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Mornings
here start with the sound of birdsong resounding around the valley
as sunlight slips through the window.
Walk though to the kitchen and prepare fresh coffee with croissants
(from our local boulanger) spread with our own homemade organic
fruit jam, and wander out onto the veranda to spend a while breakfasting
as the day heats up.
After breakfast take a walk along the lane that leads you up onto
the hill behind, with views in all directions and swallows swooping
through the air.
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You
might take a short drive into St. Antonin Noble Val (setting for
the film Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks) a tiny medieval town
with everything you could need (restaurants, cafes, newsagent,
bank, post office, bakeries, mini-super market, pizzas and cinema).
It boasts one of the oldest medieval town halls in France and
is a labyrinth of ancient lanes and tall stone village houses
in which you can easily loose yourself and explore. Creeping clematis
and hollyhocks grow on corners and here and there you'll cross
a stream or look up to see 16th century mullioned windows and
carved stone faces jutting from the walls.
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On
Sunday mornings the town buzzes with people as its busy market
fills the streets and lanes, stalls sell everything from hand
made goats cheeses, marinated olives, fresh breads, and locally
produced wines to organic vegetables, hand made toys and pottery.
Sit and read the paper at one of the many cafes and watch the
world go by.
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Later,
take a picnic and follow the river down the valley to Cazals,
where you can swim or lounge on the pebble beach next to the water,
watching the canoeists float past and splash over the weir.
As the day closes, you might dine out at one of the restaurants
in town or in the surrounding area, or go home and cook up a delicious
feast in the kitchen with food bought from the market, then spend
the evening outside on the veranda eating, talking and drinking
wine as the cicadas sing and the stars come out.
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