Our series of (Un)fortunate Events

We last heard from Tabby by email when we were at Rue Haute. She’d found someone to pick us up from Carcassone, we’d found a train down on the 29th. She was hoping to leave on the evening of the 29th or early on the 30th, so we’d have New Years alone on the farm. When we looked again the train was too expensive.
Then there was silence. In Paris we became increasingly worried about the silence. No response from email, no one answered the phone, and no one called us back from the messages we left. But Céline was coming home on the 28th and wanted us to leave that day or the next. So we set off early on the 28th hitching, not knowing if there was anyone to meet us.
Hitching went fairly well. It was a freezing wind that day, so although we were cold (and quite miserable and depressed at times), we managed to find someone who was going to Toulouse, just an hour from our destination. As a side note, hitching is fun in summer, when it’s warm and dry, and when you speak the language of the driver. Without the possibility of good conversation it becomes a fairly tedious awkward silence.
But anyway, our driver said she’d drop us off on a good road towards Carcassone/Limoux. However, it was getting dark, we didn’t know about our destination, and didn’t want to get stuck in an expensive hotel in Limoux (and Laura refused to camp when it was that cold (I didn’t tell her at the time, but the newspapers that day were reporting ice-age conditions in parts of France)), so we opted to stay in a cheapish hotel on the outskirts of Toulouse.
Unfortunately, outskirts means suburbs, which means awful hitching territory. We got cold, frustrated, bored, wet, lost hope, had hopes dashed, had people who had stopped drive off when they found out that we didn’t speak French, and generally had a hard time. A one hour drive took us 7 miserable hours. At one point we were so miserable we actually, to our shame, ate in McDonalds. We also met someone hitching (his first time) who had been at a péage (toll booths) for 5 hours without luck. That’s always depressing. So we left him walking to find a better spot, and someone quite quickly picked us up in an already packed-full car. I lay across the back seat with a table leg at my throat, desperately hoping there would be no accident. Fortunately there wasn’t, and our driver took us to Limoux, very close to where Google maps had told us to go. However, when we got there we found a barn, and as we continued up that road we found increasingly expensive houses as the road ascended the side of a hill. I checked every mail box and none said anything like “Tabitha Combe”. I even asked a few people and they’d never heard the name. So I knocked at a house, stutteringly explained I was lost, and the man and his daughter found a map and showed me where I actually wanted to go – a village 15km away. My trust in Google maps dwindled. But my trust in humanity increased, as he let me try the phone (still no answer) and then decided to very kindly take us there himself.
As we arrived in the village of St. Couat de Razés, we didn’t know where to go until Laura pointed out the farm was called ‘Domaine de St Jaennot’, and there was a small signpost in the village saying ‘St Jeannot’. So we followed that, which took us away from the village up a steep hillside several kilometres until the sign pointed off down a dirt track. Our driver looked nervous for his clean, new car, but took us down it about 1km anyway, until we saw a house. We went around the back and saw a car, and a woman with her daughter answered the door, nodded about knowing ‘Tabitha’, and so our driver left.
Unfortunately, Delphine did not speak English and her 11 year old daughter Foostine had only studied it for 1 year in school. Nevertheless, we established that Tabby lived in the big house next door and they were renting the cottage, about to move in properly by January 8th (currently living in Limoux and moving their possessions in day by day in their small car). They hadn’t heard from Tabby and had no idea where she was, except that she went to Spain before Xmas. She let us stay on the couches, burn her wood for warmth (her house in Limoux had no heat so we couldn’t stay there), eat the food that was there, and wait at least until ‘demain’ (tommorrow) when they would be back (we forgot to ask what time).
After they left we decided to make a hearty meal for ourselves with a big can of beans, sausage and pork that was in the house. Laura had thought she had an infection for the past couple of days so took some antibiotics (a kind she’s taken before) and we settled down to a game of crib.
After a while, Laura lay down on the couch, a little cold, and not feeling very well. Then it escalated. She said she felt itchy, as if she was having an allergic reaction (was it the canned Cassoulet or the antibiotics?). She took Benadryl and we decided to wait and see what happens. It got worse. The itching covered her entire body and she started muttering sentences like “I feel like I’m going to die,” and “I’m trying to scratch my skin off to make it stop.” But what to do? We were at least 4km from the closest, sleepy, tiny village (it was past midnight by now) and had no access by telecommunications with the outside world.
No wait. We did.
Next door in Tabby’s large house was a phone. I took the torch and went over to see if I could break in. It was pretty disappointing. The windows had big metal bars covering them, built into the old stone. The main doors were thick, metal-studded wood that didn’t budge an inch as I pressed against them and kicked them. It gave the impression of a fastle – an old farm/castle that had been built to stand against barbarian raiders and pillaging hordes. My only hope was the side door – made of small panes of glass with thick wood surrounding them. However, the exciting thing was that the lower part of the door had a wooden board that looked as if it may just be nailed on. The thick wood also was broken at this level and looked like the barbarians had had a go at it with their axes (I lated found out that one of the large dogs from the village had chewed through it in order to get to the female dog inside, Sweetie, that was on heat). Not only was there a board on the door, but I could also see the cordless phone inside on a shelf just a couple of metres away.
Before I broke in, I decided to go back and check on Laura. She was still in agony. So I grabbed the extendible shower curtain rail, went back outside, and prepared to pillage and burn. OK, not burn, just pillage.
Kicking the board off the door turned out to be quiet a task in itself, and I was glad for my previous martial arts training. But eventually it came off and I reached inside. Of course, there was no key in the lock. I later learned that to repel invasions the door was triple locked with metal bars anyway. So I gave up the idea of getting in and reached for the shower curtain rail. Knocking the phone off its perch was the easy part. Getting it to the door with wires, an easel and various painting utensils in the way was much harder, and I was glad for my previous training in the thieves guild and phone-fishing academy.
Picking up the phone I realised I didn’t know the French emergency services number. I tried 999 and 911 but neither seemed to work. So I went back to check on Laura and see if she knew. Fortunately, she was feeling considerably better (pillaging can take a surprisingly long time) and we decided not to keep trying for the ambulance. She took more Benadryl and we settled down to sleep and await the next day.
The 30th past slowly, although not much happened. We explored the grounds, met the goats and chicked, fed them, explored the weedy garden and falling-down mini poly-tunnel (noting them as likely work if Tabby did turn up) and waited for Delphine to return. In the afternoon we found a French Monopoly board outside so we played that to kill a few hours (is ‘killing’ time the ultimate sin?). And we pondered what to do. Should we walk down to the village for supplies (assuming there was a shop, which seemed unlikely)? Or should we pack and leave, maybe to hitch to our next farm in Spain a week early? But hitching on New Year’s Eve can’t be good! Could we even have the 4km walk to the village to hitch with our heavy packs, in the cold, with so much uncertainly about the future and so little money? Or would we just wait and stay here, spending New Year’s alone, hoping for Tabby to turn up? As the day dragged by without a visit from Delphine we decided to do the lazy thing – wait to see what the following day would bring.
Waking up, we soon heard a car around the front of the large house. We went around and met a girl who I assumed was Jura, the person Delphine told us was meant to be looking after the house and feeding the animals. In broken French I tried to ask her, and only after a few sentences were exchanged did we realise that this was Tabby and that, being Scottish, she spoke English perfectly! What a relief! We could talk, we could eat, we wouldn’t have to leave, and we wouldn’t have to spend New Years’ alone. Phew!
Tabby had also brought one of her sister’s friends back from Spain. Matt was a DJ and had been the reason for Tabby’s delayed return home. He was running away from various problems in his life, hoping a retreat in the countryside would be good for him. He’d also run low on money, and so instead of keeping his apartment, he was moving out of it, and it was the moving of 30,000 CDs and 40,000 vinyls to a friends house that had caused the delay. But he was excited to be in the countryside, determined to work hard, and it meant extra company for the New Year’s celebrations.
In fact, after Tabby prepared a New Year’s Eve mini-feast (prawns, Spanish ham, escargot, various sweets, and plenty of wine, we headed off towards a party she had heard about. We drove to a village close by, hoping to meet with some of her friends who knew the way to the party, but they had already left. So we tried finding our own way there, Tabby saying she knew the way. As the time got closer to midnight, we started to wonder whether we would even make it in time, or whether we would have to pull over and drink Champagne by the side of the road. We met another carful of people headed to the same party, also lost, and told them to follow us. Then we went completely the wrong way, driving 15minutes out of the way. Driving back (and seeing wild boar by the side of the road), we found the correct turning, but (not surprisingly) the other car decided not to follow us this time. We arrived at the party at 11:50, met with the friends, and all was going well.
At midnight, the party didn’t bother to stop the music (heavy and loud lyricless dance) for midnight, so it was 12:03 before we realised it was already the New Year, and drank our champagne a little late anyway. Then the car full of people who had followed us turned up, late and looking angry. In fact, they had the look of people who would kill people who merely insulted them, and making them late for a party may well count as that kind of punishable-by-death offence. However, our attention was soon diverted away from them as a drunk old man tried repeatedly to kiss the girls in the group, and the guys had the job of, quite forcibly, keeping him away. After half an hour of stopping his lunges towards the girls, we escape the dance tent to stand outside where it was quiet enough to have a conversation. It was, apparently, also quiet enough to pass out and snore loudly, as one guy had chosen to do. After a little fire- and firework-dancing, we decided to head home.
We later learned that at another local New Year’s party (one that we almost went to and decided not to bother), someone had died from taking bad drugs. Unfortunate for them, but since we decided to stay away, perhaps fortune was smiling on us after all!

Best 15 Events in Europe This Winter

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1. Llandudno beach by the Great Orme – wind, rain, hail, blown sand, sunset, and Laura.

2. Finding out how cool Céline is while staying with her in Paris, especially because we first arrived to find a party. And then being invited back to spend Xmas in her apartment.

3. Montmartre, Paris.






4. Paris - baguettes, stinky cheese, parks, and Christmas.

5. New Years Eve – Tabby arriving at her farm, speaking proper English again, hanging out, and having a fantastic dinner – escargot, shrimp, Spanish ham, and plenty of other delicacies.

6. Playing with Tabby’s goats.






7. Making the garden at Tabby’s place – working as a team, weeding, building the boxed gardens, smashing up crates, spreading compost. Oh, and building the goat shanty-town!

8. Getting picked up while hitching in Spain, being taken back to the guy’s house (where his wife and newborn were), drinking coffee, and being given bread, homemade chorizo, homemade cheese, beers, and homegrown weed.

9. Aracena - our one day off in Western Spain. Part of what was great about it was the contrast with the rest of our time there.





10. Eating dinner with Laura, Lucas and Ashley in Carrapateira after eating crap for 2 weeks.

11. Building balanced rock towers and sand art on Amado beach, Portugal.





12. Walking along the cliffs and down to Praia de Amália beach near Brejão, Portugal.

13. Carnival in Odeceixe, Portugal.





14. Laura's birthday dinner!

15. Finding 5€ while miserable and hitchhiking in Sevilla suburbs.

For more pictures, view the album.