A Red Door and A Lost Thing Found – The Director’s Cut…

It’s really quiet here for a Saturday. I check out of the Abbey les Dames and wander the local park. There’s an antiquarian book sale just outside the entrance, the Michelen Guides crack me up. Inside the park I would find a Free Little Library that resembles the Arch of Germanicus.

I find an enclosure of peacocks, some of which pose on top of posts, others are laying or maybe dirt-bathing in holes in the ground. There’s a second enclosure housing doves, and in the third, a pair of Canadian geese – and a chicken (?).

Elsewhere in this park, I find a bee house tree, some other trees I can’t identify, and a self-cleaning restroom with a red-yellow-green light system telling you when it is ready for use.

My lodging for tonight is the Hotel la Porte Rouge, a B&B in a 14th century townhouse named after its red door. I check in and am shown my room upstairs. It is delightfully rustic, with whitewashed walls and a timbered ceiling, and a shuttered window that opens out onto a nice view of a neighborhood that is completely obscured from the street.

I start to head out for dinner and reach for my new hat but its not in my room. Or in fact anywhere in the house. I resign myself to having lost it in the street, and google the nearest hat shop. I find a cheap red paper-straw fedora, the color of the door where I lost my original. It will suffice for the remainder of my trip.

I return to the Porte Rouge after dinner, and find my lost hat hanging in the hallway. Someone had found it and put it on the family car. I am ecstatic, and thank the owners for finding what I thought I had lost.

That ‘lost thing found’ opened a conversation with the hotelier, whose name is Armande. One topic leads to another. They comment on my jacket, which I made from recycled textiles especially for this trip. It turns out Armande and her mother are also recycled textile artists. They shop the local flea markets for vintage needlepoint canvases, and work with a local saddle maker to produce tote bags, with handles made from expired seat belts and remnants from his leather shop. They sell their work in Austin, Texas.

What are the odds of booking a B&B in France that is run by fellow textile artists…

The next morning, breakfast is served in their garden. To the left, their home is in the shadow of the Saint-Pierre Cathedral. To the right I see a rose, cherry and beefsteak tomatoes, and an apple and a pear tree espaliered along the high stone wall. Armande says the wall absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, which speeds up the ripening process. There’s papyrus, and mint, and Russian lavender which seems to be the predominant lavender species in the Aquitaine. The sound of birds is constant.

She points out the baby pomegranates that she plans to use for one of her eco-dye projects and demonstrates the technique. We talk about natural dyestuffs, and Armande turns me on to dyeing with mushrooms, and adds me to a couple of FB groups devoted to the topic. I come away with a new hobby : )

I would like to have stayed here for a few more hours, but it is time to bid adieu to Armande, her garden, her arts, and her Red Door, and head to the train station. My next and final stop is the fortified medieval city of Carcassonne.