RETURN TO FRANCE 2

 

We left a damp St Jean de Luz on Friday morning and headed north to Chateau Maubats vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region, in the middle of beautiful rolling countryside, covered in vines.  We met Robert and Guylaine Armellin at our local Easter wine fair at Perros about 10 years ago and have been buying their delicious wine ever since. 

 

They have a couple of friendly German Shepherd dogs, this is Hyana who joined the family 5years ago to replace Douchka who had been poisoned by a snake bite.

 

The bastide village of Monsegur is only 7 kilometres away and we spent a lovely evening there at the Nocturnal fair of livestock and local foods which I'll tell you about in the next blog.  We cycled there on Saturday morning and found the place almost empty and the restaurants closed, probably still sleeping after a busy Friday night!

 

At the vineyard we parked our camper car on the grassy area at the front of the house and this is the lovely view looking out over the fields and vines.  The weather was very hot while we were there and we had to sit under our parasol to keep cool.

 

Here is Tais, the older of Robert's dogs who remembered us from our previous visits when she slept under the car, keeping watch for intruders.  Now she is an old lady and sleeps most of the time, maybe still mourning the loss of her daughter Douchka. 

 

Another new addition to the family is Maloya, a tiny kitten who fitted into the palm of my hand, but didn't sit still for long before she was off to play with Hyana.

 

 

Here they are playing catch, Hayana has adopted Maloya as her own and is very gentle playing hide and seek around the furniture.

 

In their back garden is a wonderful cherry tree and we were delighted to be invited to gather as many as we wanted to take home. They were absolutely delicious, I've never eaten such fresh fruit!

 

Another tree was a hazelnut with it's nuts only just beginning to form so I plucked a twig to draw in the coloured sketchbook.

Next time I'll share my sketches from the livestock fair so à bientot and have a happy Sunday!