We had 2 days back home after our trip to the Dordogne before we were packing up again! This time we were going back to Ariege to stay with our Dutch friends, Martin and Mieke, who had invited us over for a party they were giving on the Thursday evening. We arrived early on the Wednesday evening and found that Martins brother and wife and another couples were already there, with their caravans, on their way back to Holland after their holidays in Spain. Also there was Rafael from Barcelona and his Dutch wife all of whom we had met previously. As we were eating dinner on the terrace M and M’s daughter, Anna, and her husband Keri arrived also on their way back from Spaiin.
The party was to be held on Thursday evening and a pig had been killed for the festivities, Martin and some of the other men started a big fire in readiness for the pig to be roasted later in the day. I helped Mieke and the other ladies prepare the accompaniments for the meal, there was plenty to do as they were expecting about 30 guests!
Rafael had brought a whole leg of Serrano ham which he started to slice and we all helped ourselves to some delicious pieces of that! The butcher arrived in the afternoon and he and Martin set up the equipment for the pig roast and added the hot ashes and soon the pig was turning on the spit. People started arriving from 4pm onwards and we set up trestle tables in the barn. Then followed a very pleasant evening with lots to eat and drink in a wonderful atmosphere of bonhomie. All the guests, apart from us and Rafael, were Dutch but thankfully most of them spoke very good English. We had met many of them before so it was good to see them all again.
We were up in good time, the next morning, to say goodbye to Anna and Keri who were leaving to continue their journey back to Holland. Then N and I went to Fossat to visit Ann and Mark, a couple of Australians, who are staying at Caoutelle the house which belongs to some English friends of ours. Back then to Landry where we all spent a relatively quiet afternoon and evening after the previous days celebrations.
The 2 Dutch couples left very early on Saturday morning, well before any of us were out of bed. After breakfast Rafael and his wife left and N and I went down to Artigat and had lunch at l’Escale before going up to Carla Bayle. We had a look around the art exhibition there and then sat in the shade and had an ice cream as it was very hot. We visited the gallery of Olivier Ledoux who does some fantastic wood carvings. http://www.olivier-ledoux.com/ and had a chat with him. He has recently completed an amazing sculpture on a new roundabout by the bread factory in le Fossat.http://www.lefossat.com/spip.php?article313 . On the way back we called in to see Mike and Jik and caught up with their news.
Back at M and M’s we were awaiting the arrival of some friends of theirs who they knew from their time in Nicaragua. They arrived in the early evening. They were a family of four, Rene who is Chileanwho is Dutch and their children Gana (16) and Isabelle (11). Denise works for an international aid agency and had met Rene when he came to Holland as a refugee . They have lived in Ecuador and Nicaragua and are now living in Amsterdam. They had been down to Spain for a couple of weeks, a sad holiday as Rene has cancer and it will probably be their last family holiday.
M and M had told them before they came that the 4 of us would be going to the fete de Bajou later in the evening so after chatting to them for a while we got our glad rags on and left for Bajou. When we lived in Artigat the fete at Bajou was always our favourite and it seems that it is one of the most popular in the area as tickets have to be booked well in advance. It was good to see so many old friends there. Ruud and Kitty were there, we had not seen them since last year, Peter Paul and Mitzi who are now well settled and running a gite business were there, Mike and Jik and Corry and Hans were there as were Yves and Colette my old Scrabble friends. Mitzi had reserved places for a party of us and we took up 2 trestle tables. It seemed an age before the food arrived, everyone was getting really hungry but the wine helped with the waiting! It must have been close on midnight when we had finished eating and we all went outside to enjoy the dancing and the disco - young and old alike! It was very bizarre to be dancing in the shadow of the church in the small square presided over by a statue of the Virgin Mary!! What did she think?? There was a “confetti battle” where bags of confetti are thrown to the crowd and the recipients of them rush around throwing confetti over everyone they can get close to. Nigel appreciated the music and was happy to dance the night away until we left at 2am. When we got back to M and M’s we shook out as much of the confetti as we could before going in the house and to bed.
We all slept late the next morning and breakfasted on the terrace. N and I spent the morning playing cards with Gana and Isabelle. They were extremely nice children and their command of Dutch, Spanish and English was impressive. We all lazed around in the afternoon before getting ready to go for a meal at the ferme auberge in Lezat. Mieke had booked a table for us all for 7pm but when we got there it appeared that there had been a breakdown in communications as they are only open on a Sunday lunchtime1 Plan B was to go to the ferme auberge in St Ybars where, luckily, they had room for us.
So, another festive weekend was over and we waved goodbye to Rene and family as they left for Amsterdam before we too left to return home.
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