Tom's still feeling poorly today so we had a quiet, easy morning. We rested, read, and skyped Shannon. Eliza wanted to see "danmar" and Oliver has been missing grandad and grandma. Shannon and Jess say our holiday is too long and Char is threatening to lock us in our house so we can't escape again! I think Soph's okay with it but missing us. She understands - she left us all for 6 months last year to study in Ireland!

Im not keen for Tom to drive unless he's feeling 100% - driving on the other side of the road requires lots of concentration - not so easy with a head cold. But this afternoon we set off in our cool little car to explore some nearby villages. We headed out behind Caunes, into the Black Mountains.

Immediately after leaving Caunes we entered a river gorge and came across the remains of a Roman bridge, no longer in use. We were beyond it on the narrow little road before we realised it, so will return tomorrow to explore and photograph.

In this gorge you can see the remains of a much larger population. The two little villages out in the gorge (Citou and Lespinassierre) have more houses than people, both with a population of less than 100. Each little village, even this tiny, has its own "Mairie" - the town hall. This is where decisions for the little village are made, including what colours you can use for shutters and doors.

The flat land at the bottom of the gorge was cultivated for food crops,even terraced where there was no flat land. The houses all seemed to cling to the rocks on the sides of the gorge. There were very old bridges leading to nowhere and quite a few empty, abandoned buildings.

After venturing to these picturesque villages we returned through Caunes and ventured west to Villeneuve which we found to be different altogether. This village is growing, having two new housing developments under construction. They had a large pharmacy where I was able to go and request "Panadol s'il vous plait" - half the pharmacy was taken up with aged care products.
From there I ventured into the Spar to search out some washing detergent so I might do our laundry! They had a local rosé for sale in there for 3.2 euro - how could I resist getting that for Tom?

After all this adventure we returned to our cottage to enjoy a muscat aperitif with nuts and luque olives (they are so nice), listening to the birds in the courtyard's cherry tree chattering to each other, or were they fighting over the ripe cherries? Those at the top of the tree are ripening nicely.

Dinner was cannelloni (Terry Robinson, I haven't dined on yours that often, but I remember how much I loved it - much nicer than our dinner!), washed down with the local red from the co-op.

The primary schools have unusual hours - 8.30-11.30am, then 1.30-4.30pm. Can you imagine the parents if we did that? Over here it fits in with their 2-3 hour lunches.

So, some pertinent information about the Minervois region of France. There are 15,000 hectares of vineyards. They grow Syrah (another word for Shiraz), Grenache, carignan, cinsault and Mourvèdre grapes for red and rosés, and Grenache, bourboulenc, maccabeu, marsanne and roussane for whites. Only 3% of their production is white, 13% is rose and 84% is red wine.

Forgot to mention that we saw escargot for sale at the Olonzac markets the other day. They had unusual shells, looked more like a marine snail? They were next to oysters, so maybe they were?

They don't seem to sell much milk. Even in the huge supermarket at Carcassone, the fresh milk took up a half a small cabinet (like those little cabinets where you sometimes find the yakults), while the long-life milk takes up almost a whole aisle.