occitanie
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nine
Swallows and martins angle and glide overhead on the causse, moss slowly smothers crumbling chalk walls. The sacred city cascades down cliffs. I slip into the other canyon, the one behind where the l’Ouysse river appears from under the limestone. Skim the edge of the Dordogne, the road wedged up against leaning rock walls. Across…
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Upturned
Crossing the bridge over the river the thick cold mist bites. Back in the village frozen droplets clung to the trees lining the road out. The cemetery across the field dissolving in the low cloud. It’s the kind of cold that freezes your sinuses and makes your eyes water. The grey sky is flat and…
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Monts et Rivieres
Turn left out of the drive and start climbing. Ten kilometres of up. Not steep but constant. Compared to home these hills are mountains, up through the trees to the grass plateau, real mountains jagged against the skyline ahead forty miles distant. The sticky hum of tyres on sun molten tarmac. A snack on a…
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Tour de Causse
Damn, my ears are cold. Freezing fog in the valley, ice forms on the brake levers. Skittery tyres in the corners… pssht, let a little bit of air out. Wheels feel more settled. The cold damp air mutes the clangs of sheep’s bells beyond an elderly stone wall. The fog thins gradually up the hillside, a…
the man from icon 