I know I have done this before but every time I spot these beauties it is special.

This morning Síle and brother-in-law Colm headed back up the road to Cherbourg and home where Síle will start into her very last term in school.
I have two days here before I am joined by Clive and another carpenter who are going to do a blitz on the house over the following three weeks.

I am begining to realise, as I spend more and more time in France that I am stealthily in the process of becoming resident here. Over the last year I must have spent nearly as much time here as in Waterford.

But to get back to today.

Síle and Colm headed up the motorway in darkness at about 6.am so I went back to bed- secure in the knowledge that with Mr. Nunn (who could give tutorials to larks) arriving tomorrow I won’t be having much time for lie-ins.

One of the big advantages of shutters is that they are altogether light excluding so when I awoke again it was about 9.30, and I made my way downstairs for coffee with no idea of what sort of weather to expect.

The Pyrénées greeted me from the terrace so I had to go for the camera and take their picture.
Even though they are about 150 klms away (further away than our house in Waterford from Dublin) on very clear days they can be seen clearly and at this time of the year are at their best as they are covered with snow.
Their appearance is sporadic, sometimes a month will pass in the summer without a glimpse, but their coming is always special and heart warming.
The largest peak is Mount Canigou, under which we once rented a house in Ceret, but what is even more remarkable is that on some evenings one can see a whole stretch of the mountains, surely another hundred kilometres, stretch back to the Atlantic. It occurs to me that in terms of distances this must be the equivalent of seeing Belfast from Cork.
It is all a little humbling for someone brought up in a small island like Ireland.