Another lunch at Brasserie Capoul

Thai beef salad
My wonderful aunty Wendles and uncle Peter stayed with us this last week for another memorable holiday – we definitely won’t forget The Energiser Bunny dancing at The Husbands 50th birthday party! Thank you Peter for getting everyone onto the dance floor. My great mate, Deirdre, said the dancing looked like a scene from Jungle Book…I think you had to have been there.

Lunch at Brasserie Capoul, Toulouse

One of the deelicious desserts
This is a wonderful brasserie in Place Wilson, Toulouse, which I visited in May with my mates Debs, Sal and Lynn. Lynn, an old friend (time not age you cheeky buggers) from America spent two fun-filled weeks (or at least I think so!) with me in May of this year –and yes, I know that's 3 months ago. Don't get me going on the Snail Trail again...

Snail Facial Anyone?

This could be you!
I am absolutely serious. There is really such a thing as a Snail Facial. And it costs $100 plus. What will they think of next? Bird poo facials? Actually...more about that later. I happened upon an article in the Telegraph which featured this sticky story. (Photo by: viewthevibe.com/big-in-japan-snail-facials )

How many snails can YOU eat?

My impressive list of snails eaten!
23531 snails for 480 people. That's 49 snails per person. I ate 50 so someone got 1 too few. Sorry. Welcome to the St. Elix d'Astarac Escargolade. Allow me to embellish but at a slightly faster rate than said (deelicious) animal. Oh come on, you didn't really expect to get away with no snail jokes now did you.

Trees and Ron

Trees and Zorah
(Todays recipe: Green beans and coconut milk)
We met a delightful Dutch couple and she has a really interesting name. It's spelt Trees but pronounced Trace. Ron and Trees spend many months of the year traveling around Europe and Morocco in their camping car. We spent a couple of weeks traveling together and had an absolute blast, laughing and joking together. A lot of the jokes are a bit naughty so I shall spare you the details – sorry!

Gibraltar and Naomi

Naomi with The Rock
That many people bring their dogs along in their camper van is a given, but a dog and a 90kg Vietnamese pot-bellied pig?! I must admit that when I first saw her, I thought I might have to give the Tapas Trails a miss for a while. A pig. In a camper van. Yeah, and pigs can fly.

Cheese, chorizo and olive tapas

Queso tetilla or nipple cheese!
Forgive me, for I have not posted in 3 weeks. And I have so many things to tell you about. I shall not say (yet again) where has the time gone to, but I really really want to. So I am just going to get straight into continuing on about Tapas. We made quite a religion of it on our travels, sitting ourselves down and making pre-dinner food. Today I am going to show you some of our cheese, chorizo (paprika salami) and olive tapas.

Salobrena, Spain

Salobrena by night
We continue our adventures in southern Spain, enjoying much better weather than the rest of Europe – well, as long as you exclude the hurricane force winds and driving rain we've just endured for the last 3 days. Ripped off one of our solar panels it did. But now it's back to tapas, blue skies and beach glass collection activities again.

Clowning Around

A clown travels the world
It's been quite a while since Epiphany, hasn't it?! We have met the two most wonderful, talented, deelightful clowns in the whole world. Allow me to introduce Elli and Angele. We keep meeting up here in southern Spain and have yet to decide who's following who. I just hope they'll follow us home and then I can keep them with us forever 'cos they're soooo nice.

But I want that doggy in the window!

A local dog
I would love to have a dog / many dogs, so my husband has started barking and howling as he thinks that this is a good enough substitute for a dog. I'm not sure I quite agree with him. Fortunately, he hasn't taken to jumping up on our guests or wetting on the floor and insisting on being toilet trained, but you never know.