Day 46 – onto Castelnaudary, then Foix

With Bastille day out of the way it was time to move on. As I was packing up I noticed that one of the Alien UAV (Unmanned Ariel Vehicle) bugs had penetrated my force field (which is made of canvas). It was a curious looking beast... it wasn’t a beetle, it looked more like a locust without the big legs. This one was about 1.5 inches long. Right next to it was some kind of crinkly skin type thing. It wasn’t moving so believing it to be dead I picked it up by the wing. It objected most vigorously to this. Gave me hell of a fright. When it buzzes its wings its louder than a whole nest of bees. I realised that it had just shed is skin and was probably waiting for it wings to cure! Doh! I hope I didn’t damage it. It seems ok. I coaxed it into my boot and took it outside... after which it staggered about in a dazed like motion! (...joke). The funny thing is before I finished packing up I found a second skin of one of these things. Either it had been there long enough to shed its skin twice, or there was another one.

Photographic evidence of the alien UAVs

Well that explains at least one of the funny noises I’ve been hearing in the middle of the night. Another one was due to a hedgehog that actually comes into the camper at night and sleeps under my spare duvet which is on the floor in the corner. One night I awoke in the middle of the night to find the duvet moving and loud snuffling noises coming from underneath. Good to know that the camper has natures seal of approval.

So I said good bye to my Welsh biker neighbours and headed to Castelnaudary; a) because I liked the sound of the name and b) because all the really good pate type stuff has got Castelnaudray written on it. There wasn’t much there though and by this time I’m well out of the mountains so time to do a U-ey and turn south again towards the Pyrenees.

Gazole

After 20Km on a real back country road, I was almost out of oil and where the dregs were going through the fuel filter it was starting to judder. I switched to my secondary diesel tank but... its only 15 Ltrs and less than half full. Shit!.. How far to the next village? After another 5 Km I saw a sign 37Km!!! And I didn’t even know if there was a station de service! Or a Lidl’s for that matter. I wasn’t going to make it! So I turned around and drove all the way back to Castelnaudary. Note to self... think more... drive less!

Instruments of torture in a pharmacy window... I wanted pain killers, not pain inflicters!

Eventually I got Foix (pronounced ‘Fwah’); the largest town in the area and at 310m altitude its right at the base of the Pyrenees. Each mile south from here takes you higher into the mountains and the road goes all the way to Andora (about 75Km away). I always had in mind to use Foix as a base for my house hunting for the following reasons;

It’s at the base of the mountains, and I’m looking for somewhere with mountain views

It’s in the Ariege which is one of the cheapest areas

It’s close to the ski slopes of Andora

It’s a stunningly beautiful area, all in all I can’t understand why it’s cheap here at all

If you go east from here it gets expensive the closer to the sea you get, and if you go west towards Lourdes it also gets expensive because they are more geared up for tourism there.

Creative cooking

I found a campsite ‘Camping du Lac’ on the lake, about 2Kms before you reach the town. I set up camp and cooked myself duck hearts in garlic and butter with French beans, shallots and new potatoes. Cooking for me is like inventing stuff, if you’re adventurous enough, every now and then you create something which is such a massive success you can’t imagine why other people don’t do it. This was one of the aforementioned successes... the Landrover camper of fine cuisine if you like. Now it wasn’t my intention to create something exotic, it was basically stuff I had left over plus as part of a cost cutting exercise I picked up a packet of 12 ducks hearts in the supermarket for 1 euro 42! Now a heart is pure muscle, there’s no fat, no gristle, no tendons, not even any tubes in fact. It’s really about the best meat you can buy. But because it’s pretty much a waste product of the meat industry and people go ‘Ugghh!... the heart???’, they can’t sell the huge amount they have left over, so they pretty much give them away. People who say they can’t feed their family on their income support should stop winging and open their eyes.

Having fuelled by brain with my gastronomique blend of food, wine and chocolate, I set up the laptop and wrote up the blog for the last 10 days or so... while burping quite a lot.