We have had a delightful few days in Meuzac. It has been nice to take our time in the morning, having coffee in bed, reading the paper over breakfast, walking around the property, then discussions about how to spend the day whilst partaking of a home brewed coffee and a biscuit or two. Garth has been getting the hang of lighting the wood heater in the evenings (although there has been a little bit of angst and lots of swearing at the deplorable state of the wood (not as good as yellow box blah blah! - excuses, excuses?). Mind you, Garth has got his own back when, every single morning, the shower tap mysteriously gets stuck when I try to turn it off (why can't showers in France have good old fashioned TAPS??). But all in all, we have enjoyed being out of a town on a little farm.

There are many small beautiful villages around here, the old parts of which were built many centuries ago - some of which are well known tourist hot-spots usually brimming with groups of tourists following the group's Bengal lancer (Garth's term for the tour leader and his/her umbrella or flag) . But at this time of the year, the tourists have all but disappeared and the streets are sooo quiet, with the shops locked up, and renovations taking place on buildings and roads. And given the sudden snap of cold weather, an absence of tourists is probably a good thing. The fog has been so heavy in some places that we have been unable to see buildings just in front of our noses!

Many of the villages and towns in this area are centred around a chateau, for example, St Julihac with its turret chateau, Coussac Bonnevale with its smaller chateau, and Pompadour with a chateau which is linked to horse studs, horse arenas and horse racing areas. Then there is Segur-Le-Chateau which doesn't actually have a chateau, but has a river running through the village and the most gorgeous little stone houses lining the streets. We stopped at a small restaurant run by an English/American woman who thankfully took pity on us peering in through the window of the closed shop, and opened it to serve us coffee. She told us about the difficulties of running a business in France, and it sounds like there is far more red tape here than in Australia!

There are some other beautiful places we have visited. Turrenne, which apparently from afar looks like it just consists of a sheer rock with a castle perched atop it - but unfortunately we couldn't see the castle from just a few feet away because of the fog! The houses here are made of a very white sandstone, which is quite different from the very beautiful Collonges la Rouge which is located just down the road and has buildings made of a very dark red sandstone. There were several restaurants open in Collonges (which appeared to be very unusual given everything else was closed) with many offering a three course 'plat de jour' with duck, pâté, and duck pâté (you get the picture!) being a staple of all the menus.

Finally we went to the town of Uzerche, which is a fabulous old town which sits on the bend of a river, with a large abbey, very old town hall and several very old schools in the centre of the town. It also has a couple of long viaducts running alongside the river. The river itself was like glass, and the reflections of the town and bridges in the water were just perfect. At several spots around the town, there were some unusual statues, for example there was a statue of a large turtle high up on a walkway, peering down on the road below!