Our first 'holiday' at the Pyrenees Cycling Centre
- mikedugdale
- Feb 6
- 2 min read
Inverted commas because, of course, it was anything but a holiday. In July 2018, about 5 weeks after the purchase, we were able to go back to the house for the first time (having spent the intervening weeks guiding cycling holidays for the Chain Gang Cycle Holidays www.thechaingang.co.uk).
That summer, the Tour de France spent a few days in the vicinity, with that crazy short stage from Luchon to St Lary Soulan, a flat stage into Pau followed by the mountain stage going over the Col d'Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet. We came to camp at the Pyrenees Cycling Centre for those few days, using it as a base. I use the term loosely. I like a base with running water, flushing toilet(s), maybe some electricity even if only to recharge our devices. We had none of that at the Centre. We washed in the river, drew buckets of water from the river to flush the toilet and read at night by candlelight.
If you read the previous instalment you will know that the detritus of 15 years abandonment was scattered throughout the house when we took possession. This visit, 5 weeks later, was our first look since the Notaire's threat had been made. Had the house been cleared?
Well, sort of. It appeared that the entire contents of the house had been thrown out of the attic and first floor windows or dragged out of the various ground floor doors.
We slept in tents that we put up in the old bar room or in the garage because the house was so disgusting that nobody could bear to sleep inside in any of the rooms. It was too filthy and if it's too filthy inside, you try to make the best of the outside. We spent a week, strimming, chainsawing, burning, hacking and barbecuing. Not much of a holiday perhaps. Certainly very satisfying apart from the fact that around a billion flies who roosted in the undergrowth came out to roost on us, our plates, cups, food, everywhere really. I'm glad to say they have all disappeared now.
Over the course of the week we discovered the real size of the garden and started dreaming of the lawns and terraces that would eventually replace this jungle. And we discovered Nadine, a lady from Toulouse who lives a few hundred metres up the valley and has a heart of gold and a mouth, well, you can meet Nadine for yourself. Her first visit was heralded with a screech of tyres as she skidded, breaking past the house, reversed back and drove in to introduce herself. Boy.
An hour later she left having donated the contents of her car that she had been en route to donate to a local charity warehouse and we were the richer by chairs, plates, cups, cutlery and a new friend.
