I'm John Bachelor. Simon Constable joins me from the south of France. Simon, writing for the Wall Street Journal and other distinguished publications, lives in paradise.

He has moved his walk, however, from the countryside around his chateau in the farm country of Albi, to the foothills of the Pyrenees that he tells me he can see on clear days from his home in Albi.

But right now he's in them at a French town known as Jacques.

And he's going to entertain us with what he's seen so far on his climb up the foothills to 750 meters in perfect weather.

I mention, Simon, as we begin, that it is a freeze across New England, in fact, across the United States right now.

It is January.

And a morning walk with my spaniels, it was zero degrees Fahrenheit at dawn, which is unusual, even for New England.

How is it with you, Mr. Simon, Constable, and make me smile about your beautiful weather.

Good day, too.

Good day to you, Sean.

It was always a pleasure.

It's been beautiful today here in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which we walked up the Pyrenees around lunchtime, which has been absolutely fantastic.

Bright blue skies, snow-capped mountains up there, which have been fantastic, and basically between 50 and 60 Fahrenheit all the time, which has been absolutely beautiful.

I mean, it's been absolutely fantastic.

Took my coat off a few times while walking up there with my wife and a friend of us who was staying with.

Really, really lovely.

We could see the basically the snow-capped peaks.

You could watch as light breeze was taking off a few bits of the snow on those peaks.

So you can actually see that really closely, which is an amazing thing.

The flora is absolutely fantastic.

They're sort of scrubland, small trees, small shrubs all around you, and a very thin,

very thin walkway up.

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