Des petits chats sauvages (or... feral kittens)

There were precisely three good things today, and one of them was not reaching the Med, only to find it pouring with rain and a measly 14 degrees with Sète not showing any charms that made the leaving of the fab Creissels chateau hotel even harder. No, rather they were in order:

Roquefort-sur-Soulzon
Yes. That Roquefort. Where we visited the caves of Société, a Roquefort you can get in the UK, but which retains 80% of what it produces within France. And everything that it produces, is dealt with on site in Roquefort, from the storing and maturing of the cheese, right down to all of the packaging. All quite impressive, and an informative tour that leant itself to hints at the French psyche. So there were son et lumière segments; a marionette type show that basically demonstrated that some caves were formed then villages were built a long time later; long discussions with the tour group about the fact that there are numerous Roquefort villages, but this is the only one that makes the AOC cheese, or that Roquefort can support being frozen. Seriously, the tour lasted an hour, and about ten minutes was take up on those discussion points alone - the French like they're 'discussions' (all the tv channels have round-the-table current affairs and anything else of interest shows), and everyone wants to pitch in, eve if just to confirm something someone else has just said.

La Couvertoirade
An interesting little village, with Templar connections, but which also housed loads of rather scabby feral cats. And then the kittens appeared. I truth we were only still around to see the kittens because the ticket machine for the parking was out of order so you had to buy the ticket (seemingly to get out) from the Tourist Office which, in French fashion, closed for lunch from 12-2, so we had some time to kick about.mod course it turns out that because the ticket machine wasn't working that the barrier to get out had been left open all along, but they still took our ?3 anyway. Links to more kittens at the end, this shot was the appearance of what seems to be 'dad'. Certainly mum was happy to play floozy with him, while the kittens approached warily, as one joule when faced with a particularly grumpy looking father.

Le Jamsin
So... Sète. We knew it was a off-the-beaten-track riviera town, but in the rain its rundowness seemed to come to the fore. It was somewhat saved by a funky hotel bar that we escaped to from a rainy wander, but we needed to go out for food. Heading to one recommended restaurant we found that closed, and sauntering the streets there was nothing that looked appealing in the slightest. It all had a bit of a 'Brighton' feel to it. We were about to head back to a takeaway pizza place we'd seen, that had a proper wood for oven and everything, when we chanced upon Le Jasmin almost back at the hotel. The Vietnamese menu sounded great, so we plumped for that, and it turned out to be a cracking choice, with steal,y friendly staff, decent food (to which you could add chilli paste which was on the table, meaning job joule bypass the pandering to the non-spicy French palate), and rounded off not only with a free coffee, but a free Sake served in a rather risqué shot glass. Sète is redeemed through food and alcohol.

Tomorrow we're off to Pau, to stay with friends Fi and Susan (and kinda hoping on Friday we can borrow their dog to go walking in the Pyrenees...). Oh and really also hoping to be able to spin by SooB of this here parish if the stars can be aligned (after I first mentioned the possibility before work got stressful and it completely left my mind that we were in the neighbourhood).

Stepping Out
Stepping Up
Non-matching pair
Unsure
Trio