On a Clear Day

The phone rang - it was Paul to say they could see the Pyrenees from their house but it wouldn't last long.

We grabbed dog, camera and warm clothes and dashed in the car up to Laparade which sits on a high escarpment overlooking the Lot valley.

There is a relief map at Laparade of the surrounding countryside showing small villages, the winding of the river and in the distance the hills on the other side of the Lot Valley.  And, impossibly, beyond the range of hills we can see, the promise of a further view of the Pyrenees, about 190 kilometers away.

We take friends up there in summer and through the haze wave our arms vaguely and tell them that the Pyrenees are "over there" (somewhere).  But we've never seen them.  Until today.

There they were, no more than a hint of grey against the grey-blue sky - a bank of angular clouds up and beyond the far hills we recognise. A vast range stretching across the horizon. 

We could see them, just, with the naked eye.  My camera struggled - nothing on wide angle, but on zoom there is a hint.

We can now point when we take friends up there and say this is where we saw the Pyrenees at Christmas.