Origins — the fascination of ancestors — recent, ancient, extreme

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I have had an interest in the history of my family since childhood, when I wrote a short history of the Mathers family that drew heavily on documents and recollections of family members, particularly those of a great-uncle and great-aunt born in Scotland in the 19th century. When I discovered Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy as a teenager, I was fascinated by the genealogical charts in the Appendices to the Lord of the Rings. For some reason, I find the tracing of connections to a larger history deeply satisfying. Over the last ten years, I returned to researching my ancestry using the powerful tools offered by the Internet, with access to databases and historical records that I would not have dreamed possible before.

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Cathar castles: Puilaurens

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One of the southernmost Cathar castles, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Puilaurens sits on a 700 m high rocky outcrop.. Perhaps the best-preserved of Languedoc’s many cathar castles of the area,  it offers breathtaking views of the surrounding valleys. Very atmospheric! Puilaurens  was originally built by the Visigoths

Chateau de Puilaurens, 2002

Chateau de Puilaurens, 2002

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Cathar castles: Peyrepertuse and Quéribus

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Peyrepertuse 1996

Peyrepertuse 1996

The Cathar country in the foothills of the French Pyrenees is one of my favourite places. I first went there in 1992 while living in Montpellier, then again in 1996, 2002 and most recently in 2011 with my family. I have pulled together a few photos from these trips and this first post features Château de Peyrepertuse and the nearby Château de Quéribus. Continue reading →

Change of domain name

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I’m new to this blogging stuff, and I’ve decided to rearrange the furniture before I’ve settled in too comfortably and collected lots of junk. So I have moved my blog as follows

new domain:   mountainsrivers.com    from        old domain   colinmathers.wordpress.com

I’ve asked wordpress.com to move my loyal followers from the old domain to the new domain. If that doesn’t happen soon, you can just press the button to follow this blog. I also had another domain name colinmathers.com associated with the old blog. I am now using that for a different blog on professional stuff.  So if you bookmarked that, it will go somewhere else now.

Sorry for all the confusion. now that I have rearranged the furniture, I’ll start hanging up some nice artwork.

A change of theme

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I started this blog with theme Twenty Twelve but did not like the fact that the menus were above the header image. So I have changed it to Twenty Ten which has the menus under the header image. Twenty Ten also allows random display of a selection of header images, and I’ve set it up to display among six images, all photos I have taken (except the one of me underwater). My only irritation so far with Twenty Ten is that it does not allow larger header images like Twenty Twelve, but I can live with that.  Remains to see whether I find other limitations.

Alpine white water

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During the first year after I moved to Geneva, I did a rafting trip down the Dranse river which is in the French Alps about 30 km from Geneva. It starts in the Portes du Soleil ski area and runs down to the Lake at Thonon Les Bains. The Dranse has class 3 rapids which become class 4 when the water volume is high.  Before we set off in the raft, the guide checked our ability to survive a capsize by getting each of us to swim through the first rapid. We were hooked and as we headed back towards Thonon afterwards, we saw a kayaking shop and went in and bought inflatable kayaks. The following photos are from a trip on the middle Dranse in 2001.   Continue reading →