14.

April 13th.

Sylvie is coming with me to buy eye drops at the pharmacie. She sits on two cushions in the passenger seat of the van so that she might see out. She is watching the fields and houses go by and remarking on who lived there, worked there, died there. The shoe factory closed long ago, where she used to walk, 6km.each day. Those were the days, she sighs. Now she doesn`t see many people. Bertrand drives very occasionally, to fetch diesel for the tractor or strimmer, to do some shopping, and she may go with him if the various delivery vans haven't quite stocked what she wants.. She misses chatting with her old friends. She is quite a walker, nevertheless, and we often tramp around the rough surfaced lanes, looking at the carpets of cowslips and orchids, so that she may stop and gossip with one or two passing acquaintances.

‘I'm not walking out on my own’, she comments, ‘anything could happen. You hear of such terrible things on the news. Aren’t you fearful when you walk alone?’
‘No, Sylvie, that’s just the television for you. One or two bad things happen, but France is a huge country’
‘All the same, I’m glad when you are around to stroll with me’. There’s praise indeed.

Last night, just after dusk, I watched a barn owl sweep low through the farmyard, a little owl flop from telegraph wire to pole and heard the first scopps owl calling monotonously for a mate: “meep……meep…….meep….”. [Owl heaven, but cat city too!]