SUN LICKED!

Mt Canigou, the Pyrenees, tonight. View from my terrace.

After getting my animosity towards winter, snow, ice, cold and skiing off my chest in yesterday's blog, I can comfort and assure you all that I'm being totally sun kissed at the moment! I arrived at my house in France on Sunday and have been spending these four days taking in the fact that here trees are already in bloom, I've managed to get a slight sunburn in 27 degrees plus today, and the rosé tastes as good as always. Is this what is known as acclimatisation? Not doing anything for four days, I mean? Well, tomorrow we're getting down to business - cleaning, tidying, killing weeds, getting everything ready for the new season.

2784.66 metres

Mont Canigou has always been the sacred mountain of the Catalans. Everyone considers the Catalan region to be Spanish, with Barcelona as the regional capital, but Catalonia extends into the French side as well. My house is in Thuir, a village about thirty minutes drive up from the Spanish border. Mont Canigou can be seen from everywhere in the area - truly majestic as it rises above every other hill and peak in the vicinity. And very special for its proximity to the sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canigou

To reach the point where we can start walking up the Canigou we need to drive for about 30 minutes, and climbing up there is steep! So steep that many tourists cheat and rent chauffeured Jeeps! For mountain walking we prefer the more nearby paths, off the tourist tracks - like the one I described the other day:

http://kjerstihornmoen.blogspot.fr/2013/01/the-hermit.html

In fact, we don't even really need to get in the car - we can walk out straight from the house, but that means walking in the lowlands for a bit. We get much higher up after just a five-minute drive. Last year I was here alone at this time - okay, maybe two weeks later - escaping from that horrid Scandinavian winter again - and walked in the lower Pyrenees on my own in the warming sun. I moaned, I sang, I purred, I danced, I ran, I shouted - no, I yelled out loud - like Julie Andrews did in "Sound of Music": I love it! I love the SUN! I LOVE FRANCE! (Well, she loved Austria - and she sings better than me - I'll give her that).

And everywhere you turn, in every direction, your eyes catch Mt Canigou, snowcapped, inviting, forbidding, assertive, majestic. My mountain. 

Yes, both my mountain and I have been sun licked today - and soon we'll both lose our snowcaps.

Thuir evening

Waiting for summer