Yesterday Clive, Síle, and I made a trip into Montpellier, our capital in Herault and our nearest Ikea.
To do this one goes along the A9, La Languedocienne, a busy motorway at anytime of the year but especially so in Summer.
It is built on top of the Via Domitia, the original Roman road linking Spain to Rome and is the road Hannibal travelled on with his elephants en route to the Alps.
It is still incredibly important as a road linking countries and as well as E for Spain and P for Portugal I saw cars from Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark,Switzerland,Hungary, and lots of others I don’t even recognise.

Ikea, god bless it came up with all of our bathroom fittings at a fraction of the cost we would have bought them elsewhere and we then took the marvellous Tramway, a Park and Ride system, which brings one from just by Ikea and the motorway into the centre of the city for 4 Euro, this gives you a free pass for the Tram for the day and free parking.

We brought Clive to the Fabre Musée who’s exhibition this summer is Mucha and again admired the Pierre Soulages black on black paintings on the top floor of the gallery.

After all that activity we decided to have our lunch for our dinner and just have some terrine and cheese when we got home.

With this in mind I found a Charcuiterie on the back streets and bought from him the very last slice of Pate de Campagne in his typical white dish.
“Since you have bought the last slice” says he “Would you like to keep the dish?”
I jumped at the chance of acquiring such a stunning piece of classic French culinary design and clunked it home to Thézan in the tram and the van.

It wasn’t until today however that it proved its worth.
After breakfast I got a yen for some of my own brown seedy bread.
I haven’t had any after all since the beginning of June.
But where was I to find my bread pans?
Buried I fear under tons of stuff in the cellar.

Then I had the serendipitous idea illustrated underneath.