The Beziers Blog

A little late on parade this week. I have been pretending to be a domesticated housewife. Doing things like making marmalade and mincemeat. Although I enjoy cooking I am not normally so quick off the mark. After all the oranges are only just ripe for eating and some of them went into the marmalade. It took a little nudge to get me going and make sure the cupboard was restocked. The nudge was received at the week-end when we visited the first Christmas fete of the season. Trust the Brits to get in first. There is a free publication that we get down here called Blah Blah Blah. It has many contributors both French and foreign ie Brits, Canadians and Americans. It was this paper that organised the fete. It was held in a chateau just outside the village of Roujan. To get to Roujan we drove along the road that leads to Pezenas but turn off and head towards Servian a small village which I believe has a history linking it with the Cathars. That will make a good research project I think Passing through Servian we head toward the village of Espondeilhan another place which I will have to find out about. Roujan was the next place that we came to,oh dear it looks like a long term project all I know is that it is a circular village.

. Never mind at least I can tell you about the fete. It was held in the Chateau Abbaye-de-Cassan It was a beautiful mellow stone building of the 12^th century the grounds in which it stands are open well maintained spaces filled with trees and overlooking some of the vineyards of the area. It was really good to be able to slowly walk around the ground floor where all the stalls were set out. For the people that were looking for presents there was certainly a lot of choice. Many local artisans were displaying there wares, handmade clothes, jewellery , glassware, paintings and tapestries to name but a few. As I said at the beginning it was here that I received the proverbial kick to make the marmalade etc. Two or three of the stalls were selling homemade Christmas cakes, puddings and other seasonal goodies. My friend, Lamia, was curious to know what some of the English food tasted like. Well I had already done the cake and the puddings but as she is spending Christmas day with us I thought I had better make some mincepies. Yes I could have bought the mincemeat but thought it would be nice to make my own. God bless Delia Smith. We spent well over two hours looking around and of course doing a little disgusting (degustation) tasting the local wines. Pity it was Sunday and I was driving so I only had very little sips.

As we left the chateau the people were still arriving they certainly had a huge multi-cultural turnout .We finished the day out by stopping for a coffee on the way home.

Beziers is just beginning to get the Christmas spirit, the lights are going up and the Christmas market is starting. Hopefully I will be able to show you all next time.