Suffering from insomnia (I quite like it really, great feelings of energy in the middle of the night) I decided to entertain myself by trawling the blog to find out what I was doing this time five years ago.
There I found this entry referring to a time in the previous month not without its significance to the future of the Dwyer Family:

The Languedoc House search continued…
Being the eighth part and climax of the holiday saga

Before we left St Gaudens we had a little cycle into
the town where we found a stall selling what must
be the most beautiful strawberries in the world;
Mara des Bois.
They are little balls of flavour, half ways between
a Fraise de Bois and a regular strawberry, if you
ever see any buy them.

But now the time had come to the meat and potatoes
of the holiday.
Our next stop was the Languedoc where we intended
to spend the next two weeks doing some serious house
hunting.

We had decided to centre ourselves around Carcassonne,
this being the only airport which had a direct flight to
Ireland in the area.
We had got on to the Laroque agency who organised us
to meet some agents in the general area, our instructions
had been to show us houses within 100klms of Carcassonne.

We were very fortunate to squeeze into a campsite in
Trebes, just 6 klms outside Carcassonne, not only did
we get the only emplacement remaining in the site but
it was directly by the River Aude which gurgled pleasently
within a few feet of our tent for the next two weeks.

Our first appointments were in Carcassonne itself where
Pierette was our appointed agent. We all got on extremely
from the start but before the end of the day we were firm
friends.
And thereby hangs a tale.

This was the first house we saw with Pierette.
It was a great house, originally a farmhouse but unfortunately
the creeping suburbs had crept up on it leaving it now
surrounded by modern villas.

Sile and I had to go poking around the outhouses in the back,
where it was evident man hadn’t stepped for some time.

We were in the car on the way to our next house when I
tried to flick off what I assumed were some burrs on my
trousers.
To my shock they all hopped back after I had dusted them
off.
A quick check on the others revealed that we were all covered
by small black fleas.
Pierette immediately stopped the car and there followed a
frantic ten minutes while we all, in various states of undress,
slapped ourselves and each other by the side of the road,
in an attempt to rid ourselves of our followers.
We were observed with total astonishment by the passing motorists.

After this bonding experience we were firm friends!

And the next house we saw with her was a serious contender.
In the middle of the village of Azille.
it ticked most of our buttons.

It was large enough for our needs and had a courtyard in
the back large enough for our dream of having a swimming pool.

The village had a very pretty church with a font made of
the marvellous red gray and orange marble of Caunes-
just down the road.
Caunes marble is most famous, or infamous depending
on your view, for being used extensively by Marie Antoinette
in her decoration of the Petit Trianon in Verseille.

And so followed a week of intense house hunting.

An agent who were anticipating to be interesting was
called Freddy Rueda and he was centered in the area
above the town of Beziers.
This was about 100klms from Carcassonne so within
our cachement area.

This particular agency carries out its business in a most
unusual way.
Instaed of using an office all clients are met in the small
cafe of St Genies where, over coffee or whatever, ones
plans for the day are made.

Our agent was called Charles, dressed entirelly casually he
made a refreshing change from the other agents we had met.
He spoke impeccible and indeed upper class English.
(He had, we discovered, studied music at the Guildhall in London)

He confidently told us that he had just the house for us.

He had.

The next few days were ones of intense discussion between
Sile and myself,and ,as they were the long week end of the
feast of the Assumption, we had plenty of time for both discussion
and some necessary sight seeing.

It even gave me a chance to drop into a way side Brocante and buy
this stunning Czech jug for a mere two Euros.

And we had a good chance to explore Carcassonne

And admire Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s bizarre conical towers.

And watch the jousting in the Lices

We had a picnic by the Canal de Midi where
a cock on one of the moored barges came to
pick our scraps.

In the Abbey in Lagrasse we found that Sile na Gigs
were not just an Irish invention.

Lagrasse also had a beautiful Roman bridge
(thats me in the middle)

But probably the most ineresting sight was in our
own village of Trebes. It appears that in 1998, on
the night before a wedding. the ceiling of this 12th
century chirch had collapsed. Then, to the amazement
of all they had found that the oak beams of the original
structure had been decorated with what can only
been described as cartoons of about 300 people.
This covered all races and types, from jews to blacks.

Here are two of these cartoons.
They wern’t always flattering.

During this long weekend of decision we went to one
more castle, this was the castle of Saissac.

There this fairly ruined castle had restored two of their
arched rooms for future functions.

I discovered that the configuration of these rooms was
such that the echos were something that Enya would
have died for.
I proceeded to sing most of the latin mass that I could remember.
Sile sang a folk song.
We sounded magnificent-even me!
The strange thing is that Sile took a shot of me mid Sanctus
and all these amazing motes surround me.
Could it be the notes reverbrating!

Eventually Wednesday came and we went back to the presbytery.

It still looked great.

We had found our French house.