If you go down to the woods today

... don't eat any of these. One very recognisable toadstool -- there were lots of these. I thought they were poisonous, but some dodgy guy on the internet says you can eat them if you prepare them correctly. I await ceridwen's verdict on that.

This morning, S got up at 5 a.m. and yomped off up a mountain to visit Mustapha the shepherd. The rest of us got up somewhat later, and G proposed a walk down to Tavascan, about 5 km down the river, to meet S for lunch. This sounded easy enough -- it's all downhill, right? Wrong. We went down to a bridge, then up to the top of a bluff, then A turned to me and said "Oh, by the way -- there's a bit here where you have to go along a cliff face holding onto a cable. Is that OK?" Hmph. No-one told me about this ("Of course we didn't," said S later). But they made it sound worse than it actually was -- there was no climbing involved, the cable was just to provide a feeling of security while edging along the narrow path with a sheer drop below. The rock fall further on was a bit more challenging. Down to the river, cross a bridge, then up the other side of the valley and down once more to Tavascan, where a beer or two awaited us. It was actually a pleasant walk, not too taxing, mostly through woodland. 5 km, 100 m climbing, and it took us about two hours.

S arrived as we were finishing our beers, so we ordered another one while he told us about Mustapha having found a stray sheep eaten by a bear. He knows so many people in the Pyrenees now that while we were sitting there someone passed by and hooted at him, and he went to say hello.

We had lunch in a very traditional Spanish restaurant and then drove back up to Bordes de Graus for some rest and relaxation. A got out her amazing glove project -- four pairs, with designs based on patterns she's found in nature. This is definitely not the sort of knitting you can do while watching TV.

S tried to persuade me to go for another two-hour walk. I refused on the grounds that it was clouding over, and I was proved right as the four o'clock thunderstorm arrived right on time, and it rained off and on for the rest of the evening. We settled in for the evening with A cooking pasta and sauce using the vegetables we had left, and nearly every bottle of wine we had brought being sampled. Including the rosé A bought in the supermarket for 2 euros. It was better than you would expect it to be at that price, but one small glass each was enough.