We saw the New Year in at the village ‘Réveillon’, a shared meal attended by 20+ local folk.

Starting soon after 6.30pm with ‘apéro’ – drinks and nibbles – a 5-course meal was accompanied by unlimited red, white or rosé wine, not to mention a locally distilled plum liqueur at some stage.

I didn’t mention the plum liqueur in the first account of the evening on Facebook, because I hardly noticed it, in that I was singing at the time, which I was invited to do both before the meal and between courses!

At midnight there was a lot of ’embracing’ (kiss-kissing) and exchanging of ‘Meilleurs Voeux’ (best wishes) which more people said than ‘Bonne Année’, and continued to say for a couple of weeks to people they hadn’t met yet this year. I made the mistake of saying ‘Meileurs Voeux’ about two weeks later to someone who’d been at the réveillon and got an exaggerated Gallic shrug with the words ‘Mais on s’est déjà vu!’ (We’ve met already!) She might as well have lifted her eyes heavenward and said ‘Ils sont fous, les Anglais!’

The weather was quite good at the start of the month and on the 2nd we were able to eat lunch on the terrace:

I’d made a New Year’s resolution to cut back on the alcohol a bit, so the photo above shows long glasses with water or cordial. The intention is to drink wine only once a day, unless visiting or entertaining, and to limit stronger drinks – sherry, whisky, liqueurs and so on – to once a week. So far we’ve stuck to it!

As a result of the singing at the réveillon, I was encouraged to join the local ‘chorale’ which rehearses on Friday afternoons in Chalabre. It consists mainly of senior citizens (who sometimes go and entertain the old folk at the retirement home!) and an 85 year old neighbour, Guy, insists on driving me to rehearsals! That’s an exciting ride!

I was due to have the injection into my hip on the 14th, so we decided to have a day out in Harry on the 12th. We thought  we’d head for Carcassonne and find the lake known as ‘Carcassonne Plage’. Unfortunately, a big bank of rain bearing cloud was lying to the east, whereas to the south and west were blue skies and sunshine. But we went ahead anyway and picnicked in Harry in the drizzle which then held off long enough for us to walk down to the water and a little way along the shore.

This was a cold, grey, drizzly Sunday, but there were still plenty of people there, some of them feeding the ducks – so we could tell this will be a very popular spot on a hot summer’s day, both for locals and tourists

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The walk was very pleasant, but unfortunately the car park is some height above the lake and getting back to Harry wasn’t too comfortable, but we hoped all that would be resolved soon ….

We hoped it would be resolved! …… This would surprise any enthusiast for the French health system who came across it, and they’d have difficulty explaining it; we left home in good time, travelled the hour to Castelnaudary, arrived in good time, did the paper work at reception, and waited …… for an hour and a half …. the doctor didn’t turn up! At 1pm a couple of other consultants noticed we were still there (during lunch time!!) and asked questions on our behalf. A secretary telephoned the doctor’s surgery (in a different building) but only got an anwserphone; like I said it was lunch time, what else would you get? Since ‘my’ doctor had no-one else to see at the hospital that day, they said they ‘didn’t know what to say’, but the implication was ‘don’t hang around’. We didn’t hand around. Confession time: we had lunch at McDonald’s! Didn’t even need the wi-fi! But at least we didn’t drink! We had to make another appointment, of course, and also of course, that couldn’t be done at the hospital; no, no, no; that could only be done by phoning the surgery.

One week later and we tried again; the snow-topped Pyrenees were superbly displayed as we set off mid-morning:

However, that was the last we saw of the sun for over a week, more of that later …. This time the doctor was there and the procedure went ahead with nothing at all said about last week! As for the procedure itself, I don’t think anyone wants to read about it (if they do, they can ask!). Carol drove home and we were back by 2pm. The hip was stiff and sore, but that wore off with rest and painkillers.

Then the rains came! When you see the weather maps on UK TV, you sometimes get a wide view which include northern Spain, the Pyrenees and part of the Med. On those maps you may notice that we are often affected by the southern end of the same fronts as hit the UK; so it’s been WET for nearly a fortnight now, and although the sun is shining today another week of rain is due to start tomorrow. The River which gives the village its name (Sonnac Sur L’HERS) isn’t usually visible from ‘Sunejo’, but by January 25 it was clearly visible:

Not only that, but the field between us and the river was seriously waterlogged. In November I put up a photo of the river in spate under the bridge, but find the bridge on this one:

Yes, the bridge is under the water this time and the water in the foreground is the track leading o the bridge.  It’s only a short walk, but this was just 4 days after the injection and the hip didn’t like it! Maybe it was too soon. Still, later the same day we went shopping and just beyond Camon we found the road had been blocked by an ‘éboulement’, a mudslide. In fact, the workers had just finished clearing the road and were moving the barriers; they said it was OK to go through, but we met some friends in the supermarket who had had to follow a considerable diversion on narrow, windy, hilly roads! This is what that site looked like a few days later (and still does):

On January 29th, which was a fine day between wet nights, Carol discovered that although the water had gone down a lot, an accumulation of fallen trees was now blocking the bridge so that it was still unusable by wheeled vehicles:

To photograph this we went down BY BIKE! (Thinking it might be better for the hip.)

After that, since it was a fine and warm day, and although we might have sunk into the marsh if we’d sat on the grass, we had lunch out on the terrace. So in spite of the excess of rain, that’s three outdoor lunches in January!

So we’re in to February.  February 2nd is Candlemas / Le Chandeleur, not much celebrated in England, but an excuse for a pancake fest in France. So we invited our neighbour, Marthe, who was one of the first local people to speak to us and invite us to knock on her door if we needed anything, to join us on Sunday evening and served a seafood pancake followed by a sweet one. This was the first time Marthe has actually come in, in spite of numerous invitations to share a drink or a brew. She’s 80 + and passes the gate regularly when out for her ‘constitutional’. Once again, no photo of pancake tossing! At about 11pm we offered to go along the road with Marthe to her place (it’s about 200 metres, but there”s no street lighting outside the village). She protested a bit but accepted in the end so long as we would go in for a ‘nightcap’. That turned out to be half a tumbler of whisky (for me); we told her to stop, but she just said ‘might as well empty the bottle’! Didn’t notice the hip on the way back!

Actually, I”m seeing the hip doctor again tomorrow (if he can be bothered!), and I think I can say it’s getting better. We’ve been out for a walk by Lake Montbel this afternoon, and there are no uncomfortable after-effects – yet! Here are some pictures to finish with: