Escape the Olympics in the French Pyrenees

This is one of those years when I'm very glad I don't live in the UK. First of all I'd have to put up with days of Jubilee hype and simpering sycophantic grovelling by the BBC's latest 'Royal correspondent' (shudder). And if as all that weren't enough, just a few weeks later there are the much-touted Olympics: more flag waving patriotic stuff .... and sport. Double shudder.

I know I'm being subtle here :-) but you may be picking up that I really can't be doing with all this nationalistic fervour. Maybe I have a gene missing but I just don't have any sort of patriotic sense of 'my country' or any of that stuff. It's bad enough having to carry a passport that makes me into a 'citizen of the United Kingdom' - why on earth (sic) can't I just be a citizen of the planet, full stop?

If you're as turned off by all this as I am, you might want to think about escaping for a few days. I can't do much about the Jubilee, I'm afraid - we've been full for that week within days of opening bookings and have been regularly turning people down since - but if you fancy escaping the Olympics in the French Pyrenees, we still have some space!

Here are just a few of the things you could be enjoying instead:

Poddling around on quiet roads.
Long peaceful walks in the mountains or foothills or valleys.
Picnics by cool streams up in the high summer pastures.
Some seriously good chamber music in a Romanesque cathedral at the St Lizier festival.
Swimming in the 28 degree water of the Lac de Mondély, then sipping a cold beer.
Watching marmots and chamois at Orlu.
Dancing with a partner who's wearing traditional costume and clogs at St Girons' huge folklore festival.
Eating a 'kebcam' under the stars, with jazz playing gently in the background, at Jean-Luc and José's duck buvette.
Dancing till the early hours to live African bands at Foix's 3 day African festival.
Watching vultures swoop over the crags while you eat lunch in the auberge overlooking the Etang d'Ayes.
Cooling off in some of the biggest prehistoric caves in Europe.
Spending a lazy afternoon in our garden listening to perfect, unbroken silence (home made cake or ice cream at tea time too!).
Chilling in the new spa at Ax les Thermes.
Enjoying a holistic massage or pulsing session in the garden at Maison Grillou, under the shade of one of our big trees.

Lying on a sun lounger at midnight with a glass of rosé, watching the Perseids meteor showers in Ariège's perfectly clear, dark, unpolluted skies.

We'd love to welcome others of like mind during the Olympic fortnight, so if you're tempted, go to Maison Grillou's Facebook page, 'like' it, book with us using the code you'll find there and we'll throw in a few extra treats for you when you arrive!

La P'tite Maison

La P'tite Maison is our chambre d'hote suite; created from a former farm worker's house, it now forms a completely self-contained suite for two people of around 65 square metres, over 3 levels and with access from the dining room/library in the main house.

Downstairs is a spacious private hall area leading into a salon with sofa and comfy chairs (pictures coming just as soon as the chairs have been delivered!), a mini-TV system with French plus some English, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch channels as well as some good radio, and a combined hi-fi/DVD player/iPod dock. There's a small dining table with two chairs, a small silent fridge, some cutlery, crockery and glasses so that you have the means to put yourself together a picnic supper, and a kettle plus tray of ground coffee, tea and tisanes.

Upstairs is a landing leading to a double height bedroom with leather double bed; from the bedroom a flight of stairs leads to a mezzanine level chill out area with low chairs and floor cushions, candles, incense and music. The shower room has a tiled 90cm x 90cm thermostatic shower with glass door, a contemporary wash basin and oak shelving, and there's a separate WC.

The fifth season

There's a very distinctive feel to this time of year. It's not summer, nor is it yet autumn; the days are quite noticeably shortening and the mornings are heavy with dew; the light is clear and golden. In traditional Chinese philosophy we're in the middle of the fifth season: late summer. Beginning somewhere around the third week in August and lasting through to the autumn equinox, late summer is a time of richness and of harvest, and belongs to the Earth element, which provides us with all the nourishment and security we need to live through the cycle of the year.

Golden September light in Ariège

Earth is a point of stillness: after a summer of long hot days, late nights, holidays, fêtes and normal day to day routines thrown to the winds, it's a slowing down, a coming home, a preparation for the quiet reflection of autumn and winter. Interestingly, French culture, with its huge focus on la rentrée - for everyone, not just for school students - knows all about that. Life is in transition between the extravert, yang summer period and the yin, inward-looking days of winter where shutters are shut and life revolves around keeping the woodburner going. (I'm talking figuratively, of course: anyone who's read much of this blog will know that at Grillou we spend much of our time outside in tee shirts even in mid winter).

Take a trip to any agricultural co-op or even to the supermarket at this time of year and you'll be presented with a vast array of preserving jars and pans, thermometers, automatic sterilisers and every other possible accoutrement; late summer is also the time to fill the storehouse (tell me about it ... having just managed to finish conserving the eighteen kilos of green beans that my mere three rows of plants produced this year we're now knee deep in aubergines, peppers, tomatoes, quinces, squash, melon, grapes, walnuts, crab apples, figs .....). In this land of duck, any self-respecting paysanne Ariégeoise over 50 will as I speak be filling her larder with jars of confits, soups, stews and beans cooked in duck fat, and foie gras, not to mention - judging by the extraordinary number of tomato plants that grow in the average potager round here - hundreds of pots of tomatoes conserved in every which way.

Jars in my larder: a paysanne in the making?

Late summer is almost always a particularly lovely time to be here in Ariège, where an Indian summer is the rule rather than the exception, often going on until late November. We're having one now - the last two weeks have seen temperatures in the late twenties and early thirties, and it's still perfectly warm enough to have dinner outside, even if - like us - you don't quite get your act together to eat before 9pm. Out and about the light is golden, balmy and has a dream-like quality, especially in the early mornings and at sunset.

Our oleander bush still thinks it's high summer ....

And next year, of course, you'll be able to experience all this for yourselves here at Grillou, because I'm now able to tell you - finally, definitively and without wobbling - that we shall be open for guests from 2 April 2012, and will start to take firm bookings from the end of next month .... Watch this space!