Three views of the Faby valley

Rainy Saturday

On this rainy Saturday afternoon, the garage door of the house opposite makes nice reflections in the wet road and puddles in the square in front of our house.

Un jour de pluie : le portail de la maison d'en face fait de jolis reflets dans la chaussée mouillée et les flaques d'eau sur la place devant chez nous.

Plein air sketching in January?

January has ended with two unseasonably warm days. Yesterday I sat by the river in Quillan and did a quick watercolour sketch of the Pont Vieux. After the heavy rainfall of the past few days, the river was rushing noisily past. 

Janvier se termine sous le soleil. Hier à Quillan il a fait 18° C ! Le beau temps m’a fait sortir de ma voiture pour croquer le Pont Vieux, vu d’un banc au bord de l’Aude, grossi par les fortes pluies des derniers jours.   

Today was even hotter so I ventured out again, this time to sketch the strange sight of a huge cable drum teetering on the edge of a very large hole in the road, just along from my house. The electricity company is in the process of laying bigger cables to bring more power to homes in the upper part of the village. With the yellow drum and the red-and-white safety barriers, it made quite a colourful scene.

Aujourd'hui il a fait encore plus chaud. A Fa, EDF est en train de poser des câbles plus gros pour amener une puissance supérieure aux foyers de la partie haute du village. Cela nécessite des travaux importants. Au croisement ils ont creusé une grosse tranchée et laissé un énorme touret au bord du précipice ! Un tableau haut en couleurs pour ce dernier jour de janvier bien ensoleillé.

Fifi

New Year's Day in Fa and it was warm enough to set up my newly acquired sketching stool outside. Dave's 2CV, affectionately known as Fifi, is a familiar sight in the village. She rarely gets an outing these days. An English couple walking past recalled seeing her upside down in a ditch not too long ago. It's a shame they don't make these cars anymore... they're so quintessentially French. 

Fa, le Premier de l'an. Il faisait bon, assez chaud pour me permettre d'installer mon nouveau tabouret dehors sur la place. Tout le monde connaît la 2cv de Dave, surnommée Fifi. Elle reste la plupart du temps stationnée au coin de la rue. Deux passants se souvenaient de l'avoir vue renversée dans un fossé il n'y a pas longtemps. C'est dommage que Citroën ne les fabrique plus... elles sont tellement françaises.

Génoises

On both the houses in this sketch you can see the génoises which are a common architectural feature on old houses here in Languedoc Roussillon and other parts of southern France. These are single, double or even triple rows of canal tiles fitted under the eaves and filled in with mortar. Their purpose, I've learned, is to protect the walls of the building from rainwater, in the absence of guttering. The taller the house, the more rows of génoises are needed to do the job.

White Van

The village was rockin' last night with the blues gig at Café de Fa, back to its usual quiet self this afternoon. I rarely put parked vehicles in my sketches, let alone people, because they have a habit of moving. This white van looked like it was there for a while however so I took a risk and managed to finish it before the owner came back. And what do you know, it belonged to Uncl'Stf, the blues man from last night.

Sunday Sketches

Sunday in the Haute Vallée is market day. Just like in the old days, people flock to Espéraza from the surrounding villages, to buy fresh produce and catch up with friends. Today, the day before Halloween, there was a calm, unhurried atmosphere and the sun shone, though more softly than in the heat of summer. For the first time in the seven years I have been coming to this market, I dared to sit sketching amid all the activity. 

   

In the afternoon, it was still warm enough to sit on the bench opposite Fa café and do a watercolour sketch. The parasols are folded down for the winter now and the trees on the hillside behind are just starting to turn colour.