Ma Jeunesse Fout Le Camp

I have a confession to make. In a blues playing, jazz loving, rock and roll household of aspiring musicians, I am totally addicted to the utterly compelling 'chansons' of Francoise Hardy. Her 1996 cheapie compilation album, 'Les Chansons d'Amour', which I bagged on Amazon for £2.98 before I left the UK, has been this summer's 'Bardies feelgood album'. We always seem to have one album which none of us ever tires of for the duration of our stay. Previous year's choices have been Bruce Springstein's 'The Rising', Tinariwen's 'Water is Life', Ian Siegal's 'Meat and Potatoes', Miles Davis's 'A Kind of Blue', and Murray Perahia playing Handel and Scarlatti and Glenn Gould humming along to 'The Goldberg Variations'. Our taste is certainly catholic.

I still can't get 'Tout Les Garcons et Les Filles', with its catchy tune and evocative lyrics, out of my head. It reminds me of my white 'Correges' boots, of which I was so proud, and ironing my long wavy hair in front of 'Ready Steady Go' before going out on a Friday night. Cathy McGowan may have been the height of Sixties chic for us English girls but there was no one to beat Francoise in the style stakes. As someone recently said of Carla Bruni, "A beautiful woman in a Chanel trouser suit could recite a telephone directory in French and still sound good." Francoise Hardy really can sing as well. When I browsed through a phenomenally expensive and damaged paperback about her in our local St Lizier 'Les Mousquetaires', called 'Tant de Belles Choses' by Pierre Mikailoff, I was struck by a photo of her in concert at Olympia from 29th October 1965. She was the original trouser suited chanteuse.

Her songs grip you immediately, even, I'm sure, if you can't understand her native tongue. Raw emotion needs no translation. All the great singers, from Callas and Sinatra to Ian Siegal and Bruce Springstein, have it. Whilst we may not be able to define it, we all know it when we hear it. They speak to our souls, and we feel better people for it. They lift us up and free our hearts. They make us sing, or dance, or both. They make us, momentarily at least, forget our troubles. They give us the words for love, and they explain away our sorrows. You are never alone whilst their music plays, and what a joy it is. Oh, Francoise, as you sing 'Ma jeunesse Fout Le Camp' [ 'My Youth Went Away'], I wonder where the years have gone? But, then again, methinks, how lucky we have been with the music of our time.

Along with 'Chansons d'Amour', I also bought Jaques Brel's 'C'est Comme Ca' and Serge Gainsbourg's 'Initials SG' [at equally cheap prices] from Amazon. I love them too, though not quite as much. I first heard of Jacques Brel [1929 -1978], the Belgian singer, when Alistair Campbell raved about him as one of his choices on 'Desert Island Discs'. The song he chose was amazing, and I thoroughly agree with everything that AC said about him. I am just sorry that somehow my youth passed him by [Jacques Brel, not Alistair Campbell!]. Not so, the gravelly voiced, chain smoking Serge Gainsbourg though. How many of us girls only realised what we were missing, as we groped behind the youth club with some spotty, downy chinned fellow adolescent, when we heard Jane Birkin singing [?] alongside him in 'Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus'? The song may have been rubbish, but the sentiments were life changing! There are much better songs on this album, but none of us will ever forget 'Je T'aime'.

After nearly choking on my Friday night fish and chips a few months ago, when I saw Carla Bruni Sarkozy strutting her stuff [well, sitting on a bar stool actually] on the late Jools Holland show, I was going to ask the question, "What is she for?" I was even more determined to slag her off when I saw her singing alongside Bono and all the other 'look at us, we're so important and we're going to change the world' celebs performing at the absent Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party bash in New York. But something held me back. I don't know what it was. OK, so I know she's thin, she's beautiful, has a stunning retro chic wardrobe and has had more famous men than I've had hot quiches.

My petty jealousy seemed unworthy. I thought, purely for reasons of research, and also to compare her with the indominatable Mademoiselle H, that I might buy one of her albums. I didn't, largely because they were three times the price, but I did watch the video on the Amazon site that goes with her 'Comme Si de Rien N'Etait' CD. I am prepared to eat my chapeau! She may not have Francoise's voice, or indeed a good voice, but she certainly has that indefinable something. She talks of her music and her need to work on her voice, which I thought showed an disarming humility. She obviously loves her music and her relationship with her producer, Dominique Blanc Francard, is clearly an artistically fruitful collaboration. When she talks of the loss of her brother, of whom she sings in 'Salut Marin', I was moved. I think I shall buy the CD after all.

Music was, as ever, one of the main topics of conversation at Bardies. We have been hesitating about doing Blues at Bardies next year, our third festival, because of the economic downturn and, quite frankly, because it costs us an arm and a leg to put it on. We have always been happy to subsidise it to the tune of a big party but the costs of flying over musicians from the UK, in addition to the exhorbitant social security charges of French musicians, and wining, dining and accommodating people for a whole weekend have escalated beyond our budget since the pound has plummeted so horrendously against the euro. Last year we made the mistake of trying to mix and match it with our silver wedding anniversary celebrations, which meant that it was neither one thing nor t'other.

A year is a long time though and now that the recordings have finally been mixed, we are gobsmacked at our achievement. The calibre of musicianship and the quality of the music is mindblowing. It is easy to forget this in the sheer exhaustion of the aftermath. After many bottles of wine and much late night discussion, we have decided to go for it again on the proviso that we can, at least, make it more or less break even. We will never cut back on the quality of music on offer, but we are looking at ways to be more practical in our very amateur organisation. We have some great ideas, of which you will hear more in future blogs. I am desperate to get Ian Siegal back again [Ian, if you read this, we'll give you and Kat a free holiday into the bargain!]. His recording from the 2006 festival is sensational.

We also think it may have swung the decision of our 'locateur' to rent Bardies later this month, because Peter sent him some downloads. He [the locateur] says that we must do it again and that he wants to book his tickets now, just on the basis of a couple of songs from Ian. High praise indeed, but we are not too modest not to know that we have something very special going down here. A few house rentals will certainly help to amortise the costs. We are thrilled to say, after our 'inspection', that we have officially been invited to be included in the 'Alistair Sawday Special Places to Stay'.

When we bought the house in 2000, we never intended it to be anything but our home. Now, with teenage children desperate to hit the European nightclub scene, we have decided to bite the bullet and use a couple of August rentals to boost the flagging coffers. One friend told us about 'Owner's Direct', the most user-friendly of websites, where we now have a listing, and another about 'Schoolstrader.com', which is to 'ebay' what Primark is to Selfridges. It's not the quality of the merchandise that's at issue, it's the sheer, cluttered scale of the operation. Chateau de Bardies is the most beautiful place, and so special, so I'm not sad to share it with like-minded people. In actual fact, I'm rather chuffed because I know that everyone will fall in love with it, just as we did.

So now, we're back in England for a bit. Freddie is 18 tomorrow, the reason for our early exit. We came home yesterday, via Paris, which was 34 degrees on Thursday night. We stayed at the Hotel Clement, in Rue Clement on the left bank directly opposite 'Le Marche Saint Germain', a real find. The whole area buzzes with life and, for a brief moment, you can close your eyes and imagine what it was like in those heady days of 1968. Many of the old bookshops have long gone, now turned into trendy bistros, but the spirit remains. It was my lucky day, because I did manage to buy a copy of Francoise Hardy's 2008 autobiography, 'Le Desespoir des Singes' from a 'bouquiniste' for 8 euros instead of 21. I am determined to rent a cheap apartment here in order 'to do' Paris once again before my zimmer frame beckons. My youth may have gone away, but I'm not quite ready to give up the ghost just yet!

A Dinosaur Discovers Blogspot

You may find it hard to believe but whilst I knew about blogs and blogging, I had absolutely no idea how easy it would be on Blogspot. It's brilliant! Left to my own devices, I would be happy with my ancient electric typewriter and a France Telecom landline. Now, thanks to my savvy kids, I am entering a wonderful new world of being able to share my love of the Ariege with anyone who wants to know more.

We first discovered the Ariege in 1994, the year our daughter was born. We had only recently returned to the UK from a stint in Madrid, and knew that we wanted to remain 'Europeans'. We had loved Spain, especially the Pyrenees, but opted for our first love, France. We madly agreed with some friends of ours to buy a house jointly somewhere within an hour's radius of Toulouse. In those days, pre Ryanair and Easyjet, the only carriers were British Airways and Air France, and Toulouse was the only viable airport for this unspoilt part of France.

We intended to drive for Easter, Christmas and summer vacations, nine hours or so from the Normandy ports of Caen and St Malo, and a few hours more from Calais or Boulougne, but we wanted our new home to be accessible for weekends. We saw many beautiful, often deserted properties and got a real feel for the region. We were in love! It seems incredible now, but fifteen years ago there were hardly any Brits at all in the Ariege. Mirepoix was a shadow of the bustling, thriving tourist trap that it has now become since the arrival of Ryanair to Carcassonne. This really was 'la France profonde'.

In the process of searching, we read everything that we could find about the region. Having read history as part of a joint honours degree, I was amazed to discover two centuries or more of Cathar history virtually unknown to anyone without a special interest in their lost world. We went to Montsegur, Queribus and Montaillou and eventually found our own house with direct links to the Cathars, whose origins dated from 1002AD. We loved the Chateau de Queille, close to Mirepoix, and spent many happy years there before moving west to the Chateau de Bardies, not far from St Girons, in 2000.

When we arrived here to see it in December 1999, with the first snowfall of that winter, it was like walking back in time. The pace of life hasn't changed here for centuries. I had recently read 'La Gloire de Mon Pere' and here I was peering into a world of life as it used to be in Pagnol's Provence. It was the antithesis of life in England. We could immediately visualise ourselves decamping here for the following summer, and the deal was done.

That first summer, we had a party and invited all our neighbours. I was fascinated by stories about our predecessor, Madame Simone Henri, and what a wonderful woman she had been. I was also curious about the history of the house and the lives of the Barthet, Henri and Crinon families who had lived here for 178 years. We were part of a continuum and felt honoured and privileged to be warmly welcomed as worthy successors. We have kept in touch with M et Mme Crinon, which is a bonus.

Over the years since we have had wonderful times with family and friends. I am proud to say that our parties and hospitality are legendary and we have made many new and lasting friendships with people throughout the Ariege. Our 'Blues at Bardies' festival has been an ambitious, but hugely enjoyable sideline, which keeps my music mad family happy every two years. If I had my way, I'd be here permanently. I'm now counting the months until my youngest goes off to university!

Meantime, I plan to continue my endless creative projects. Like many people looking carefully at the way we all live now, we are fully signed up members to Carl Honore's 'In Praise of Slow'. Life at Bardies is slow by metropolitan standards, but it is exceedingly creative and expansive in an altogether different way. If you believe in the existence of leylines, then Bardies is definitely a 'haut lieu d'energie'. The difference here is that our energies are channelled positively. Situated on top of pre-historic caves and in close proximity to Cathar sites, how could we not have a spring in our step?

We try to support local French artists and artisans, as well as the many local artisan food producers. As a committed 'foodie', I hope to be able to blog about new wine and food discoveries, as well as art and sculpture and places to visit. Music, though, is our first love, so watch this space! In fact, being a serial chatterbox, now that I have come out of my cave, I may well blog about just about anything! A bientot.

PS You can check us out in more detail through www.chateaudebardies.net and www.bluesatbardies.net