Back to "the office" one last time.

Hiking up to Amiel, one last time.

When we first moved to France back in 2008 we had stopped climbing.  If you've read this blog for a while you know that we stopped climbing and started road biking.  In fact, our first year here we road almost every day.  It was a great way to see the area, but sometimes it was so cold I couldn't feel my hands or feet.  I met Bruce climbing and we had climbed in some amazing places, but one day we decided to try something different, so we first started surfing, then I started doing triathlons and then we started road biking.  But when we came back to France in 2010 we looked around and realized there was so much amazing limestone just minutes from us, we had to start climbing again.

Nellie lounging at the cliff.

It was hard to get back on the horse.  I was afraid of falling, afraid of leading and we started out on the easiest climbs we could find.  But we were both hooked again, we put our bikes away and spent 3-4 days a week climbing on the most beautiful limestone.  That was 4 years ago, and we are still climbing as much as we can.  I'm not so much afraid of falling or leading anymore and I'm not doing the easiest climbs either.  In fact, this year I did my hardest route ever.  Not bad for 51.

When we first started climbing again, the perfect place for us was Amiel.  It's 10 minutes from our house and has great climbing.  Easy stuff to hard stuff and lots in the middle.  We'd call it "the office".  It's a 30 minutes hike up and you get the most beautiful view of a tiny village call Penne.  If it's during the week, it's usually just Bruce and I.

Looking down towards Penne.

The last 2 weeks we haven't seen the sun.  It's been cold, wet, gloomy and cloudy.  Nothing makes me more depressed.  But today it was sunny and perfect climbing temps.  Mid 40's and blue skies. It was a perfect day to go to Amiel and get one last day in at the office before moving to Spain.  I would have been sad to leave this area without saying goodbye to Amiel.

So today we hiked up and spent 4 hours climbing.  It was great.  I said goodbye to Amiel and told her I'd see her again one day (which I'm sure I will), I also thanked her for bringing me back to climbing.
She's been good to us and we'll miss her.  But I'm sure we'll be finding some new amazing places to climb in Spain.

And this was the sunset today from our yard.

Monday market in Caussade

Today we had to take our car up to the Peugeot dealership for it's 50K tune-up.  Our good friend C was going up to the Caussade market and so we planned to meet her there after dropping off the car, so she could take us home.  We have never been to the Caussade market, not really sure why.  Maybe because Sunday is market day in our village, St. Antonin and we usually just stay here.  Not that Caussade is far, just up the big hill, maybe 7K away.

But I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a wonderful market.  And I'm pretty sure I'll be skipping our busy, touristy market and going to Caussade's instead.  It's interesting because our market is very busy, but our village is quite small (but beautiful) and there are loads of tourists that come to our market, which means the prices are higher....the prices at the Caussade market are lower and there are more stalls and choices.

We had a lovely time.  For our Culinary Retreat May 12-19th we'll go to our Sunday market in St. Antonin, because it's pretty special, but on Monday we'll go to Caussade for the weekly shopping for sure.

A quiet Sunday market

Today was a rainy day, so no climbing for us.  We always laugh because we normally turn left out of our door  to head to the car to go climbing or a trail to go hiking.  If you turn right you go into the center of the village, we don't turn right much.  But since we were home we decided to go right.  Our Sunday market is lovely, I enjoy it more in the winter, because it's quiet and there are only locals.  In the summer it's packed..too many people for me.  Here are some random shots of our market today.

Free Delivery...in our village.

Today we took (walked) one of Bruce's paintings over to it's new home at our friends house here in the village.  I will miss this piece, as it's one of my favorites, but I'm also glad it has a new home.

In the garden

Our village house in Saint Antonin Noble Val has a little garden that's just perfect for us.  Not too big and not too small.  Most houses in the village don't have any outdoor space, so we are very lucky.  Over the winter things got pretty messy in the garden with leaves, dead plants, etc.  So yesterday we went to Jardiland and bought some new plants and flowers so we could brighten up the garden. 

new pots, plants and soil

We also put flowers out front.

these are on the front of the house

This looks into our garden from our street

When we were done it looks so much nicer.  Today it's calling for showers, but tomorrow starts 10 days of sun and one of the days it's prediciting 70 degree weather!