Le Grand Castelou Reserve near Narbonne

Last week we had a brief warm spell with no wind either, what bliss! So we took advantage one afternoon to go to the coast for a walk.

We had wanted to visit the marshy reserve of Le Grand Castelou for ages. It's situated just south of Narbonne in the Reserve Naturel Régional de la Narbonnaise en Méditerranée on the site of an old wine domaine, with a very handsome old farmhouse and attached barns at the centre. The domaine was also used for other agriculture in the dryer fields over the decades and even rice growing at one point. Nowadays Camargue horses and bulls graze as they are naturally used to wet environments. There are areas which are wilder with expanses of reeds, low growing salt loving plants like samphire, as well as small lagoons. Needless to say this encourages all sorts of wildlife and birds to the different habitats. 

When we arrived there was a light sea breeze but warm enough to not need a jacket, not bad for the end of December! There are two walks here, a smaller 2km walk which goes past the only hide, and a longer 4km walk. Of course, if you are going to the hide as well (and why wouldn't you!) it will be a bit longer as you have to detour. According to the app K uses, we walked 5.6kms. Given I have barely walked much in months I was amazed at myself, though it's all flat, which is perfect!

It's not the easiest place to navigate so I strongly suggest you take a photo of this map opposite the buildings at the start of the walks! We soon realised this so K went back to get this pic. There are paths going off in all directions and many waterways, used to bring fresh water to the agricultural areas, which would otherwise become salt marshes over time if left to nature. 

The first thing we noticed were loads of White Storks flying overhead. They are obviously happy overwintering here rather than flying south to Africa. It seems like more and more birds are staying put these days. We even saw a White Stork in Brittany on a cold Feb or March day about 10 years ago! 

A line of Plane trees. These trees are really common in the Languedoc and there are avenues of Planes between villages as well as growing in the villages and towns. I just love them because they are very majestic and have the most glorious bark. They are often pollarded and provide good shade.

We could see the White Storks in the fields as well, but it wasn't easy trying to take photographs through the reeds. With my SX50 and autofocus, I got lucky, as the camera wants to focus on the reeds in the foreground most of the time.

I was astonished to see this tree with buds and blossoms all over it - in December? I wasn't sure what it was at first, but checked when home and I should have known really. Can you tell what it is?

It's an Ash. I should have known from the 'keys' (seed pods) but the flowers threw me, as well as being in a marshy area. Being beside the Etang de Bages, close to the ocean, this area would be very mild and almost frost free in winter, but it's still ridiculously early to be flowering!

The hide had a good view over this small lagoon, and the hills we see in the distance are the other side of the main lagoon, the Etang de Bages-Sigean.

Nearly all the ducks we could see were Mallards, Pochards and Teal. There's a Pochard on the left in the middle, behind the reeds. In the foreground are mostly Teals.

Sleepy Teals, three handsome males and two females.

We didn't see too many other birds as we walked around, although we were accompanied by the sound of many Cetti's Warblers! We also saw a female Reed Bunting, a Stonechat and some Marsh Harriers. 

Some of the longer walk is along the road, but it's a very quiet road and we didn't see a single car, and only a very few people. We had a lovely view of Mt Canigou from most of the reserve. 

The village of Bages over the other side of the main lagoon.

Looking towards La Nautique, a watersports base and little port, close to Narbonne town. We were happy to see what were in the foreground, Flamingos!

Above on the right and below, a juvenile Flamingo without any pink colouring. Above there's a Grey Heron in the background.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

The next day I got my spring and summer bulbs planted in the new Pollinator Bed - yes I know I am very late doing so but the weather has been so horrible this autumn, and I'm a real fair weather gardener these days. K lent me a hand which helped me to get motivated, and so, obviously, did the mild sunny weather.

I will end by wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas, and home made Xmas decorations

It's that time of year again! I don't get excited about Christmas until at least halfway through December, that's when I start thinking, I suppose I had better put up a few decorations. I have to admit there have been a few years when I couldn't be bothered, as I am very bah humbug about the 'silly season'. But this year, my brother was supposed to be joining us, so I felt like making an effort. 

Sadly, having company for Christmas was not meant to be, as the French Government, scared about the amount of Omicron ravaging the UK, closed down its borders with the UK a few days before my brother was due to come here, so he is now home alone for Xmas, like last year *rolling eyes emoticon*. I don't blame them one bit; France has been very sensible all this year - we have had to wear masks indoors and we have our Covid Passes for entering places like cinemas, theatres, sporting venues and even bars and restaurants. However, I do feel that letting life get back to completely normal this summer (like in the UK) was just asking for trouble. That's not to say that there isn't Omicron in France, there is, it's just that we are used to wearing masks and being sensible, so it's not such a problem for us to go back to semi lockdown or curfew (apart from the usual minority who love to riot and complain for any reason whatsoever).

So where was I, yes I was in the mood for doing a bit of decoration and having found a bit of inspiration on Pinterest I started preparing turning some Le Parfait preserving jars into seasonal candle holders with decorated pine cones which I had collected back in the summer. Isn't it funny, I spent 15 years living at a property which had conifer trees galore and their cones in the garden, yet not once did I decorate with those cones for Christmas! 😀 Keith managed to take off the lids which are wired onto the jars and after painting my cones a mix of white, old gold and copper, I wired them around the neck of the jars. Unfortunately we only had green wire so I covered the wire as best I could with hessian ribbon and sisal string, then filled the inside with coarse salt to look like snow. I tied a little bunch of greenery to some berries and glued them to the string with a hot glue gun. I hope it comes off easily as I need to change my greenery as bay leaves don't last more than a few days, nor do my Pyracantha berries from my hedge!

Luckily I went for a little walk to a nearby track, armed with a tall man with a long pole, to see what kind of greenery I could find. I have come back with some branches which I wanted for another decoration (below), and some red berries from a Cotoneaster (I think) and black berries from Viburnum tinus, which grows wild all over the place here, plus a bit of someone's conifer hedge. 😁 I needed the tall things to help because this track is kept well maintained and cleared, so the greenery is hard to reach as it's either up a bank or down one. The track itself is part of the French network of the Grande Randonée paths and is in fact one going to Saint Jacques de Compostelle/Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Here are my branches decorated with baubles and fairy lights. It took about 5 minutes to decorate. My kind of tree!! 😂

I did actually buy a little tree from Lidl - I have bought one like this before and as it's in a pot with roots, you can put it outside after Xmas and keep it going for the next year! It was even decorated with the same blue decoration on elastic as the last one I bought years ago! I added some fairy lights and a few baubles as it was a bit bare.

Back to the Le Parfait jars, here they are, looking a little droopy as the bay leaves didn't stay fresh for very long! I kind of guessed that would happen, and I expect to have to keep changing the greenery so I have a load of vases filled with the stuff I brought back from the hedgerows clogging up my laundry room!

I'm using battery operated tea lights this time but I could get my hand in to put a real candle in, you just have to be a bit careful about any greenery inside the pot if you use a real candle.

I put the rest of the cones that I decorated, larger ones, in a blue glass bowl and they look really nice. Great that I can reuse them for years to come and it really didn't take any time painting them. I just painted the edges; with the white paint it is supposed to look like snow, and the metallic ones only need the edges painting as well, saves on paint and saves on having to go outside and make a huge mess with a spray can! 

By the way the oak table, six chairs and the huge dresser came with the house - we were absolutely delighted, and in turn left our old table and chairs at our last place for our young buyers who were happy too! 

We've put up various fairy lights since then and I think that's more than enough. We have enough food to feed the 5,000 but I have to make mince pies again, as my first batch, the pastry was really weird and soggy when I was rolling it/cutting out my shapes, and now cooked it is soggy and not very nice. I did it in my processor up to the adding water stage, which I did by hand. I then found out that the flour I was using was T45, rather than the T55 plain flour that I normally use for just about everything. Keith had bought it from the supermarket thinking it was general purpose T55. Having looking up the difference, T45 is the most processed/least strong flour and is used for brioche, T55 is stronger and can be used for bread, croissants, pastries, cakes etc but for bread better to use T65 which is the strongest white flour. So I'm going to try again with my normal flour. What a pain!

Right that's it, Merry Christmas to you all and to my blogger friends, I will come round your blogs and see what you are all up to! I hope you have a great time over the festive period. Take care everyone and stay safe. xx

Minerve and its amazing river gorge Part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1 here.

Here we are looking where the River Briant - where I am standing on the left of the photo - meets the River Cesse coming in from the right side of the photo and it flows off towards where K is taking the photo behind me.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

We then went back down into the river bed to go and explore the tunnel where the water normally flows. I liked the view below where you can see the different architecture - old concrete blocks for the lower path with an interesting (!!) concrete block to hold it up, and a much more aesthetically pleasing dry stone wall for the upper path/top of village. As well as this you can see where the river has worn away at the rocks over time and the streaks where different minerals have stained the rocks are interesting too (unless it's all lichen, or both?) - in some parts of the path above (photo with K) there is water constantly dripping through the rocks - I hope that's not from someone's drains leaking! 😀 It must be a very old path as the stone floor is worn really smooth and shiny, like marble.  

The Candela tower seen through the viaduct bridge.

The tunnel known as the 'Pont Naturel'

Photo credit: Keith Allen

This stone stacking seems to be very popular everywhere we go, and in fact in Google Maps for this place there are tons of photos of stacked stones all over the dry river bed! Seems like nobody did that this year except for here on the bank.

Light at the end of the tunnel! We didn't walk all the way to the end as it was pretty rough under foot, but now I wish that we had done so, as I discovered from a footpath map that the river flows into another shorter tunnel, before it comes out and continues on as the Cesse gorge. There was a little bat flying around, though whether we had disturbed it or not, I don't know. 

Some people were walking into the tunnel just at the right time, for scale!

Looking back at the entrance to the Pont Naturel from the footpath.

It's worth looking up occasionally too, as I spotted these Prickly Pear cacti growing wild out of the rocks.

Another view of the Candela tower and the entrance to the village from the main car park.

We walked past this fun little garden full of interesting things, including the lovely 'driftwood' log and the colourful planted up teapot.

Back in the village at the War Memorial where the wilting flowers must be left from Remembrance Day. The sign on the left says, 'Please don't cut the flowers'. Bit of a shame to need to have a sign telling people that, as presumably some horrible people do.

Last photo! I don't think Minerve village itself is particularly attractive although it is one of the "Plus Belles Villages de France" (Most Beautiful Villages in France). I think that's because the whole place, scenery too, is so stunning. There are a few restaurants and cafes here but in winter it is generally very quiet, though good to know that this bookshop/cafe is open all year round. La Terrasse restaurant was open a couple of years ago when we visited before Xmas with my brother, but who knows what is still open after Covid has hit so hard?

This is a fabulous short aerial video of Minerve and the surrounding gorges which puts my walk into perspective - and as I haven't got any photos from further away up the gorges I can't show you it in all its magnificence that way. I don't seem to be able to make the video embed larger though so I hope you can view it bigger on your computer/phone/whatever. If not, this is the link on Youtube, although that seems to be a 26 min video, which must have been a TV programme. Enjoy. 😀