1. January
The snow is piling up on the window frames and the pear trees are straining against the stakes, holding them against the wind. Chaffinches, like cotton wool balls, fly from stacked bales of hay to barn ledges, hoping to find something to eat in this bleakness. For them it's just a matter of holding out at this time of year. A robin follows me, in & out of a hedge, as I battle up the lane. I have bread in my pocket. He knows it. In a juniper sparrows quarrel over a mystery and Emile's piped music echoes thro' the vast cattle hangar. He says it helps keep them calm. They stare at me, rustle their fodder and rattle the metal barriers. Emile is there too, bucket in each hand. 'Warm eh?' he says. 'In England too?'
'No Emile, in England it's raining, naturally'.
'Ah well,' he adds, 'this cold stings but is prettier, aint it?'

January 27th. and a memorial prayer for holocaust victims was read out this morning in the village square. There was a strong maquis movement in this part of France so they have fewer guilty secrets of their war past to hide. I've been reading Art Spiegelmann's MAUS this week so the speech was doubly disturbing and the weather tends to dampen any optimism, so that's trebly disturbing.