We have just come back from an exhilarating and also frustrating few days in Thezan. This was exhilarating because the place just looked so wonderful in strong Autumn sunshine and frustrating because it was such a short break.

Sile’s sister and Beau Frere, Maire and Padraic came for a visit and, because they are great walkers, we brought them up the Gorge d’Heric, a superb mountain walk of about 5 klms which had defeated us in the height of summer but was a perfect challenge for late October.
After two days they went further up the Languedoc, to find even more strenuous walking, we had various builders, plumbers, and internet connecters to see, but discovered the joys of Autumn walks in the evening around Thezan and even went on a trip to see the 12th century cathedral in Maguelone, on a lake in an Etang in on the shore of the Mediteranean, this involved another 5 klm. walk as Le Petit Train was off for the winter.
It was well worth it though, except for my stupidity in forgetting my camera.

I just have to make do with this image purloined from the net.

The rest of the shots are my own .

This is the Gorge d’Heric, in the Monts d’Epinousse.
A great hill walk up a paved path. You ascend most
of the way along a stream which is full of waterfalls
and rock pools (and French families having picnics
in the summer)

After about 5 klms you catch a glimpse of the old village,
Le Hameau d’Eric it must have been a very isolated series
of farms with stone Lozeres on the roof. Now it serves
as a cafe, a fairly just reward for the walkers who got this far.

After Heric we went a few klms up the road to my favourite
village of the area, Olargues. This has a perfect Roman
Pont de Diable one of about 60 in the south of France.
The legend of these beautiful bridges is the the Devil built
them on condition that he could have the first soul that passed
over them.
The canny villagers, of course, sent over a cat and so the
gullible devil was foiled again.
Something tells me that they may have also owed something to Roman engineering.

The following day, having seen most of our builders etc.
we took another road from the village, a road previously
untrodden, up an embankment called Le Homme Mort
Possibly due with its proximity to the graveyard.

Here we got a great view of the variety of reds and gold
displayed by the various vines grown in the small vineyards
close to the village.

And , as it was Halloween Night I took this shot of a Witches finger

(To our surprise we were “Tricked or Treated” by the children
of the village that night. When I asked them what Halloween
was about they told me it was about getting Bon Bons)

We found both Pomegranates and Quinces (above) growing in
the wild on our walks.
Presumably they must have escaped from cultivation.

In the house I was delighted to see that my Provencal
recipe for Orange Liqueur was progressing well and that
both the colour and flavour of the Oranges and cloves were
being leached into the alcohol by hanging in its vapours.
It should be delicious by Christmas.

In a little Brocante in Olargues I bought this glass oddment.
At first I thought it must be a lamp but, as Madame correctly
told me, this was impossible as the ground glass seal would
not permit combustion.

Any ideas anyone?

No prizes for any old mass server for telling me what this is.

The man in the Brocante Fair, from whom I bought it this
summer ,gave me a reduction when he discovered I was
bringing it back to a presbytery !