As I’ve said so many times, once you start looking in to something, it just seems to appear everywhere. And so it has even around Fez. We obviously spend lots of time up on Mount Zalagh, a half hour drive …or should I say a world away from Fez’s bustling medina.

Up here houses are made traditionally from mud and stone, basically Pise/adobe and covered with a beautiful white wash finish that resembles marzipan to me…you could almost take a bite out of one.

I love the way they look and the insides, especially the way that wooden pillers are also covered in lime, to me looks beautiful. I can really imagine trying to link this style to that which is used in Loubar, but with additional modern mixes.

The building season starts around May/June when there is little chance of rain. Bricks are forged and baked in the sun and then a mason and the rest of the family will come together to build the house, which will be completed before the rains in October. It almost killed me when I discovered this, having spent 3 years building our place in Fez…but it bodes well for Xaouen.

During Ramadan I met a guy building this bamboo and pise mix café. What interested me was his use of paper as a filler between two bamboo walls, that would then be covered in adobe. He said that the whole structure would have taken a month to put up and he’d then open as a café…

Outside a New Pise Café.

Beautiful, can’t wait to go….I’ll be asking him a few more questions on methodology when it’s not Ramadan and 45 degrees hot!