October 15th - Winners and losers

Saturday was a noisy and emotional affair. I spent most of the day having a nervous breakdown over our contribution to the buffet: mini onion tarts, stir-fry vegetable filo parcels and chicken liver pate. Whether you had two legs or four, our kitchen was definitely not a safe place to be.

There were 12 of us in front of the TV for the France v England game: 6 adults and 6 children; 5 supporting France, 4 supporting England, and 3 shouting for whichever side had just scored, reserving a specially loud scream for Jonny Wilkinson’s 78 minute drop goal, which ultimately secured England a comfortable 5 point win. The buffet food went down well, as did the Heineken lager poured from BF’s new draught dispenser, a birthday gift. True, it did produce a couple of glasses of pure foam to start with, but it would have been against the spirit of the evening to allow the beer to settle too long. It was 2am before we got home, me, as designated driver, sober, John less so.

The following morning I bribed the cats to go back to sleep by feeding them early, so we managed a short lie-in. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of Montréjeau also appeared to have had a late night, resulting in an unusually long queue for croissants at 11.30am. There were none left by the time I reached the counter, so I made the mistake of buying left over ones from Saturday at half price. Even heated in the oven, they were horrible.

The weather was beautiful, so we decided to have our Sunday walk after all. On our way back to the car on Friday, we had been informed by a kindly fellow walker that it was rutting season for the red deer. She asked if we had seen or heard a “cerf” (stag). Although we had seen one “biche” (doe), the only other animals we had heard were cows and their bells. The woman went on to say that the season only lasts 15 days, which went a long way to explain why so many walkers were arriving at dusk with binoculars and bulky professional camera equipment.

On Sunday, we arrived at the Lac de Bordères (or Lac de Bareilles, depending on which map you buy) at about 4.15pm. We could hear a stag bellowing across the lake, but the camoflage of the red and brown autumn leaves, coupled with the afternoon shadow, made him impossible to see. We allowed ourselves a short bask in the sun to get our breath back. Then we continued up the combe where we got the most spectacular panoramic view of the lake below, but the stag remained hidden.

The light was fading by the time we started the descent to the car park. A group of people below us had spotted something in the trees. Moving very quietly, we saw the most magnificent stag and two does. We took off our rucksacks and crouched down behind a rock. The cord from my sunglasses was getting in the way of the binoculars, so I took them off and stuffed them in a shallow pocket … So pleased we were with our sighting of the stag, it was only when we got back to Montréjeau that I realised they had fallen out. They were good ones, so much grumbling and gnashing of teeth.

As we were among the last people to leave the mountain, there was a slim chance that the specs would still be where they fell. John suggested it was worth a look. So, despite the fact that he doesn’t really do mornings, we were up and out at first light. Being Monday, there were no other walkers around. We retraced our steps to the place where we had seen the stag and, lo, there they were. What a hero. How many husbands would be prepared to forego breakfast for a vertical climb over 200m up a mountain at dawn in search of a pair of sunglasses? Definitely deserving of dinner out.

This entry was posted on 16/10/2007 at 02:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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