Outdoor Living

With the sun out and the open fire in need of wood, we joined a couple of friends in the village and went looking for old vines in the fields surounding the village. We picked up a bag of vines each and took them home. The following day, we needed to do the same thing. It turns out an evening of open fire burns though a great deal of wood, and with us enjoying our fire from around 5pm, it takes two bags to last until midnight.



After 5 days picking our way thought the vineyards, we picked up the phone and bought in a ton of wood. It took about 50 trips to get the logs from the back of the delivery van to the side path and then another 100 trips to transfer the logs into our little hut at the rear of the courtyard. The following day we both felt as though we'd been to the gym... who needs Holmes Place?




We were invited to take a little walk though the hills around St Chinian, which is just a 20 minute drive from Cruzy. We began by meeting a number of people at a small wine producer just outside St Chinian (wine available at Sainsbury’s) and we were guided up into the hills by the farmer’s wife.

She knew some lovely stories about the region and we could clearly see the Cathedral in Beziers (about 30 km away) and the sea behind it (about 40km away). One story was linked to the Caroux mountain which is said to have a woman lying on top, awaiting the return of her knight in shining armour who had travelled off of the Crusades (see above - her head is to the left).


The clouds darkened and threatened rain, but it held off. We walked on up to a small little church with was beautifully maintained. On and up, we walked chatting all the time to new people. Some had lived in France for years, others just 5 weeks. We were invited to a meal in exchange for setting up a computer to receive Terry Wogan (some argue we got the better deal).

On our way down, a woman from Belgium began to eat red berries from the trees. I was waiting for her to die… but thankfully it turns out these red berries were quiet harmless and rather tasty. They were Strawberry Tree Fruit. I’d never even heard of them and was most surprised at the fleshy innards (similar to ripe mango) but the seeds (on the outside) made the texture a little grainy (officially called Arbutus unedo).

Above is a photo of the Strawberry Tree blossom, which continues to grow even after the fruit has dropped from the tree.

3 hours later, we sat down for a meal provided by the vineyard. Each course come complete with two choices of wine, most of which were very easy to drink. At the end of the meal, chestnuts were served roasted from an outdoor fire. We returned to cruzy, Alan to work and Kieran for a 3 hour snooze.