We got a miraculous day off on our last trip to Languedoc and immediately decided to take off for a trip to St Guilhem.
This was not our first attempt to get there, on two previous occasions we had driven up through the Gorges to the village only to find the car park full and the only possibility of getting near the place was to park several miles away and trudge for miles under the scorching sun to visit, not an option for us.

The origin of the village was that Guilhem, who was a first cousin and great friend of Charlrmange’s, and one of his great Generals, was struck by religion and decided to retire to an isolated mountain retreat to live a life of prayer and contemplation.
Charlemange had then stymied the isolation bit by insisting on giving his favourite a relic of the True Cross, the very one pinched by St Helena fron the tomb in Jerusalem (as pictured by Peiro Della Francesca)
This had of course made his hermitage a favourite stopping point on the pilgram trail to Santiago de Compostela, which in its turn had built up a beautiful medieval village cramped like a rats tail along the Gorge de Verdus down to the river Herault.

This of course is what now made parking so difficult.
This time we were cute and set off early and arrived in the village in time to park.
It was well worth it.

This is an aerial picture of the village I pinched from Geoportal.

From the cloisters of the church you can see the ruins of the ,almost inaccessible, castle.

The Chevette (the back of the apse for you and me) is very beautiful and a symbol of the village.

Stepping stones over the Verdus

On the doorway at the end of this lane was nailed the local thistle the Cardabelle.
This acts a barometer to help predict rain.

The French know well that the red Geraniums
(which they plant extensively in these villages)
go beautifully with the old stone.

La Place

The young Herault running through its Gorge.

When my friend Eamon was in Bordeaux a few weeks ago they told him at the car- hire office when he arrived that they hadn’t got the car he ordered so instead they were going to upgrade him to a BMW.

Now I’m not a great one for cars but must confess that I would like to drive this ultimate boys toy if only to find what all the fuss was about.

Last week in Carcassonne the car-hire man said just the same about an upgrade to me as had been said to Eamon, and, as I peered over his shoulder, I saw him write the significant letters BMW down on the form.

My little heart made a boyish leap, it seemed I was going to get my moment behind the wheel of a beamer.

Then we went out to the carpark and I discovered the truth.
We had been upgraded to an Opel Corsa with BMW in the reg.

Ah Well , its probably as close as I’ll ever get to driving one.

Nothing is every wasted in France.
Note the recycling of used tools in the bars.

Our friend Katherina kindly lent us her house in Faugères for this our latest trip to France (our own being occupied by the builders.)

Faugères is a stunning little town, the centre of an AOC wine area and it has the most wonderful variety of doors.

Here are a few (well, 26 actually) I photographed (the first one is of Katherina’s house)

This is the view we get of Carcassonne as we go from the airport to Thezan.
This time we stopped the car to take a shot.

Just back from a whistle stop trip to see the builder in France.
He had removed a nasty gas boiler which dominated the stairwell and suddenly the staircase, even covered in rubble, looks graceful and elegant.

Post Scriptum
June 16th, I just found this shot of the stairs with the offending boiler in my files.
Its removal was certainly a blessing.

It was in June, the Tuesday after the bank holiday, in 1990 that I did my first bit of broadcasting for Waterford Local Radio.
The studio was at that stage on Georges Street, a handy stroll from the restaurant on Mary Street, and I have a happy memory of going down the first day and being amazed at how easy it all was.
There is no doubt that most of that was the great luck in finding a pleasant host in Billy Mc.Carthy who was and is the morning anchorman on WLR.
Right from the beginning I directed all my talk to Billy, who is as interested in food as I am, and depended on the easy conversational nature of our rapport to deliver my recipes and general chat about food. WlR soon realised that radio held few fears for me so I would often be called to give opinions about other subjects.
Live radio does have its drawbacks, there was a time in the old studio when I decided to tidy up some CDs balancing on a console, knocked them instead down on a control slide and knocked the station off the air for a long sixty seconds.

On an even worse occasion I gave out a recipe for a tomato and yoghurt salad which I had been serving for years. This time my tongue let me down and I announced to the startled people of Waterford that this salad from the Lebanon was called Lesbian Salad (instead-of course- of Lebanese Salad)
Billy laughed so much on that occasion (because, he said, of my immediate schoolgirl blush when I heard what I had said) that I had to extemporise for several minutes until he was able to talk again.

The original impetus to appear on the radio came from fear of poverty.
We had started the restaurant in October of 1989 and, after a lively start, we were by the spring of 1990 frighteningly quiet.
We were buried in a back street of Waterford (it was all we could afford) and not enough people knew of our existence to fill the premises.
We badly needed to advertise and the new radio station was an obvious outlet for us.
Advertising would have been very expensive of course, it was then that I got the notion of offering my services as a radio chef free gratis and, had no sooner contacted them, than I was down for a go.
Eighteen years later I am still having a go.

The effect on the restaurant was quite immediate.
The people started to trickle steadily in.

Waterford was a town without a tradition of eating out and my restaurant was one of the first non-ethnic in the town. People were not really sure what it would be like.
My entrance on to the local media and via radio into their kitchens made the whole prospect much less intimidating and when I went to see each table at the end of the night tended to be greeted like an old friend.

A little exposure in a small city has fascinating consequences.
The minute I open my mouth in Waterford I was-and still am- greeted with a recognising grin and the sentence; “I know that voice”!
This even happened when I rang Irish Rail enquiries and got a Waterford man on the line. I was once recognised by my voice in an airport in Brussels, to the astonishment of the Irish chefs who were travelling with me.
The initial radio exposure led to some television appearances, one of my great memories was during a series I did for RTE called Pot Luck, a short lived copy of Ready Steady Cook.
My luck was obviously not in for this series as I had an embarrassing run of losses on air.
After one of these I was walking down town from the restaurant when a lorry with a Dublin registration stopped in the middle of a flow of traffic.
The driver pulled up his handbrake and brought Waterford to a standstill as he put down his window and shouted at me; “You should have won that thing last night, you were much better than that other shagging eejit”!
(the other “shagging eejit” was Derry Clarke of l’Ecrivan, now holder of a Michelin Star)

But really it has been radio which has been my lifeline and it certainly played a great part in the success of the restaurant.

Just before I sold “Dwyers” the Ardkeen Stores (for whom I am a consultant) decided to start sponsoring the food piece (which we call “Food Matters”) and so I was granted continuity even after my raison d’etre was gone.

And my great hope is that as I now swing back and forth between Waterford and France the piece will continue.
We did several pieces from my sunny Languedoc terrace last summer and on the whole the good people of Waterford were pleased with a little vicarious sunshine in one of Irelands worst summers.

Long may they continue to be.

Did you ever feel you were being followed ?

It all started in 1994 when we were on holidays in the the Auvergne. We headed off on a trip one day up the mountains and as we progressed began to notice people settling in by the side of the road with chairs and rugs and flasks.
After a short while we were told that the road was barred do to the impending arrival of the Peloton of the Tour de France.
On this occasion we turned off a side road so didn’t actually see the tour pass by (although we could hear the roars of the crowd in the distance.)

In 1998 the tour really decided to follow us as it decided to start the race in Ireland and then travel within about a hundred yards of our house in Waterford on their tour.
This time we stood our ground and watched them flashing past.
(It maybe took a minute from start to finish)

Then last year it happened again.
We were on our way from Thezan heading off to explore the Haute Languedoc Parc when we were again barred by parked cars and, on scurrying across the wonderful suspended Pont de Tarrassac,

we arrived on the D908 just in time to see the peloton flash by.

Just last evening I was idly googling “Thezan les Beziers”, our tiny Languedoc village and I discovered to my amazement that the Tour has decided to come through our very village on July the 18th next.

Am I getting paranoid or doesn’t that seem a little coincidental ?
On the two occasions when we havn’t gone to it, it arrives at our door!

Every time I see a stall in a brocante fair like this (I took this shot in Argelès-sur-Mer a couple of years ago) my pulse starts to race.
This is it, the moment when I will find the perfect glass at a givaway price.

This year the bothán at the bottom, ruined and roofless, is
gradually going back to nature under Ivy and Clematis.

The hideous concrete block wall is also being hidden under
Climbing Hydrangea, Honeysuckle, Japonica,
and even a tiny self seeded Perrywinkle.

And the herbs are again thriving,
two sorts of Fennel over two sorts of Sage.

Well done to Sile, I just dig the occasional hole,
she does the work.