Plateau Montpeyroux (Languedoc)

Plateau Montpeyroux (Languedoc! No, not that other one!)

Dancing Gnarly vine with Le Castellas behind

Today was full of sunshine, flowers, and vistas! AND excellent company :-)

Mimosas!

More Mimosas!

Even More Mimosas!

 The view of roads to come

Le Castellas

Everyone got quite excited by this...

Gin berries

 The valley below

Trust me, the (snow covered) Pyrenees really are there!

The Cévennes mountains, and Pyrenees behind

Le Castellas

Farmland and motocross playground

Got this rock wall just for Dad

Neolithic animal enclosure

Coming back down, you can just make out Le Castellas in he distance

Vines!

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Hike/randonnée Details:
Parked near the Puit de Peyrou

and walked to Le Castellas. Then followed the red/white route until it branched off uphill (left) from the road. We stayed on the road back to our cars.
We left Sète shortly after 10:00, ate lunch at about 1:00, and were back home by 4:45.
According to our leader, it was 7.6 km, with 270 meters elevation change.

Winter in Sète

Just so we start this off right (spoiler alert, Winter here was not too great), here is a nice January sky

January in Sète

Winter in Sète is fortunately very short!

Our first real taste of Winter hit us as soon as it was official - early December skies were grey and temperatures dropped to *almost* freezing. This winter was *supposed* to be warmer than normal... Turned out that we had a cold snap. And then the January sunshine report came out - in the first half of January, Lille (admittedly pretty far North) had all of 3 hours (Three! Hours!) of sunshine. How dismal! Most of Europe had similarly less-than-normal amounts of sun :-(

Along with Winter comes Flu Season - and it hit France hard!

Flu and Gastro epidemic

And not just in France - news reached us that the flu in California was very serious as well.

At least we know how weather affects us; when thinking about where to live, it is always on our list - no place that has too much cold or grey stays under consideration. And Sète still works for us - especially now that flowers are blooming!

I'll leave you with more January skies:

Spring?

Here it is, past the middle of January - Everyone is talking about Spring! Just the other day, someone mentioned the almond blossoms...

Well, Dad always gets to see the almond trees blossoming in time for his birthday.

I can't believe I'm going to miss seeing him on his 90th birthday! Skype will have to do for several more months :-\

Gigean Hike

This afternoon, we went on a hike with a new group! These diverse randonneurs* live in Sète now, but come from Sweden, Denmark, Venezuela, and California (that's us). We spoke French, English, and Spanish, talked about Italian and Portuguese, and heard a few others :-).

Twelve of us met in Sète and carpooled to the Abbaye Saint-Félix-de-Montceau, an abbey from the 11th-13th centuries.

We hiked uphill from there, and looked back

You can just see the mussel beds in the Étang in the distance

We stopped for a snack

And ogled the views

Sète

Frontignan

And back again to the abbey

We stopped for hot drinks and king cake :-)

~~~
*Those who faire la randonnée, or day-hike

The Day the Fog Split

We had an interesting phenomenon this afternoon! As we looked out over the étang, we saw a fog bank rolling in. Then, just before it hit the shore, it split! Some rolled South, most rolled North, and we were left with our lovely sunshine!

We joked about having a wind-god on our roof, blowing a divot for us :-)

Sickies Chez Nous

What have we been up to? NOTHING! We've been sick at our house - just colds, nothing too serious, but certainly unpleasant, and definitely kept us from doing *anything!*

Traipsing all over Montpellier for my administrative tasks having to do with staying legal here meant that I was out in mostly miserable weather, waiting on transportation or walking to an office. A week ago Thursday, I felt well enough to get out for some much-needed supplies, but then Friday's appointment brought a relapse.

I stayed inside as much  as possible after that. Fortunately, Rick was feeling better enough that he could go out for some important food items. Finally, after nearly a week of keeping out of the weather and slurping hot toddies, the sick-storm broke! Yesterday was oh, so warm and mild, and so we stocked up on more groceries (scotch doesn't last forever, you know).

Then today - ahhhh, today - we *strolled* to the beach in the sun, shedding layers as we went. What a glorious day!

I'm glad we enjoyed it, because - you guessed it - rain is forecast for the next 4 days!

~~~
Note: I had an amazing picture to share here, but Google Blogger has a new bug (gasp) that doesn't allow adding pictures. I will probably blog quite a bit less until (1) it's fixed, or (2) I finally switch hosts...