Lavelanet......

.......get's bad press.  

The textile factories shut down one by one as things moved globally East and the population had diminished to half by the end of the 20th century. 

Its name derives from the Latin for hazelnuts (Avellana), which grow on the steep slopes that pinch the town into a narrow main street.  Each year a hazelnut festival takes place, preceded by a mass attended by the 
Fraternité who process out of the small church wearing robes and headgear that make them look like enormous hazelnuts.  The first (and only) time I saw this I spluttered a laugh, but it's serious stuff and not to be taken lightly. 

Maligned as it is, this little, once industrial town is living a renaissance. The workers tenements have been pulled down and the Touyre which tumbles down from the mountains and which, at one time would have turned the turbines, has been re-exposed, trees have been planted, a square has been created with stainless steel benches where you can sit and listen to the sound of water uncovered.  

I drive the back way to school each morning which takes me via the barrage.  I roll down the car window and feel the freshness of the water and wish I were a painter who could capture the light on the lip of the fall.

I tend to avoid Lavelanet when I'm not having to go to work there.  It's one of the gateways to the mountains, but I'd rather find others if we're to go walking at the weekend.  

Today I had no classes but a rdv with the psychologist at 10h and another with the psychiatrist at 12.

By 11h I'd spat my life story onto 2 sides of A4 (again) and had an hour to kill, so walked the back streets beneath the horseshoe hill which is riddled with caves and chasms to the café on the market esplanade. 

This is old Lavelanet; turn of the century (the one before this) houses, orchards, vegetable gardens, washing on the line, the crenelated rooves of disused factories and always, high above this beleaguered town, the austere northern side of Montségur..