55) St Valentine's day

We had a sprinkling of snow again this morning, but we were determined that this was not going to thwart our plans for Valentine's day.  We assumed neither the plumbers nor the electricians would turn up again.  And we were right.  They seem to have an anxiety bordering on paranoia about snow, however little of it there is.  But at least it meant we had the day to ourselves.

We wanted to go to the (apparently famous) truffle market in Lalbenque about half an hour's drive away.  Being convinced we have truffles in our own wood, we wanted to check out the competition and see how things were done.  It only operates in the truffle season (November to March) and takes place each Tuesday at either 2.00 pm (14.00 in French) or 2.30 depending on which notice you happen to see.  If you are serious about buying truffles (and you have to be seriously rich to do so), it is essential you get to the market just as it opens so you get the pick of what's on offer.  Presumably those in the know do actually know which time is correct (and perhaps it is they who are deliberately putting out misinformation.....).

On the way we suddenly saw what looked like a series of spectacular waterfalls.  Then we realised they weren't moving.  We jammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car to look (once the rather rude and bad tempered man in the juggernaut had swerved round us and was safely out of sight).

They were solid ice.  The photographs do them very little justice, but they really were amazing.  It would have been worth the trip just to have seen this incredible sight.

Someone had mentioned a restaurant not far from Lalbanque, so the night before I had searched the internet to see if I could find it.  It was all very confusing.  I thought it was at a place called Bach (pronounced "bash"), but of course mostly it came up with stuff about the German musical dynasty.  I kept being re-directed to le Bourg and the only restaurant in Bach seemed to be Les Voyageurs, which then didn't exist when you searched for it (it also only seemed to do pig's trotters).

Eventually I found a site which mentioned a restaurant in Bach and gave a telephone number.  Annoyingly, you had to join up as a member of some sort of gourmet club to get any details.  I tried to do this but it didn't seem to work.  Exasperated, I rang the number to book a table anyway.  To my astonishment they still had a table available.  As it was a special truffle market day in nearby Lalbenque, and St Valentine's day, I thought this was a very bad sign (but perhaps not surprising if all they did was pig's trotters).

Actually, it turned out to be a wonderful find.  We had a four course meal for 15 euros each and a bottle of wine for just 7 euros.  Every course was delicious and the staff were delightful.  It was not "haute cuisine" but really good French home cooking, everything made with a great deal of care and thought.  The emphasis was on the flavours rather than fancy presentations, and every dish tasted delicious.

When we came to pay, I said jokingly to G that I hoped they took credit cards as we had no cash on us.  They didn't. Monique could not have been less concerned.  We said we would go into Lalbenque and get out some cash, but she wouldn't hear of it.  Simply pay next time you come she said endearingly.

We then got into conversation with her and it turned out that Jamie Oliver had recently been in, doing some sort of tour of places you could get to within three hours of London.  He had been (like us) on a truffle trail.  As a result her place had apparently been written up in the Sunday Times last weekend so she was, I think, generally rather chuffed with all things British (including, it seemed, us and our lack of money).  As we said goodbye (au revoir) to our new best friend, we wondered how many restaurants in England you could walk out of without paying, leaving no contact details or even having shown any identification.

Needless to say, by the time we finally got to Lalbenque, the truffle market was pretty well over (I suspect it started at 2.00).  There were quite a few shady looking characters milling about.  And it occurred to me that they had a remarkable resemblance to antique dealers forming an illegal "ring" in the mould of Lovejoy.

Most of the stalls were empty and the truffle dealers had withdrawn into the cafes and bars to spend their earnings.

One dealer still had a basket of the black gold left (at over 1,000 euros a kilo they are well deserving of the name), but  we had been warned that you had to be very careful what you bought as some traders mixed up the truffles with lumps of mud and the like  .His did look rather brown (rather than black) and had an uncanny resemblance to dog turds.

We didn't buy any truffles but we did find some saucisson sec which we are rather partial to and which is a speciality of the nearby Auvergne (it's remarkable how many Frenchmen you find who really do have a droopy moustache and wear a beret).

We came back a different way.  No more frozen waterfalls, but a very fine example of cabane en pierre seche was spotted on the side of the road in the national park of the Causse de Quercy.  There is one of these very near us as well.  They were built as temporary shelters for shepherds and other farm workers, as well as for storing animal feed or manure.

They are known locally as capitelles or borries and are the most basic form of building.  There is no mortar, no corner stones and no beams or lintels.  They are simply made from the stones found in the field in which they are built - and their equivalents are found all over the world.

They are often on the roadside and, being France, there is almost always an ugly pylon right next to them.  With modern technology, though, the pylon with adjoining wires was made to disappear (rather like our electricians and plumbers........)