Not a phrase I ever expected to head up a blog with. It sounds like one of those dodgy Duolingo short story titles – ‘a stranger in the park’ or ‘my passport is under the cat’. Now, before you think I’ve completely lost the plot, although I am willing to accept that I probably have, we have been living a very isolated life since around the middle of November – although we did speak to some nice people on Christmas day – and yesterday we had a lot of excitement.

Firstly, our HO’s rang and asked could we stay on for an extra couple of days, and then……….wait for it ……….somebody drove up our hill. I was fortunate enough to be sat outside and could, therefore, get the maximum excitement out of this long, slow process and the anticipation of their imminent arrival – so what could they possibly want? I was down to the gate with my best welcome hat and the bestest bonjour accent that I could possibly muster. Now some of you, who have stuck with my travelling ramblings over many years, may just recall my attempts to acquire a hot water bottle in a French pharmacie. I, at the time, was pretty impressed with my dodgy combination of minimal words and miming abilities ‘une bouteille d’eau chaude por le pied’ etc., etc,.

I was nicely warming up to being on the ‘guessing end’ for ‘cement mixer’, which is what my visitors were after. Washing machine? Spinning clothes drier? Jacuzzi? Clearly, their miming abilities were not up to my standard, as I obtained a hot water bottle; whereas they did not obtain a cement mixer – well, not until after I made a ‘phone call to the HO’s.

We had three little rescue Dacshund/cross dogs to cuddle here and each had a totally different personality. Betty, bless her, was very elderly and had moments of not quite knowing where she was – it was reminiscent of Baxter’s last year and nice to be able to gently re-assure her . Charlie just wanted cuddles, and Eric could bounce for England if he thought anything exciting might happen; like someone coming to borrow a cement mixer. Breakfast and dinner times were hilarious as the house turned into a race track for the four of them (Muttley soon picks up on other dogs’ habits and joins in).

We went to the nearest, and very beautiful, neighbouring 14th/15th century town on a desperately raw and cold day, where everything was still shut down for Christmas and New Year.

The weather turned a lot nicer and we were happy to just chill in the sunshine and walk around the lakes apart from a couple of trips out. Albi and it’s vast cathedral was impressive.

Gaillac was stunning.

Most of all, we loved the company of the dogs and the contrast of moving from the bottom of the valley to the top of a hill and the views.

Time to pack, again, and start the next road trip into Spain. 200 and something bloody days I’ve been trying to learn Spanish……time to put it to the test!