It's Like Heaven for Us Here -- Relaxing, Beautiful Countryside

We are staying in a little village close to Toulouse called

which means "bitter" or "sour" (aigre) "leaf" (feuille), although we haven't tasted any to confirm.  As noted yesterday, our house is large and comfortable, sited on a hill overlooking a small valley.  The view from the hill down:

And the view from the valley up:

For you Google Map fans (count me in), here's a map showing the location of our house; you can as always zoom in and out and move the map around to see where we are relative to the rest of the world.  Zoom in real close and you can see the swimming pool in our backyard.

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For the first day since we came to France, today we did absolutely, totally nothing.  A complete rest day for all of us.  By nothing I don't mean absolutely nothing, since we took advantage of our hosts' bicycles to tour around the surrounding countryside, which looks a little like what I expect Sonoma County would look if it got a bit more rain the the summer time -- lush green rolling hills, and in the valleys, alternating fields of sunflower, pasture, hay, or corn.  Suzie and I took the first ride, to get the lay of the land, and rode to the next little village.  What strikes us as extraordinary and the fields of sunflowers ... huge expanses of gorgeous yellow and green, with the added eery effect feeling like a thousand little heads and faces are looking right at you.  Anyway, if you hate sunflowers I would stop reading right now, because it's pretty much sunflowers all the way down to the end.  I tried to stop taking pictures of them, but I just couldn't help myself.  So, for your viewing pleasure, I give you ... Suzie and sunflowers past their prime (the sunflowers, not Suzie) ...

 

 

... a view of sunflowers and the sky from the valley floor ...

 

... ohmygod, they're LOOKING AT ME ...

 

... a whole hillside of them ...

 

... they're doing it again ... ohgodplease ... make them stop looking at me ...

 

... AHHHHHHGGGGGGHHHH ... they're swallowing my CHILD ...

 

You get the idea.  Lots of sunflower fields.  Suzie and I both love the French word for sunflower -- "tournesol," turn-sun, which is, of course, what they do.  And why, exactly, are sunflowers grown agriculturally anyway?  For food (what would baseball be without sunflower seeds?) and for oil, the production of which also produces a high-protein food for livestock.  A new world native, the sunflower was the only seed crop to have been domesticated in North America.  For more facts about sunflowers than you could ever want, click here.

In addition to the sunflowers, Andrew and I also came across this fellow during our bike ride.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but this horse was one of the biggest I've ever seen, not very tall but very, very broad and stocky.

 

In addition to the great scenery, my two bike rides were also real workouts, not so much on the flat, valley part, but on the return to our house on the hill.  So in addition to feeling relaxed and happy to be in the country (and full -- Suzie just made us an excellent, healthy stir-fry dinner, which we ate out on the patio overlooking the valley), I've also got that feeling you get after a good workout.

In addition to being out of the city, we've been enjoying our housemate, a cat named Reglisse, who seems more like a dog than a cat, in that he follows us around, begs for food, and wants to be petted all time (to the point of annoyance, especially at 6 in the morning).  No substitute for Elsie, to be sure, but its nice to be around a pet again.