making Blanquette

Our Case of Blanquette Heading Home

After dropping our purchase at home and putting one bottle in the fridge to chill, we continue our exploration of Magrie - small enough that this does not take long but it is charming and interesting.  If you check out my pictures (link at the end of this post) - you can see for yourself.  The church was built between the 12th and 14th centuries.  The best view overlooking the countryside was from a terrace at the church as old Magrie is on a hill.

After our walk we decide we had better head into Limoux, the larger town nearby - actually only 3 km - to stock up on a few groceries - even though I think I could live on the beautiful bread and croissants from the bread truck.  We passed through Limoux on our way to Magrie so it is easy to find and with instructions left by Christine, we drive right to the LaClerc supermarket.  It is past lunch time so we step into the sandwich shop next to the market and ordered a ham and cheese pannini for me and an individual quiche for John.  Both were super delicious and the pannini was about a foot long.  Well, it is better to go shopping when you are not hungry, isn't it?  However, inside the grocery store we were confronted with wonderful things to eat.  I could have spent hours looking at everything but not you-know-who, so we gathered our purchases and headed for home.  By supper time we just were hungry enough to eat some of our rustic bread and cheeses purchased at the supermarket along with a little ice cream dessert.

I figured out how to use the sat TV - and John is down there watching - however, he just called up to me that the Magic Flute is on so I will finish this and go down to watch.

By the way, the weather is cool and pleasant - clouds but soon turning to sunshine.  It's going to be in the 70's & 80's with lots of sunshine.  We're ready!

LINK TO PICTURES:  warning - lots of them as usual.