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August 12th

Except for the merry swallows and one persistent greenfinch, the birds are mostly silent, while they complete their moult. The green finch persists with its declamation of grreeeet, greeeet, as if it were the world’s most precious song. Every so often the family of goldfinches descends on the seed feeder for a noisy feast and then disappears, tinkling into the distance.

It has been sunny and warm for three whole weeks. If it does rain it is obliging in the late evening. Most evenings have been gentle and balmy although there is a slant of light that is an autumnal reminder and it falls dusk by 8 o’clock.

I have been feeding a hedgehog with peanuts and raisins.. He comes every evening, when I can still just see him, in the gloaming. He snuffles and huffs excitedly when he finds the treats. I say he, because some weeks ago he carried on two or three noisy evening rituals , with another, who I presume is the female. She would have produced her young by now and I haven`t spotted them, yet .

Fetes and festivals are everywhere, Sausage fetes, fruit fetes, festivals of roses, flowers, hunting dogs and music, usually western style jazz with a bit of line dancing thrown in.

Sylvie and I drive to the nearest garden festival where I indulge myself in buying beautiful grasses and roses. She sits at an outside café, smoking, drinking coffee and eating the local snails. That sounds too proverbial to be true, as I read it back, but is really is true. I find myself enjoying Sylvie’s company more and more. She makes me laugh.

People mill about in the evenings; eating, chatting, smoking and sauntering, even in this small place. Television and air conditioner noises seep out into the warm air, through the fly net covered windows, and moths, in their supplicatory dance before the lights, play out the battle with the bats

I'm thinking already about the autumn as I pick the greengages and squeeze the pears for ripeness.