Time gallops on as I realise it’s almost a week now since I drove to Courry, a small village on the edge of the Cevennes and Ardeche areas, to spend time at my Mum’s house with 2 of my offspring, their other halves, and a couple of friends. I spent about 45 mins driving round the uni area of Montpellier en route, looking to find a parking spot, from which to do a brief cycle tour of the city centre. I was almost deciding that Montpellier would have to be left for another time, when I found one at last, and enjoyed a bit of exploration, resulting in the conclusion that this city did warrant another more relaxed visit.
The drive from Montpellier up to a ‘town called Ales’ immediately brought home to me as ever, how fortunate we are to be able to stay in such a beautiful region. Mum’s house is not the luxury south of France villa that I always expect people to be thinking; it’s very quirky, hence my comparison with the house on the TV series the Durrells, (highly recommended for the script, which for me got better series by series, the acting, the scenery); its charm has grown on me over the years, particularly when only needing to clear all the dead insects :), dust and debris from the ‘the outside-in’ rooms, and not being responsible for its general upkeep:
On main street thru’ village 
Downstairs living room 
Downstairs dining room 
Downstairs kitchen – note all original tiled floors 
Various bedrooms …. 
upstairs rooms interconnecting 
Only ‘outside space’ – 1st floor terrace overlooking street 
Practising being a french property owner! tempting 
Outside-In 1st floor living room – Ruin 1 
From Ruin 2 looking into Ruin 1 
Must be Ruin 3
Not quite sure of it’s age, but it has served many different functions in addition to housing a village family – including a boulangerie and silk farm. In the heat of Summer, it’s really cool on the ground floor.
These are views from a chapel 3km away at 445m altitude from which on a clear day can be seen Mont Ventoux, the mountains of the Ardeche, and the Cevennes above 1500m:
Courry 
Towards Barjac 
Into the Cevennes 
Across to St Paul Le Jeune
Looks idyllic. Fantastic to read about your adventures. J retires in three weeks, so our own adventures are rapidly drawing near.
That’ll be fantastic for you guys to go off travelling. I’m about to update blog now from the beautiful Loire, which I’ve managed to avoid all this time, via the Auvergne, and then the Limousin – ‘Centre’ area; but the heatwave is at 31deg and getting hotter so am rushing over to southern Brittany which is very pleasant but not above 35! tomorrow; all such beautiful areas, good, empty minor roads