On the hills

After yesterday's village balcony, it's back to the hills today. The shadows aren't as good, as you can see from the cloudy sky. But this panorama of a hill just above the village shows one of the many reasons why I like living in our village - the hilly terrain with its mix of vegetation which surrounds it.

There are vineyards nearly everywhere in the Languedoc - it is almost a monoculture, wine-producing area - but here in the hills the vineyards are smaller, fitted into gentle slopes and interspersed with single almond and olive trees and small olive groves, patches of garrigue (a mix of flowers and herbs, including abundant wild thyme and rosemary), and on the top of the hill you can see a forest of holm oak, the evergreen Mediterranean tree, and a line of cypress trees. Sorry I couldn't provide the usual blue sky as a backdrop today!