27.

June

Cherries, let's talk cherries; a great, wide umbrella of a tree, bowing down with clusters of almost plum sized fruit, crimson, scarlet and black. Easy to pluck, easy to gather in handfuls, dropping them into buckets, baskets and pans. Sylvie and I are on tiptoes, on a hummock, stretching not to miss any, even the bird damaged ones, and looking up into the roof of leaves where the fruits hang like transluscent jewels, bunches of earrings. It's almost a shame to separate them from their tree.

Red is on the mountainsides too. Bertrand has said it is a catastrophe: the conifers are dying. How is that, I have asked, when there has been so much rain? Ah no, this is a result of increasing drought over some years. The snows are just not like they used to be. It's happening everywhere, he has told me and the evergreens' roots can't delve deep on those limestone slopes.

Sylvie scratches her knees as she sits on an upturned bucket and watches the rippling, emerald grassland being cut and lain in great swathes all around us. ' Limes are struggling too, on the higher ground, even though they root much deeper', she tells me. 'And they're usually so happy mixed up with the spruces and pines. 'World wide', she tuts, 'mondial,--all these changes'.