We were greeted by Claire's cat at about 7.30am. Claire was up to make us breakfast at 8am. She had a lot of apricots to make into jam so said it was good to get into the garden before it got hot. At this stage it was already over 20 degrees. We had some of Claire’s home made fig jam and cake as part of breakfast. I had a bowl of coffee – John and Claire had tea.

(Question for Jane Lister – to whom do you associate the lines "the fleas in the trees of the high Pyrenees’? I will supply the answer later . - John B) (oops - "'the fleas that tease....... " - thank you Jane.)

We then headed towards the Pyrenees Mountains on the non-toll roads which gave us time in the villages. This worked out well as we could find a cache and also some shops.

Near our destination was a cache at a Roman bridge. The bridge looked like nothing until you got off and went below it. It was a nice spot with the river flowing peacefully.

We then went on to the Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges to see the Cathedral. Claire had visited it many years ago and knew it was special but could not quite remember why. We thought a historic cathedral was likely to be cool on a hot day.

We parked and John was delighted to be bitten by a flea from a tree (see the question for Jane) even though we were in the 'low’ rather than the ‘high’ Pyrenees.

It was already getting warm as we paid our money to go into the Cathedral . We got an information sheet each, in English. It told us that the Cathedral has existed without irreparable damage for 800 years except during religious wars. It has 3 churches in the one – the original founded by St Bertrand from the 12th century, a gothic addition financed by Pope Clement V and a 16th century wooden renaissance part because of the work of Bishop de Mauleon. The exterior is stone, which fits well into the setting.

The cloisters were the first part on the self guided tour. They were unusual because they were built with 3 sides open to the air rather then being enclosed. The columns are decorated with sculptures of foliage, animals, etc and one had the 4 evangelists on the four sides. It was a nice cool spot

Inside, the treasure part was so dark we couldn’t see anything, however the steps up gave us a good view of the overall cathedral. The organ was impressive as it sat on an angle in a corner. Our booklet told us it has had 3 major restorations, the last in 1975, and is considered one of the three wonders of the province. We could not get close enough to see it well but it evidently has secular rather then religious carvings. There were 3 stained glass windows at the other end of the church. Otherwise it was relatively plain inside.

Then we went into the choir stalls. They were amazing and anything but plain . They were each individually carved on the back all with different designs. The seats are hinged and were folded up so you could see an individually carved piece that was almost like a small seat. The 66 stalls were installed in 1535 and each was the work of an individual craftsman. They had a sense of humour – envy is shown by 2 monks fighting over an Abbots baton of office for example.

The Bishops chair is at one end and is even more intricately carved. It has marquetry on the back panel showing St Bertrand and St John the Baptist. The entrance to the choir stalls has 2 lovely side carvings, one of the family tree of Jesus and his mother and one of the Madonna and Child.

The area in front also had many wooden sculptures but these have been painted. At the base was a frieze of 27 paintings telling the life of Jesus.

The rest of the church was blocked off and although we did see people in there, we couldn’t find the way in. We saw other people outside who had also visited and they said they had never been into the main part of the church in 3 visits. They suggested that people had climbed the barriers for a closer look and we weren’t keen to do that, so we went off to get lunch – quiche for me and an omelette for John.

At this stage it was getting very hot so he went to the car while I bought postcards and checked out the area where there was a cache . I didn’t have the details of the size and it turned out to be a micro so I wasn’t ever looking closely enough. On our way back I did find three other caches – John stayed in the car with the aircon on while I popped into an old church, a Roman ruin and a park. The last was interesting because the drive up had 12 tight turns each marked with a cross and there was a church in the park. The road up is used by the local driving instructors.

We got back to find Claire complaining of the heat. John had a sleep and I wrote some blog and then her visitors arrived. Rashid, her partner, was going to barbecue duck for tea but it was still 36C at 8.30pm and he had not been well (malaria) so the duck was cooked inside. We ate at about 10pm  – salads, potatoes and the duck. Then we had raspberries and ice-cream – our contribution – and a selection of 4 cheeses.

Ann, another teaching friend, was also present and the discussion was wide raging and at time heated. John and Radshid had already talked about sport and computing. The meal conversation was a lot about travel and teaching - Ann teaches English at Secondary level while Rashid and Claire are at university. French primary schools run from 9am until 5pm with a 2 hour break in the middle where the children have a meal and are supervised by other people. Claire says it is too long but as so many woman work it is not likely to change. There was the same concern as in NZ about the lack of work ethic – cut and paste essays and ‘don’t bother to read to answer a question’ etc. Also there was the view that the children have easy access to more and more information but are less educated. Ann has an American accent – Claire basically British and Rashid was brought up outside England but had lived in Newcastle and also had a very English accent. Add our Kiwi voices and we had an interesting mix of accents.

Suddenly I felt tired and realised it was after midnight. I probably broke up the party as Claire noticed my heavy eyes and wouldn’t let us help pack up before we went to bed.