Au revoir, Le Bassin, but not Talairan (Saturday 20th July 2013)

After seven nights in our Gites at 9 Avenue de la Bassin, Talairan it was time to pack up and leave for our next destination – 4 La Promenade, Talairan – about a 2 minute walk away. This is the home of Peter and Kaye Coates where we will be for three more nights.

 We drove our bags all the way over there via St Laurent to get some money from the ATM and have a cafe and pastry, a Tarte Citron for Kerry and a Tarte Pomme for me. Emily was being the responsible one and had none. We drove back to Talairan and sought out M. Remon to hand back the key and settle the account but he was no where to be found even though his house was wide open (literally, the back door was wide open), breakfast still on the table and the radio entertaining itself. So we left. He knew we were still in the village for a while. Peter made a us a very nice lunch of duck and salad with more Tarte Citron for dessert washed down with a glass of Rose.

We enjoyed that and went off to visit the Abbey de Fontfroide near Narbonne. The Abbey is from the 12^th century. The buildings are largely in the Gothic style. These buildings seemed genuinely old, although having been recently restored (in the last 100 years) using stones from the other ruins in the local area.

During the 13^th century the Abbey was home to over 200 monks who lived what was a rather austere existence, having made a vow of poverty, chastity and charity. From what I gathered the monks, and in particular the Abbotts, were inclined to soften their interpretation of the first two vows somewhat as the centuries rolled by. Let's face it, if the Abbotts had stuck with their vow of chastity we wouldn't have Tony Abbott trying to ruin our country today would we?

They also made a vow of silence (another good one for Tony to adopt). The only time they were allowed to speak was at Mass and in the hour each morning when the coming day's affairs were discussed. Janine, you wouldn't last a day :) . All in all, it was 90 minutes weel spent.

Next on the agenda was a coffee. We popped into a few randomly chosen little villages to find them all closed up on this Saturday afternoon. Quite unexpected. Emily set the GPS for La Grasse, a major town in the area about 15kms north of Talairan. This place was jumping! All the cafes and bars open serving the hundreds of people in the main street. We chose a shady table under an old tree and watched the world go by. Two bands were providing entertainment at either end of the street, taking it in turns to play. We stayed there an hour, passing by the local rugby field where play was just ending on the way back to the car.

Back in Talairan the local school yard had been set up for a function to support the Talairan rugby team. We had bought our tickets a couple of days earlier. There were probably 300 people at the event. It was a lovely warm evening with everyone enjoying a beer or the locally produced red and rose. A DJ entertained the crowd. Before too long we sat down at one of the loooong tables with Peter and his friend Francis, a retired electrical engineer, and enjoyed a delicious entree of pork pate, seafood paella and ice-creams. It was all served to us in the table by the local rugby club members. We chatted with Francis, through interpreters (Peter and Emily), hand gestures and facial expressions and recognising the odd French word here and there. Francis introduced us to two of his grandsons.

After dinner was cleared the DJ cranked it up and the young people got up to dance, which was entertainment in itself. The music was just the modern duff-duff stuff, not an Eagle Rock in sight, so we older folk headed home. Emily stayed to practice her French!