Another fine and warm day…but it won’t last! The lady in the café in Le Bugue where we stopped for breakfast issued the gypsy’s warning as she flung wide the glass doors! ‘Il faut profiter du soleil, il pleut demain.’ Not that we wanted much breakfast after last evening’s meal. Why is it we can neither of us resist rice pudding? I mean I make it just about every week at home when we have leftover rice. Adrian even had a bottle of salt caramel sauce to squeeze all over his. And the pud itself was exceptionally dense and creamy.
The journey took us down through the Périgord and its golden woods, rolling farmland, stone houses. An area that is for us associated inextricably with dear friend Nicola.Today was obviously National Tree Pruning Day - chaps with serious machines along the roadsides wrenching off branches. Nothing much of note to report and we didn’t stop until way past Montauban at a town on the Tarn called Villemur sur Tarn (obviously). And even here we only had a tomato juice in the wonderful Café de l’Hôtel de Ville. No sandwiches today as we need room for tonight’s Michelin meal.
Villemur is an interesting place. There’s car parking on the river quay way below and it has a lift up into town! Not only that - they ask you to leave a phone number behind your windscreen in case of floods! This might be linked to the huge weir up river next to a derelict mill. The town hall is an Art Deco masterpiece (1935).
The countryside hereabouts is a bit messy - lots of apple orchards netted against the hail and plenty of picking going on of extremely dark red fruit. We think they are destined for juice mostly. There was actually a juice dispensing machine at the entrance to one field.
Anyway we moved on into the undulating arable land looking towards the Pyrenees. Plane trees lining the roads, with their gold dry scratchy leaves blowing and drifting everywhere. Got to St Félix at 3 and had a stroll round the village prior to checking in. No upgrade this time🤗. Once again the wind is ferocious - must be endemic as the village is perched way above the surrounding land. There’s a reason why those turbines are lined up on the hillside!
