The next day of our trip we designated as a day free from looking at houses
and we went up to Mirepeisset to see our frient Petra Carter who moved out, lock and stock from Mount Pleasant in Dublin about a year ago.
Petra is hoping to set up a cookery and art school there and was just ready, all reconstruction done when she discovered the dread termites were eating their way through all her woodwork.
Fortunately in French law this is a problem for the vendor rather than the purchaser but it has certainly set Petra and her plans back by a year or so.

Our way down to Mirepeisset was along the Canal de Midi, a most glorious tree lined stretch of water.
We stopped briefly at the Oppidum d’Enserune, a pre Roman and Roman Site.
Again you cn see here, as you can in the Pont de Gard in Provence, the amazing engineering skills of the Romans.

This is the old site of the Montady lake, a reservoir
which they meticulously constructed using radiating
canals to drain in the centre and then feed by acquaduct
under the hill to the Capestang Lake to water the whole area.

The Canal de Midi passes under the Oppidum on its way.

It’s tree lined sides and meandering course make it a
fabulous way of slowly exploring this part of France, as
Rick Stein discovered on television last summer.

After we met Petra we went walking down the
canal, its bridges and buildings really conspire
to make it the lovliest one I have seen.

The following day was back to house hunting

This house in l’Herault was too near the road.

This one in Tressan had a good Chemineé

And a wonderful view, just had too much of its
space given over to an unconvertable wine cave.

This one in Montagnac was, in fact, the best house
we saw, huge and full of late 18th century features.
But at this stage we had decided that we definitely
wanted a place in the country.

So no go.

To console ourselves we went into the museum in Pezenas

Where we met our old friend St Roch, still flashing his thigh.

And I took a photo of myself in a beautiful mirror.

And a picture of two cheeky dancers at a Ballo in Maschera

And these two ladies being warm to each other

And of Sile looking totally at home in this Palace

And of this amazing red Marble on a fire place.

All these,I took, in the solitude of being the only people
in the museum in February and before I saw the
notice on the ticket saying Strictly no Photographs

The next day was the last day and we celebrated by
having a lunch out.
On Petra’s recommendation we tried a restaurant, in Bouzigues,
most unpresupposing on the outside, called
Le Jardin de la Mer
We had a great lunch, including Oysters, Mussels and Cuttlefish,
three courses of excellent fish for €18.50.
AND on the terrace, in February!
Bliss!

That should have been it really but with us of course it wasn’t.

Passage to Stanstead was event free this time.
In Stanstead we met , in total surprise, Sile’s brother Brian and his wife Beth.
They were also coming back from a house hunting trip.
In their case it was to Brittany, and successful.

We were especially glad to have met them when we got to the long term park on our way home.
Our car, under a solid inch of ice, refused point blank to start.
We managed to contact Brian and Beth, still in the car park and so, once again tragedy was averted.
We were whisked by heated Volvo to a warm bed in Skerries and in the morning back to the airport whene the Volvo and some jump leads made short work of our cars reluctance and we were able to head off on the road home.
We do have disasters, but we do manage to have great luck getting out of them!