Red stones

The village of Le Puech (Lo Puèg in Occitan, from a Celtic word meaning mount) is a tiny place on the tourist trail or Circuit des Ruffes, ruffes being the red stone typical of this geological area and caused by sediments of iron oxide which appear in beautiful strata all through what is known as the Red Desert. Traces of human habitation of this area go back thousands of years.** When I say 'tourist trail' I mean that it's signed as this, but there was no one around at all when we made a detour here on the way back from a trip to Lodève this morning on a double mission to buy tickets for some events we want to go to during the poetry festival there in a week or so and to buy some more bottles of a wine we bought last time which we liked very much. Both these were successful, although unfortunately the anthology of the festival poets which I wanted to buy isn't out yet.

Unusually for us when we're out on a jaunt, we'd decided to take a picnic rather than eat in a restaurant, and we ate the simple version of pan bagnat* I'd made by the side of le Lac de Salagou after a swim. There were people around the shores of the lake but for swimming we had a whole small bay near the deserted village of Celles to ourselves apart from some ducks and some moorhens.

* pan bagnat is a Niçoise sandwich made with raw vegetables and olive oil - I added some tomatoes and garlic from our garden to some slices of ham in a baguette, and olive oil from our village, of course. It was delicious, but I hadn't realised that there was an official recipe - here!

** There is a Wikepedia page in French about this village, but the English version is much less informative.