The best of times, the worst of times

The refuge at Esbintz, October 2010

I first met Gila Chevillon when I was walking the GR10, at the hostel she now runs at Esbintz (also known as Esbints)  in the Ariège. In the evening she fed us a copious couscous. Sitting in her stone flagged kitchen at an immensely solid wooden table, there were several walkers and a young woman who wanted to be a shepherdess. She had come to work with Gila’s husband Francis for a few weeks. So the conversation centred around Gila’s early experiences as a shepherdess in the estive, the pastures high up in the mountains, where the sheep go for their summer holidays.

“That year was exceptional. It isn’t normally like it was for me, and isn’t like that now,” she insisted. “When I started in 1979 there were no shepherdesses. It wasn’t the done thing for a young woman to go up into the mountains on her own. What would an honest woman be doing up there with all those lonely virile shepherds? I overheard some remarks when I went to the market. I could have been upset, but it was too ridiculous. I decided to laugh them off.”

Previously she had taught biology and physical education in a secondary school in Germany. “At that time, I had plenty of money, everything that I wanted, but I didn’t want to live like everyone else. I wanted adventure. Up there, being in the mountains, was an adventure. I had a little French but I knew nothing about the Ariège and less about farming. It was wonderful and terrible all at the same time.”

The next day I continued my walk towards the Mediterranean, but I wanted to find out more so I arranged to meet her again. (more…)

Sheep at Esbintz, recently returned from the estive

On sheep in the Pyrenees

Intelligence

Sheep are born meteorologists. There was the time when Gila was in Spain and the sheep insisted on heading for home, knowing that it was going to snow. And at their current estive Gila and her husband know it is going to rain, even if the sky is clear, when the neighbour’s sheep come over the pass.

“A sheep is lost when it is on its own, but as a flock they are very clever. One of our neighbours changed mountain but the sheep found their way back to the old estive. Without ever having passed there before, they cut across the high mountain slopes to get to their usual pasture.” (more…)