44.
Dec.20th.
I'm sitting on an old elephant leg of a sweet chestnut stump. It is my last contact with my little heaven until the new year and it is not far off a year since I began this journal. The sun still shines, although weaker today. It filters through the twig canopy, dances around my boots where the deep, red brown leaf litter folds into them and touches me to contemplate my luck at not being in the pre Christmas, trench life of the streets. I soon will be.
I have come to realise that depression does not swoop romantically like some enveloping cloak, some poetic miasma; rather it is triggered in my case, by loss, change and weather! So I have made the biggest change I could, to shake it by the horns. I'm obviously driven by ‘projects’. I fear to think what I will be like when I can’t take them on.
The longest night approaches,-- the winter solstice. I find this infinitely cheering. Snowdrop and daffodil shoots are appearing under the plum trees, where I planted some two autumns past, to mix with the old originals.
England calls and I'm off to be enveloped by family and the manicured patterns of familiar landscape.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
43.
December 18th.
It has snowed, blown, rained and dusted with snow yet again; bitterly cold, tart, stingingly cold, but now the sun shines pure, unsullied, low but reaching 15 deg. today, according to my thermometer.
Hullabaloos have come and gone. Francois the gentle giant claimed one of his lopey, hunting dogs had had its belly torn open by a badger, a blaireau. He had been searching for it since Wednesday when it had escaped from the pack shed. Amazing how sentimental he was about the animal. On Friday he found it, licking its wounds behind a fallen tree about 2 k. from its home. Not a boar, he claimed; the worst injuries come from badger attacks.
From centuries of habit the European badger is much more aggressive than the British one; bigger too. Because of diminishing space and smaller territories the British badger has become much more socialised, tight family groups stay together and the trodden paths reach back in their memories to thousands of years of use. Hence they are so easily killed on roads as they follow their ancient ways which have been sliced by human development. In France the male blaireau treads over enormous territory and these solitary males are defensive in their attacks..
When I walk through a particular copse and follow a rutted path I notice the rows of badger toilets, dug cavities filled with black deposits of seeds, iridescent insect shells, small bones and hair. I wouldn`t like to meet up with a brock here, one evening.
Francois has his old dad living with him, or rather, just- living with him. Frederique is 97 years old and spent 5 years in a prisoner of war camp, in Germany, used as slave labour. He is gentle, breathless and a little irritable, nowadays; hardly surprising. All the men of this family have resonant, booming voices. Their gabble of Occitaine sounds like an Italian collective. But Fred speaks in a whisper now and his son, grandson, daughter in law and great grand son all care for him preciously. It`s wonderful to witness. They know what he is saying, what he wants, where he wants to go and they push him around in his clackety wheel chair that must have emerged from the grenier, once used, perhaps, by his own father.
December 18th.
It has snowed, blown, rained and dusted with snow yet again; bitterly cold, tart, stingingly cold, but now the sun shines pure, unsullied, low but reaching 15 deg. today, according to my thermometer.
Hullabaloos have come and gone. Francois the gentle giant claimed one of his lopey, hunting dogs had had its belly torn open by a badger, a blaireau. He had been searching for it since Wednesday when it had escaped from the pack shed. Amazing how sentimental he was about the animal. On Friday he found it, licking its wounds behind a fallen tree about 2 k. from its home. Not a boar, he claimed; the worst injuries come from badger attacks.
From centuries of habit the European badger is much more aggressive than the British one; bigger too. Because of diminishing space and smaller territories the British badger has become much more socialised, tight family groups stay together and the trodden paths reach back in their memories to thousands of years of use. Hence they are so easily killed on roads as they follow their ancient ways which have been sliced by human development. In France the male blaireau treads over enormous territory and these solitary males are defensive in their attacks..
When I walk through a particular copse and follow a rutted path I notice the rows of badger toilets, dug cavities filled with black deposits of seeds, iridescent insect shells, small bones and hair. I wouldn`t like to meet up with a brock here, one evening.
Francois has his old dad living with him, or rather, just- living with him. Frederique is 97 years old and spent 5 years in a prisoner of war camp, in Germany, used as slave labour. He is gentle, breathless and a little irritable, nowadays; hardly surprising. All the men of this family have resonant, booming voices. Their gabble of Occitaine sounds like an Italian collective. But Fred speaks in a whisper now and his son, grandson, daughter in law and great grand son all care for him preciously. It`s wonderful to witness. They know what he is saying, what he wants, where he wants to go and they push him around in his clackety wheel chair that must have emerged from the grenier, once used, perhaps, by his own father.
Monday, November 10, 2008
42.
November 4th.
I have decided to do yesterday`s walk again, this time in the morning. The heavy frost has cut off the sap from the remaining leaves and they are falling from their wounds, adding to the soft underfoot feel. I know I can`t say that I`m leading a solitary life like an arctic sole explorer but the din that used to accompany my life seems a distant memory. The schools, the children, the traffic, the sirens, the accelerating motors and the month long, British show -off of fireworks in October/November. : pah! Living on my own here is a delicate luxury which may change at any moment, so when I`m walking or gardening I pass through mini worlds: the breathing of cells, the flowing of juices, the movements of microcosms. I listen to the quiet yet am super sensitive to all the clamour of nature around me .
I love the ruins around here. That`s something England lacks as they all have been snapped up by property developing projects. Barn owls, little owls, edible doormice, swallows and martens all use ruined walls and rooves. Though the forests seem better groomed than those in Britain, there are still dead wood, fallen trunks and abandoned boles to make abundant worlds. The wood ants are inactive this cold day; no troops marching across my path, but a red squirrel darts along an oak branch, only a metre from my head showering it with stars of frost.
When I reach the small summit the midday sun is really warm. I sit on a rock and sift seeds from the giant yellow gentian skeletons that stand like frayed soldier uniforms in formation.
Three buzzards mieew to each other as they circle the tree tops . They are below me for the moment and as they wheel and turn I can see their whiteish bibs.
November 4th.
I have decided to do yesterday`s walk again, this time in the morning. The heavy frost has cut off the sap from the remaining leaves and they are falling from their wounds, adding to the soft underfoot feel. I know I can`t say that I`m leading a solitary life like an arctic sole explorer but the din that used to accompany my life seems a distant memory. The schools, the children, the traffic, the sirens, the accelerating motors and the month long, British show -off of fireworks in October/November. : pah! Living on my own here is a delicate luxury which may change at any moment, so when I`m walking or gardening I pass through mini worlds: the breathing of cells, the flowing of juices, the movements of microcosms. I listen to the quiet yet am super sensitive to all the clamour of nature around me .
I love the ruins around here. That`s something England lacks as they all have been snapped up by property developing projects. Barn owls, little owls, edible doormice, swallows and martens all use ruined walls and rooves. Though the forests seem better groomed than those in Britain, there are still dead wood, fallen trunks and abandoned boles to make abundant worlds. The wood ants are inactive this cold day; no troops marching across my path, but a red squirrel darts along an oak branch, only a metre from my head showering it with stars of frost.
When I reach the small summit the midday sun is really warm. I sit on a rock and sift seeds from the giant yellow gentian skeletons that stand like frayed soldier uniforms in formation.
Three buzzards mieew to each other as they circle the tree tops . They are below me for the moment and as they wheel and turn I can see their whiteish bibs.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
41.
NOVEMBER 3rd.
I walk today round and up the backside of my little mountain. In England I would be hearing and seeing the northern thrushes such as redwings and fieldfares, but they don`t come this far south, it seems. Instead there are blackbirds on the copses of tangled rowan, feeding on the garnet berries. Several of them together, which is unusual, alarm calling or tutting as I approach and flying off in different directions.
Because I set off in the afternoon, in order to catch the best of the autumn light, I am passing beneath the sunlit, brilliant yellow undersides of the oak leaves, the gold of the field maples and the lemon of the hazels and alongside the ancient, twisting chestnut trunks with fat bellies of swirls and knots. One car passes me in the rising lane and then I veer off onto the sodden path, which is absolutely carpeted with layers and years of accumulated leaves, the top layer is a pallette of multicolour, like a woven rag rug, deep and thick and shining.
It’s not a long trek I’m doing but a winding, steep one which takes about an hour to achieve. I can look down on the plateau, glimpse my garden, quite obvious amongst the standard patchwork colours of the other fields, and I can eventually look down on the wood’s canopy. Far up, on the peaks, there is good snow, glinting blue and orange. I aim to be back before dusk, which falls early, nowadays.
It is neither Wednesday or the weekend, so I’m safe from the hunter’s bullets. Local, weekly papers record the accidental woundings and occasional fatalities of this season of rampage. Of humans and dogs, that is.. The prey are rarely mentioned unless they are of record size. There is a silence which is not quite silence..It`s a varied, differentiated kind of silence and I find I`m listening to it. As I walk I’m thinking how many resentful eyes are watching me from inside the forest! What shall I do if I come face to face with a boar? It’s unlikely but not unknown. There are sounds of snapping twigs to make my heart skip for a second and two doe cross some distance in front of me, leaping the ditch.
When I descend, keeping an eye on the violet grey and dimming light, there is a real ambient chill. Definitely a frost to night. It was a lovely 17 degrees at midday.
NOVEMBER 3rd.
I walk today round and up the backside of my little mountain. In England I would be hearing and seeing the northern thrushes such as redwings and fieldfares, but they don`t come this far south, it seems. Instead there are blackbirds on the copses of tangled rowan, feeding on the garnet berries. Several of them together, which is unusual, alarm calling or tutting as I approach and flying off in different directions.
Because I set off in the afternoon, in order to catch the best of the autumn light, I am passing beneath the sunlit, brilliant yellow undersides of the oak leaves, the gold of the field maples and the lemon of the hazels and alongside the ancient, twisting chestnut trunks with fat bellies of swirls and knots. One car passes me in the rising lane and then I veer off onto the sodden path, which is absolutely carpeted with layers and years of accumulated leaves, the top layer is a pallette of multicolour, like a woven rag rug, deep and thick and shining.
It’s not a long trek I’m doing but a winding, steep one which takes about an hour to achieve. I can look down on the plateau, glimpse my garden, quite obvious amongst the standard patchwork colours of the other fields, and I can eventually look down on the wood’s canopy. Far up, on the peaks, there is good snow, glinting blue and orange. I aim to be back before dusk, which falls early, nowadays.
It is neither Wednesday or the weekend, so I’m safe from the hunter’s bullets. Local, weekly papers record the accidental woundings and occasional fatalities of this season of rampage. Of humans and dogs, that is.. The prey are rarely mentioned unless they are of record size. There is a silence which is not quite silence..It`s a varied, differentiated kind of silence and I find I`m listening to it. As I walk I’m thinking how many resentful eyes are watching me from inside the forest! What shall I do if I come face to face with a boar? It’s unlikely but not unknown. There are sounds of snapping twigs to make my heart skip for a second and two doe cross some distance in front of me, leaping the ditch.
When I descend, keeping an eye on the violet grey and dimming light, there is a real ambient chill. Definitely a frost to night. It was a lovely 17 degrees at midday.
Monday, November 03, 2008
40.
End October.
I have been in grey Manchester; family affairs. The sounds there were of sirens and incessant traffic. How can the atmosphere take all this? Well, it can't, can it? I don't notice any diminishing car useage.
On the top of an old mill, on an appartment verandah, a little dunnock visited everyday for my leavings of cake crumbs and cheese. Strange, as it`s normally a lurking kind of bird, low down in the shrubbery. There it was several levels above the canals and city! I felt starved of greenery, of autumn leaves, of light. The people were more than friendly, I have to add, nevertheless.
Now I`m back in France, with the remaining, brilliant leaf colours surviving the high winds and rain that the last few days have suffered. It is 14deg. today but feels warmer in the bits of sunshine. I`ve picked every apple and they lie in layers, in card boxes under the stairs, where I can inspect them every so often for signs of rotting. Same thing for the potatoes, only they are in sacks in the barn, raised on bricks to protect them, hopefully, from rats.
The day of la Tousssaint passed with a fair and a village meal in the Halle, when my feet nearly froze off. About 40 people sat at the trestle tables and ate and drank as merrily as they always do. I managed to avoid the servings of meat without much fuss. A brazier was lit in the Halle centre but it is time for the thermals and layers of socks, I think. The clothing of Bertrand and Emile seem to remain the same although Marie was wearing a purple anorak which looked wonderfully new.
End October.
I have been in grey Manchester; family affairs. The sounds there were of sirens and incessant traffic. How can the atmosphere take all this? Well, it can't, can it? I don't notice any diminishing car useage.
On the top of an old mill, on an appartment verandah, a little dunnock visited everyday for my leavings of cake crumbs and cheese. Strange, as it`s normally a lurking kind of bird, low down in the shrubbery. There it was several levels above the canals and city! I felt starved of greenery, of autumn leaves, of light. The people were more than friendly, I have to add, nevertheless.
Now I`m back in France, with the remaining, brilliant leaf colours surviving the high winds and rain that the last few days have suffered. It is 14deg. today but feels warmer in the bits of sunshine. I`ve picked every apple and they lie in layers, in card boxes under the stairs, where I can inspect them every so often for signs of rotting. Same thing for the potatoes, only they are in sacks in the barn, raised on bricks to protect them, hopefully, from rats.
The day of la Tousssaint passed with a fair and a village meal in the Halle, when my feet nearly froze off. About 40 people sat at the trestle tables and ate and drank as merrily as they always do. I managed to avoid the servings of meat without much fuss. A brazier was lit in the Halle centre but it is time for the thermals and layers of socks, I think. The clothing of Bertrand and Emile seem to remain the same although Marie was wearing a purple anorak which looked wonderfully new.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
39.
October.
Why I`m near the front door I don't know, but I get collared by a Jehova's witness, who tries to envelope me in her non-stop saga. I suppose I should be surprised to find the group here in France, but I`m not. With such a history of anti clericism here, there are evangelicals and witnesses everywhere. That's all very well, I say, but it's only a set of beliefs. Life's a mystery and should stay that way. To look for 'truth' leads you up too many blind alleys and anyway it's those who are fixed on their truth as being the only one, who become dangerous. Why I'm discussing this with her, I can't quite fathom. I must be in need of company! She nods and replies that that is true. She seems quite reasonable! I add that if god is all that it is supposed to be then it wouldn't be interested in whether I believed in it or not. That's just so petty. I wouldn't believe in any god that demands I believe in it, would she? She has an answer which is slightly confused or slightly confuses me anyway, and which I promptly forget, while I write this. She does not persist, I suspect because she recognises that my French is not quite up to it. We part with smiles and a handshake and as she leaves I twitter that it's really about people being together and comforting each other with common beliefs....I wave and close the door quickly, before she has time to parry an answer. I'm not proud of myself.
It's an overcast, showery day; oh of course, that's why I'm in the house. I need to light the fire as I can feel the chill descending from the peaks. There is snow on them, far away. Drizzle here is snow up there.
October.
Why I`m near the front door I don't know, but I get collared by a Jehova's witness, who tries to envelope me in her non-stop saga. I suppose I should be surprised to find the group here in France, but I`m not. With such a history of anti clericism here, there are evangelicals and witnesses everywhere. That's all very well, I say, but it's only a set of beliefs. Life's a mystery and should stay that way. To look for 'truth' leads you up too many blind alleys and anyway it's those who are fixed on their truth as being the only one, who become dangerous. Why I'm discussing this with her, I can't quite fathom. I must be in need of company! She nods and replies that that is true. She seems quite reasonable! I add that if god is all that it is supposed to be then it wouldn't be interested in whether I believed in it or not. That's just so petty. I wouldn't believe in any god that demands I believe in it, would she? She has an answer which is slightly confused or slightly confuses me anyway, and which I promptly forget, while I write this. She does not persist, I suspect because she recognises that my French is not quite up to it. We part with smiles and a handshake and as she leaves I twitter that it's really about people being together and comforting each other with common beliefs....I wave and close the door quickly, before she has time to parry an answer. I'm not proud of myself.
It's an overcast, showery day; oh of course, that's why I'm in the house. I need to light the fire as I can feel the chill descending from the peaks. There is snow on them, far away. Drizzle here is snow up there.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
38.
October
Some of my old friends who read this journal may often think how I can amuse myself here without the onset of cabin fever and culture starvation. Well, I’m peculiarly excited by this bank crises and listen to plenty of the news, English, American and European. Roll on a new way of seeing and being, I say.
Here, I listen to other things, too. To the voices of the wildness around me, to the villagers’ conversations; I tap in to their reality and it is little different than mine, I find. I listen to myself and think of those many miserable, self absorbed years which I should have given over to so much else.
I can go back to my native home one day, or not…but meanwhile here is something essential in my pre occupation with soil, sounds, sunlight, seasons and solitude. Forgive me; I still think of you where you are. Familiar places. But I’m here for the time being. Finding myself is not a phrase I like at all, but I’m comfortable with my adventure and my bit of place, just for the moment.
There are still shooting stars to see, tawny owls to accompany and figs and walnuts to fill a bucket. Walking out at night the muffled, breath like shriek of the barn owl makes me jump. No wonder they were always thought of as witches.
October
Some of my old friends who read this journal may often think how I can amuse myself here without the onset of cabin fever and culture starvation. Well, I’m peculiarly excited by this bank crises and listen to plenty of the news, English, American and European. Roll on a new way of seeing and being, I say.
Here, I listen to other things, too. To the voices of the wildness around me, to the villagers’ conversations; I tap in to their reality and it is little different than mine, I find. I listen to myself and think of those many miserable, self absorbed years which I should have given over to so much else.
I can go back to my native home one day, or not…but meanwhile here is something essential in my pre occupation with soil, sounds, sunlight, seasons and solitude. Forgive me; I still think of you where you are. Familiar places. But I’m here for the time being. Finding myself is not a phrase I like at all, but I’m comfortable with my adventure and my bit of place, just for the moment.
There are still shooting stars to see, tawny owls to accompany and figs and walnuts to fill a bucket. Walking out at night the muffled, breath like shriek of the barn owl makes me jump. No wonder they were always thought of as witches.
Friday, October 03, 2008
37.
October 1st.
Amber and azure, the Autumn colours dazzle and creep up the mountain sides. The oaks turn yellow the last, the poplars are first. The wet days have passed and it is again a pure sunlight, a clarity of slanting light that is good for picture making.
Shouts and the clamour of vehicles. Bertrand`s friends have had a good hunting this Wednesday afternoon and are yanking the carcass of a deer with pulley and chains into his barn. The dogs lie silent in the back of a truck, exhausted and anticipating a reward. The butchered meat is shared between the huntsmen, and the entrails and remaining bits and pieces are kept for the dogs. One of the men offers me a steak. Streaks of blood across the near white flesh, but I say thanks, no. I’m a coward and don`t say yet that I prefer to eat no meat. Then I think to myself that perhaps it is better to eat an animal that has had a relatively good and free life; perhaps I should say yes next time. They say boar is delicious.
Bertrand, of course, will never talk to Emile and Emile grimaces, bends his neck and draws his chin in if Bertrand passes. Marie and Sylvie both shrug helplessly and pass the time of day with comments on the weather, the laundry or the tomato harvest. Who knows what that is all about, but Emile, for sure, never gets to share the hunt spoils. I did once hear that there had been a disagreement about access some years back and now silence breeds contempt and worse.
October 1st.
Amber and azure, the Autumn colours dazzle and creep up the mountain sides. The oaks turn yellow the last, the poplars are first. The wet days have passed and it is again a pure sunlight, a clarity of slanting light that is good for picture making.
Shouts and the clamour of vehicles. Bertrand`s friends have had a good hunting this Wednesday afternoon and are yanking the carcass of a deer with pulley and chains into his barn. The dogs lie silent in the back of a truck, exhausted and anticipating a reward. The butchered meat is shared between the huntsmen, and the entrails and remaining bits and pieces are kept for the dogs. One of the men offers me a steak. Streaks of blood across the near white flesh, but I say thanks, no. I’m a coward and don`t say yet that I prefer to eat no meat. Then I think to myself that perhaps it is better to eat an animal that has had a relatively good and free life; perhaps I should say yes next time. They say boar is delicious.
Bertrand, of course, will never talk to Emile and Emile grimaces, bends his neck and draws his chin in if Bertrand passes. Marie and Sylvie both shrug helplessly and pass the time of day with comments on the weather, the laundry or the tomato harvest. Who knows what that is all about, but Emile, for sure, never gets to share the hunt spoils. I did once hear that there had been a disagreement about access some years back and now silence breeds contempt and worse.
36.
September 19th.
It is noticeably quiet this early September. The camper vans have left the lake and campsite and only a very few people brave the water for an afternoon swim.
A little juvenile flycatcher eyes me up as I stand absolutely still near the well. It flits and curls around the smallest apple tree, taking any insects going. It is a non descript, greyish brown but with a white mark on its wing. And such a bright, big eye. Only three buzzards, the kestrel and some ravens have amused me these last few days.
Visitors have come and gone . Massive caterings then solitude again. It`s very warm but the nights have a tinge of chill. Clearest skies and no wind. Stars pristine and a few falling ones too. The trees have done really well..no losses and their roots are well down, as they have put on spurts this dampish summer; so much so that I can almost say I have privacy at last in the garden .
Today Marie predicts drizzle and it`s true the clouds are up and around the tops of the hills and there is an orange and purple look to them. Three crows are mobbing the kestrel as Marie swirls through her washing on the line and emerges swaddled in sheets and bed covers.
They`re beautifully dry now, she is saying, and she does not want them spoilt. How she hates ironing, though. I don`t tell her that I rarely iron anything.
Emile is tinkering with the tractor in the yard, swilling out the spreader and singing at the same time. He nods and talks about the coming grape harvest, in the lower valleys, how the vines have been distressed and diseased this year and that the growers , on top of everything, are really struggling. He offers me a glass of Gentian. It is bitter, thick and pollen coloured. We share the knowledge: that the large gentian grows at quite high altitudes; that its roots are astringent and have been used for centuries. Then the rain starts. A swish of wind and a blanket of cloud. The gentle downpour and the after taste of the aperitif lasts an hour or so. But in that hour I decide that I have, up to a point, been accepted by Emile.
September 19th.
It is noticeably quiet this early September. The camper vans have left the lake and campsite and only a very few people brave the water for an afternoon swim.
A little juvenile flycatcher eyes me up as I stand absolutely still near the well. It flits and curls around the smallest apple tree, taking any insects going. It is a non descript, greyish brown but with a white mark on its wing. And such a bright, big eye. Only three buzzards, the kestrel and some ravens have amused me these last few days.
Visitors have come and gone . Massive caterings then solitude again. It`s very warm but the nights have a tinge of chill. Clearest skies and no wind. Stars pristine and a few falling ones too. The trees have done really well..no losses and their roots are well down, as they have put on spurts this dampish summer; so much so that I can almost say I have privacy at last in the garden .
Today Marie predicts drizzle and it`s true the clouds are up and around the tops of the hills and there is an orange and purple look to them. Three crows are mobbing the kestrel as Marie swirls through her washing on the line and emerges swaddled in sheets and bed covers.
They`re beautifully dry now, she is saying, and she does not want them spoilt. How she hates ironing, though. I don`t tell her that I rarely iron anything.
Emile is tinkering with the tractor in the yard, swilling out the spreader and singing at the same time. He nods and talks about the coming grape harvest, in the lower valleys, how the vines have been distressed and diseased this year and that the growers , on top of everything, are really struggling. He offers me a glass of Gentian. It is bitter, thick and pollen coloured. We share the knowledge: that the large gentian grows at quite high altitudes; that its roots are astringent and have been used for centuries. Then the rain starts. A swish of wind and a blanket of cloud. The gentle downpour and the after taste of the aperitif lasts an hour or so. But in that hour I decide that I have, up to a point, been accepted by Emile.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
35.
Sept. 1st.
On a long journey through France I had forgotten how much I enjoyed driving leisurely distances in the van. I feel some embarassment, writing this. I love seeing over the landscape, watching it change from region to region.
Rolled wheels of straw are scattered across shorn hectares. Even the golden lime of glyphosate affected fields has its own prettiness. The second cuts of hay lie drying and the gatherings of gossiping starlings punctuate the long loops of telegraph wires.
There is a noticeable road slaughter of owls, especially barn owls, on the motorways of mid France. It must be that the long grass on both sides of the route tempt the birds across rather than along.
Back in the village, the local market is noisy and busy. It has doubled in size and commerce in 3 years, partly I suspect, due to the presence of English folk on the council and in the region. They can be very demanding and have lowered the average age by a good few years. There are children of all ages rushing about, playing catch between and in and out of the stalls. I can hear French, Occitane and English voices , so far.
In the early evening I'm sowing yellow hay rattle seed throughout the meadow with the aim to thin out the grass in time and make room for more flowers. Trouble is, the rank weeds step in to the gaps pretty quick.
The seeds have set on the browning grasses and the sunlight shines through the faded stems. Small blue Scabious is flowering late and Cosmos, Cornflower and Corn Marigold are doing a dance in the light wind. Pears are carpeting the ground which becomes a rich dining table for wasps, butterflies and moths. I am seeing Swallowtails, scarce Swallow tails, all kinds of Fritillaries, Coppers, Blues and a large and handsome Great Banded Grayling, with its blackish purple upper wings and thick white bands towards the edge. They swarm on the tall Asters like extra petals. I’m in some kind of paradise and I think they are too.
Sept. 1st.
On a long journey through France I had forgotten how much I enjoyed driving leisurely distances in the van. I feel some embarassment, writing this. I love seeing over the landscape, watching it change from region to region.
Rolled wheels of straw are scattered across shorn hectares. Even the golden lime of glyphosate affected fields has its own prettiness. The second cuts of hay lie drying and the gatherings of gossiping starlings punctuate the long loops of telegraph wires.
There is a noticeable road slaughter of owls, especially barn owls, on the motorways of mid France. It must be that the long grass on both sides of the route tempt the birds across rather than along.
Back in the village, the local market is noisy and busy. It has doubled in size and commerce in 3 years, partly I suspect, due to the presence of English folk on the council and in the region. They can be very demanding and have lowered the average age by a good few years. There are children of all ages rushing about, playing catch between and in and out of the stalls. I can hear French, Occitane and English voices , so far.
In the early evening I'm sowing yellow hay rattle seed throughout the meadow with the aim to thin out the grass in time and make room for more flowers. Trouble is, the rank weeds step in to the gaps pretty quick.
The seeds have set on the browning grasses and the sunlight shines through the faded stems. Small blue Scabious is flowering late and Cosmos, Cornflower and Corn Marigold are doing a dance in the light wind. Pears are carpeting the ground which becomes a rich dining table for wasps, butterflies and moths. I am seeing Swallowtails, scarce Swallow tails, all kinds of Fritillaries, Coppers, Blues and a large and handsome Great Banded Grayling, with its blackish purple upper wings and thick white bands towards the edge. They swarm on the tall Asters like extra petals. I’m in some kind of paradise and I think they are too.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
34
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.
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.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
33.
July 27th.
At the teeming market, 15km. from my village, I'm buying crystallised fruit, nuts, olives and stunningly delicious grapes. I am stopped by a stall holder who, annoyingly, knows I am English. He had been calling out, ‘Madame, madame! `, trying to catch the attention of passing women who might just be interested in his leather belts. I do not notice him calling out to males. But he yells, ‘Mees’, when I am near. I can’t resist asking him how he knows that I am English, although I think I know already. He tells me that French women saunter sexily, time on their hands; he demonstrates. Then he tells me that English women wear particular sandals and stride purposefully. He demonstrates again, perfectly. We are both laughing but I don`t buy a belt.
I come from a small town in England where 2 enormous and resonant exhaust pipes per vehicle is the norm. Here, in this part of France, it`s the little motorbikes that make their mark. Young men externalise their identity by putting their foot down in rhythmic bursts. And that’s just a very restrained way of describing it.
July 27th.
At the teeming market, 15km. from my village, I'm buying crystallised fruit, nuts, olives and stunningly delicious grapes. I am stopped by a stall holder who, annoyingly, knows I am English. He had been calling out, ‘Madame, madame! `, trying to catch the attention of passing women who might just be interested in his leather belts. I do not notice him calling out to males. But he yells, ‘Mees’, when I am near. I can’t resist asking him how he knows that I am English, although I think I know already. He tells me that French women saunter sexily, time on their hands; he demonstrates. Then he tells me that English women wear particular sandals and stride purposefully. He demonstrates again, perfectly. We are both laughing but I don`t buy a belt.
I come from a small town in England where 2 enormous and resonant exhaust pipes per vehicle is the norm. Here, in this part of France, it`s the little motorbikes that make their mark. Young men externalise their identity by putting their foot down in rhythmic bursts. And that’s just a very restrained way of describing it.
32.
July 25th.
The garden is overflowing with food of all sorts, with tomatoes, beans, salads, carrots, herbs with more aroma than I have ever smelled before, and potatoes.
Every day I go on a Colorado beetle hunt. Looking like mini humbugs, they creep to the undersides of the potato leaf, lay their patches of bright yellow eggs and munch through the foliage and stems. Then they drop to the ground to continue their damage on the roots. What is interesting is how they feign dead. I pick them off and place them carefully on a hard surface. I'm going to use the full force of my foot. But they lie inert, legs in the air, not a wiggle or wave. Do they know? I've tried the trick of turning and getting on with something else. When I turn back, they have righted themselves and are marching off with all six legs. If I stay poised over them with murderous intent, they don’t move for what seems like minutes, and I’m not very good at waiting those minutes to complete the research. The eggs need crushing too, so I spend inordinate time examining each leaf. I could spray, I know, but have resisted this, so far. I did make an evil smelling stew from all the illegal fag ends from the local bar, to the grand amusement of the owner, Antoine. ‘ Madame Alees, la jardinière, ah, ha !’ He greets me regularly, like this, and has invariably, a thin fag stuck to his bottom lip. He does wear T shirts and cool clothes and has been known to sport flip-flops.
After boiling up the butts with water in an old tin, I strained it and diluted it and began to spray the nicotine solution onto the plants, with a tied scarf over my nose The beetles were still happily busy, two hours later. For further research, I took one beetle and placed it in a jam jar. Then I sprayed the tan coloured liquid into it and waited. Lo, the creature was dead within half an hour. Maybe I shall have to refine the technique; on the other hand, my time consuming, murder campaign might be less carcinogenic.
The strawberries have come to an end and the raspberries and blackcurrants have just been harvested. I'm carefully examining the Reine Claude greengages for signs of insect damage. They will be lusciously ripe in about another month.
No birds sing except the crows and ravens, the buzzards and kites and sometimes a blackbird. All that twittering, hectic row has subsided. I hear a lark sometimes but the cuckoos and nightingales have left for another continent and thrushes, goldfinches, tits and warblers have either departed or are in a period of depressed moulting and are keeping advisedly low profiles.
July 25th.
The garden is overflowing with food of all sorts, with tomatoes, beans, salads, carrots, herbs with more aroma than I have ever smelled before, and potatoes.
Every day I go on a Colorado beetle hunt. Looking like mini humbugs, they creep to the undersides of the potato leaf, lay their patches of bright yellow eggs and munch through the foliage and stems. Then they drop to the ground to continue their damage on the roots. What is interesting is how they feign dead. I pick them off and place them carefully on a hard surface. I'm going to use the full force of my foot. But they lie inert, legs in the air, not a wiggle or wave. Do they know? I've tried the trick of turning and getting on with something else. When I turn back, they have righted themselves and are marching off with all six legs. If I stay poised over them with murderous intent, they don’t move for what seems like minutes, and I’m not very good at waiting those minutes to complete the research. The eggs need crushing too, so I spend inordinate time examining each leaf. I could spray, I know, but have resisted this, so far. I did make an evil smelling stew from all the illegal fag ends from the local bar, to the grand amusement of the owner, Antoine. ‘ Madame Alees, la jardinière, ah, ha !’ He greets me regularly, like this, and has invariably, a thin fag stuck to his bottom lip. He does wear T shirts and cool clothes and has been known to sport flip-flops.
After boiling up the butts with water in an old tin, I strained it and diluted it and began to spray the nicotine solution onto the plants, with a tied scarf over my nose The beetles were still happily busy, two hours later. For further research, I took one beetle and placed it in a jam jar. Then I sprayed the tan coloured liquid into it and waited. Lo, the creature was dead within half an hour. Maybe I shall have to refine the technique; on the other hand, my time consuming, murder campaign might be less carcinogenic.
The strawberries have come to an end and the raspberries and blackcurrants have just been harvested. I'm carefully examining the Reine Claude greengages for signs of insect damage. They will be lusciously ripe in about another month.
No birds sing except the crows and ravens, the buzzards and kites and sometimes a blackbird. All that twittering, hectic row has subsided. I hear a lark sometimes but the cuckoos and nightingales have left for another continent and thrushes, goldfinches, tits and warblers have either departed or are in a period of depressed moulting and are keeping advisedly low profiles.
Friday, August 01, 2008
31.
Mid July
I remember reading Richard Mabey`s book: Nature Cure, and as well as thinking, ‘Yes, yes, I recognise that,’ over and over again, I noticed that at that time he hadn`t been privileged enough to observe the evening vanishings of the swifts.
I am lying on the roof terrace and see and hear them as they gather, shriek, divide, rise, spiral, then swoop again. Each swoop down is followed by a higher rise and a conglomeration, until they do not descend again. There they are, like sky born frogspawn, barely audible, rising and rising, in patches and swabs which join together. Eventually there is silence, the sky is dim and the swifts have vanished. They must be swinging in some stratosphere, cradled in light air.
I juxtapose their image with that of a suffocated society living in an airless, over pixelated atmosphere and fall asleep, only to awake on the roof, stiff but not cold, and realise that no nightingales are serenading. They have left. This leaves me with a faint melancholia as it surely signifies the peak of summer. Now I have difficulty, in spite of the wet towels, in falling asleep again in my usual bed.
Mid July
I remember reading Richard Mabey`s book: Nature Cure, and as well as thinking, ‘Yes, yes, I recognise that,’ over and over again, I noticed that at that time he hadn`t been privileged enough to observe the evening vanishings of the swifts.
I am lying on the roof terrace and see and hear them as they gather, shriek, divide, rise, spiral, then swoop again. Each swoop down is followed by a higher rise and a conglomeration, until they do not descend again. There they are, like sky born frogspawn, barely audible, rising and rising, in patches and swabs which join together. Eventually there is silence, the sky is dim and the swifts have vanished. They must be swinging in some stratosphere, cradled in light air.
I juxtapose their image with that of a suffocated society living in an airless, over pixelated atmosphere and fall asleep, only to awake on the roof, stiff but not cold, and realise that no nightingales are serenading. They have left. This leaves me with a faint melancholia as it surely signifies the peak of summer. Now I have difficulty, in spite of the wet towels, in falling asleep again in my usual bed.
30.
early July
If I never come to France again I will always remember the croaking, grinding sound of window shutters being opened or closed, mornings and evenings. One after another, in the village, like moorings being wound up on rusty cranks.
Starlight blue flax and lupin fields. Baled hay, half built, poppy coloured pavilions, the whirring of crickets and cicadas, and nights too hot to solidly sleep. I use my mother`s tip from her days in India and hang wet towels in the window frame, to cool the incoming air……
Looking back on this journal I see that I felt the winter would go on for ever, that the bitter winds would slice up this part of heaven for eternity and that the earth would always be soggy.
I listen to the thin, musical barks of the red deer does. Their fawn are growing fast and will soon separate. I watch the tractors navigating paths through the shorn hay, turning and turning again through the long rows and slopes, kites wheeling and dipping, ever opportunists, rewarded by mown carrion.
In the evening I see a doe tiptoe out of the brush onto the cut and cleared field. She delicately places one hoof in front of the other, lowers her head, then raises it sharply, listening, sniffing. The night sky is sharp, black and pricked with slivers of silver. The bats zoom along the alley, between the glowing street lamps. I can feel their draughts about my ears.
early July
If I never come to France again I will always remember the croaking, grinding sound of window shutters being opened or closed, mornings and evenings. One after another, in the village, like moorings being wound up on rusty cranks.
Starlight blue flax and lupin fields. Baled hay, half built, poppy coloured pavilions, the whirring of crickets and cicadas, and nights too hot to solidly sleep. I use my mother`s tip from her days in India and hang wet towels in the window frame, to cool the incoming air……
Looking back on this journal I see that I felt the winter would go on for ever, that the bitter winds would slice up this part of heaven for eternity and that the earth would always be soggy.
I listen to the thin, musical barks of the red deer does. Their fawn are growing fast and will soon separate. I watch the tractors navigating paths through the shorn hay, turning and turning again through the long rows and slopes, kites wheeling and dipping, ever opportunists, rewarded by mown carrion.
In the evening I see a doe tiptoe out of the brush onto the cut and cleared field. She delicately places one hoof in front of the other, lowers her head, then raises it sharply, listening, sniffing. The night sky is sharp, black and pricked with slivers of silver. The bats zoom along the alley, between the glowing street lamps. I can feel their draughts about my ears.
Friday, July 11, 2008
29. Sizzling hot
June 30th.
Sizzling hot and I walk up the hill. The path is grey-yellow dust, the cicadas harmonise, the nightingales compete with their exotic, rising bubble and jug. Not even midday and the heat is searing. Emile`s white van is coming over the ridge, bumping and jerking, one door is almost off its hinges and fixed at an angle to the cill with a blue rope. He is never in shirt sleves; always a jerkin of sorts over long sleeves. It makes me sweat just to look at him; but I have freckles and sunspots all over my arms and he probably hasn’t.
Now I am at a higher level, where I can survey the grand plan, the lay out of my infant garden. I’m on the ledge of one plateau, looking critically down to the next to see if my field is taking on some shape and design.. I have planted one C. leylandii, that hated, suburban, hedging tree ; so that as it pushes up to the sky it marks the southernmost corner of the plot. When I’m dead and pushing up, I hope , another sort of tree, somewhere, this Cypress will be far less than a quarter of the way to its full and magnificent stature.
As I scramble down, Emile’s van is still there; he is checking fencing and knocking a few posts straight after the great livestock migration. Marie is huffing and puffing after her walk up to join him. She is in a bright blue pinny again and her knees are purple.
“I'm going home to have a cup of tea”, I grin, “very thirst quenching.”
“Phtt! Cat’s piss”, Emile grunts, “you’re welcome to it.”
Marie waves me down the hill, shrugging her shoulders and tittering.
June 30th.
Sizzling hot and I walk up the hill. The path is grey-yellow dust, the cicadas harmonise, the nightingales compete with their exotic, rising bubble and jug. Not even midday and the heat is searing. Emile`s white van is coming over the ridge, bumping and jerking, one door is almost off its hinges and fixed at an angle to the cill with a blue rope. He is never in shirt sleves; always a jerkin of sorts over long sleeves. It makes me sweat just to look at him; but I have freckles and sunspots all over my arms and he probably hasn’t.
Now I am at a higher level, where I can survey the grand plan, the lay out of my infant garden. I’m on the ledge of one plateau, looking critically down to the next to see if my field is taking on some shape and design.. I have planted one C. leylandii, that hated, suburban, hedging tree ; so that as it pushes up to the sky it marks the southernmost corner of the plot. When I’m dead and pushing up, I hope , another sort of tree, somewhere, this Cypress will be far less than a quarter of the way to its full and magnificent stature.
As I scramble down, Emile’s van is still there; he is checking fencing and knocking a few posts straight after the great livestock migration. Marie is huffing and puffing after her walk up to join him. She is in a bright blue pinny again and her knees are purple.
“I'm going home to have a cup of tea”, I grin, “very thirst quenching.”
“Phtt! Cat’s piss”, Emile grunts, “you’re welcome to it.”
Marie waves me down the hill, shrugging her shoulders and tittering.
28.
June 23rd. TRANSHUMANCE
June is the month when the animals move from the middle pastures, way up the hills and mountain slopes, along ancient tracks into fresh, high grassland.
Emile puts a patterned leather and wool collar around the lead cow’s thick neck, along with her important bell. The half grown calves amble, stumble and butt each other. Columns of cattle teem up the slopes, bellowing and lowing like a cello and double bass orchestra. They leave trails of partly eaten grass and scents of sweet, fermenting breath. When we cross a lane, the waiting car inmates are already out with their cameras. This migration has gone on for year after year, century after century. Read Graham Robb’s wonderful book, THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE and you will get some idea of the immense age of these disparate, rural practices. ‘ A century ago, some of these journeys lasted for weeks’, he writes. ‘These are probably the oldest routes in France.’
He describes those long lines of cattle, dogs and humans as ‘caravans’, ‘land-going ocean liners of livestock’. Now, of course, quad bikes and trucks are often used in the drive, but Emile is walking, with several of us helping, along rutted, hard tracks. Marie is in the van, way behind on the metalled lanes, which curve up to the col.
June 23rd. TRANSHUMANCE
June is the month when the animals move from the middle pastures, way up the hills and mountain slopes, along ancient tracks into fresh, high grassland.
Emile puts a patterned leather and wool collar around the lead cow’s thick neck, along with her important bell. The half grown calves amble, stumble and butt each other. Columns of cattle teem up the slopes, bellowing and lowing like a cello and double bass orchestra. They leave trails of partly eaten grass and scents of sweet, fermenting breath. When we cross a lane, the waiting car inmates are already out with their cameras. This migration has gone on for year after year, century after century. Read Graham Robb’s wonderful book, THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE and you will get some idea of the immense age of these disparate, rural practices. ‘ A century ago, some of these journeys lasted for weeks’, he writes. ‘These are probably the oldest routes in France.’
He describes those long lines of cattle, dogs and humans as ‘caravans’, ‘land-going ocean liners of livestock’. Now, of course, quad bikes and trucks are often used in the drive, but Emile is walking, with several of us helping, along rutted, hard tracks. Marie is in the van, way behind on the metalled lanes, which curve up to the col.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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'.
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'.
Monday, June 02, 2008
May 19th.
It has been so wet; so, so wet--everywhere. The swifts screech low, skimming the insects that have descended in this lowering sky. There is a heavy scent of lime flowers in the air. 5 crows on a silage bale, like blue-black royals, strut up and down the limited space; their own language. Electric glimmerings and flashings warn out over the mountains; rumbles and clashes vibrate the window frames. Marie has told me that when her children were young there had been a huge storm and a ball of electrical fire had rolled through her house, conducted by the water meter, apparently. [I think and hope that they are earthed nowadays]. It flashed from front to back, up over the kitchen table and into the barn, which ignited. There was a massive fire and hence the barn roof is now tin. No wonder she is always so afraid of thunder storms.
Sheet rain is building up and I watch a row of swallows , pointing their beaks to the sky as they grip the swinging telephone wires. The rain, turns to hail, then drops again, pours down their backs.. When there is a lull they smooth and gloss their feathers, shake and preen but do not dare fly off. Rain shutes once more and the swallows are like vertical pegs on a washing line until after 70 minutes the storm eases up and with further shaking, fluffing of feathers and flapping of wings, the first brave ones take off in the gloaming to roost. A hungry night.
It has been so wet; so, so wet--everywhere. The swifts screech low, skimming the insects that have descended in this lowering sky. There is a heavy scent of lime flowers in the air. 5 crows on a silage bale, like blue-black royals, strut up and down the limited space; their own language. Electric glimmerings and flashings warn out over the mountains; rumbles and clashes vibrate the window frames. Marie has told me that when her children were young there had been a huge storm and a ball of electrical fire had rolled through her house, conducted by the water meter, apparently. [I think and hope that they are earthed nowadays]. It flashed from front to back, up over the kitchen table and into the barn, which ignited. There was a massive fire and hence the barn roof is now tin. No wonder she is always so afraid of thunder storms.
Sheet rain is building up and I watch a row of swallows , pointing their beaks to the sky as they grip the swinging telephone wires. The rain, turns to hail, then drops again, pours down their backs.. When there is a lull they smooth and gloss their feathers, shake and preen but do not dare fly off. Rain shutes once more and the swallows are like vertical pegs on a washing line until after 70 minutes the storm eases up and with further shaking, fluffing of feathers and flapping of wings, the first brave ones take off in the gloaming to roost. A hungry night.
Monday, May 26, 2008
25.
May 12th.
At five o’clock this morning the dawn chorus is almost deafening. The loudest are the blackbirds, as always. One other camper is parked a few pitches away from me, a white, expensive looking, all convenience sort. They are not up yet. The sky is busy and changing all the time; long bubbles of grey white cloud moving fast beneath a backdrop of mottled strips of cloud, while swifts screech and arc across it.
The lane out of the campsite winds steeply uphill to a plateau where cows lounge and graze, bells clang and tinkle and, apparently at this moment, no human is about except me. Lax flowered orchids, white helleborines and serapias line the verges and I can hear the liquid ‘pyrrup’ of some bee eaters flying at a lower level than the swifts.
I sit at a picnic table and look up towards the peaks, some still streaked with snow. It is cool but I can feel the strength of the sun already on my lap.
Three dark spots appear, circling, spiralling. Within seconds I can see they are birds with huge wing spans, sun dazzling through the wing feathers, the back edges dark, black even. Legs bare, yellow heads, golden cream ruffs; they are clearly vultures, Egyptian vultures. And magnificent. They wheel in synchrony and begin to spiral upwards and outwards until they are pale specks again over the rim of the mountain. Sylvie would be having hysterics if she saw them, but they are hundreds if not thousands of meters away from her level, and looking for carrion, not her scrawny, thin feathered chickens in their arid run.
May 12th.
At five o’clock this morning the dawn chorus is almost deafening. The loudest are the blackbirds, as always. One other camper is parked a few pitches away from me, a white, expensive looking, all convenience sort. They are not up yet. The sky is busy and changing all the time; long bubbles of grey white cloud moving fast beneath a backdrop of mottled strips of cloud, while swifts screech and arc across it.
The lane out of the campsite winds steeply uphill to a plateau where cows lounge and graze, bells clang and tinkle and, apparently at this moment, no human is about except me. Lax flowered orchids, white helleborines and serapias line the verges and I can hear the liquid ‘pyrrup’ of some bee eaters flying at a lower level than the swifts.
I sit at a picnic table and look up towards the peaks, some still streaked with snow. It is cool but I can feel the strength of the sun already on my lap.
Three dark spots appear, circling, spiralling. Within seconds I can see they are birds with huge wing spans, sun dazzling through the wing feathers, the back edges dark, black even. Legs bare, yellow heads, golden cream ruffs; they are clearly vultures, Egyptian vultures. And magnificent. They wheel in synchrony and begin to spiral upwards and outwards until they are pale specks again over the rim of the mountain. Sylvie would be having hysterics if she saw them, but they are hundreds if not thousands of meters away from her level, and looking for carrion, not her scrawny, thin feathered chickens in their arid run.
24.
MAY 11th.
Today, at the end of the day, I am right up in the mountains with the van. I have found an ancient campsite with equally ancient proprietors. The wash rooms are uni sex, all brown and cream gloss paint; pissoirs backing onto the line of lavatories, only one of which is a sit down, as you please, arrangement. Monsieur is ever so curious , so I`ve pulled down the blinds after exchanging many pleasantries and trying to explain why I am here on my own. To compensate there are breath taking views. I fear to think that I am inured to such stunning views, since I have been spoilt for choice over the few years. But this one, at a distance, is as dramatic as they come: all purples and sandy oranges, scraped, scoured and bleached rocks, a bit of a mist and twisted pines. The evening is chill but fine and I know it is going to be a clear day tomorrow. Kites are circling and diving. The ravens are out in full team. The antics of both utterly convince that acrobatics in the airflows and up draughts are done for huge pleasure. No less.
I am going to sleep nearer the stars, wrapped in a duvet and a sleeping bag and tomorrow I may see a Griffon or perhaps an Egyptian vulture.
MAY 11th.
Today, at the end of the day, I am right up in the mountains with the van. I have found an ancient campsite with equally ancient proprietors. The wash rooms are uni sex, all brown and cream gloss paint; pissoirs backing onto the line of lavatories, only one of which is a sit down, as you please, arrangement. Monsieur is ever so curious , so I`ve pulled down the blinds after exchanging many pleasantries and trying to explain why I am here on my own. To compensate there are breath taking views. I fear to think that I am inured to such stunning views, since I have been spoilt for choice over the few years. But this one, at a distance, is as dramatic as they come: all purples and sandy oranges, scraped, scoured and bleached rocks, a bit of a mist and twisted pines. The evening is chill but fine and I know it is going to be a clear day tomorrow. Kites are circling and diving. The ravens are out in full team. The antics of both utterly convince that acrobatics in the airflows and up draughts are done for huge pleasure. No less.
I am going to sleep nearer the stars, wrapped in a duvet and a sleeping bag and tomorrow I may see a Griffon or perhaps an Egyptian vulture.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
23.
MAY 8th.
You may think from reading this journal that I live a totally secluded and eccentric life, communing only with my immediate neighbours. But I am choosing carefully what I put down so that it has a particular roll.
Today is May 8th.
The war ended for France, this day in 1945 and every year, in every square, in every village, town and city a ceremony takes place. Each year there are less anciens combatants to raise and lower the tricolour and less people willing to sing out the anthem. But here, among the stalls of a tat sale: a vide grenier, the mayor, who has obviously already had a stiff drink, reads out the same annual speech. He mentions the brave Maquis and the losses that past generations of current families suffered. Drums roll and old Madame Jaure sings in strict time, looking more and more dismayed that so few join with her.
I have a lump in my throat, as usual. My father was in the navy during the war and he always says the miracle of his life was that he survived it, travelling across the seas in troop ships, frequently under torpedo attack.
I am with a small group and we drink coffee in the local, no smoking bar, but there are plenty of cigarettes, hanging from finger tips and bottom lips, smoke curling the air and catching the throat. I count one or two sterling English people as my friends, no more thank you; and I am with them now, discussing the past, the present and music.
On the way back up the hill I meet Sylvie and Bertrand mending a wire fence beside the road. She says it’s her birthday, she was born on the day the war ended. She adds that she was a big baby but seems to have grown smaller . I laugh and continue walking, in T shirt and cut offs, wondering how warm they must be in their layers and gilets.
MAY 8th.
You may think from reading this journal that I live a totally secluded and eccentric life, communing only with my immediate neighbours. But I am choosing carefully what I put down so that it has a particular roll.
Today is May 8th.
The war ended for France, this day in 1945 and every year, in every square, in every village, town and city a ceremony takes place. Each year there are less anciens combatants to raise and lower the tricolour and less people willing to sing out the anthem. But here, among the stalls of a tat sale: a vide grenier, the mayor, who has obviously already had a stiff drink, reads out the same annual speech. He mentions the brave Maquis and the losses that past generations of current families suffered. Drums roll and old Madame Jaure sings in strict time, looking more and more dismayed that so few join with her.
I have a lump in my throat, as usual. My father was in the navy during the war and he always says the miracle of his life was that he survived it, travelling across the seas in troop ships, frequently under torpedo attack.
I am with a small group and we drink coffee in the local, no smoking bar, but there are plenty of cigarettes, hanging from finger tips and bottom lips, smoke curling the air and catching the throat. I count one or two sterling English people as my friends, no more thank you; and I am with them now, discussing the past, the present and music.
On the way back up the hill I meet Sylvie and Bertrand mending a wire fence beside the road. She says it’s her birthday, she was born on the day the war ended. She adds that she was a big baby but seems to have grown smaller . I laugh and continue walking, in T shirt and cut offs, wondering how warm they must be in their layers and gilets.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
22.
May 4th
Beside the slow river a man with a navy blue cap is sitting, rod resting beside him. He says he is only really here for the nature; doesn’t have much luck with the fish. A golden Oriole sings its ‘lillity leeo’ high in the bankside of poplars. Armies of budding foxgloves line the ditches and tall, slender leaved campanula are showing pleats of colour on their breaking buds. In a week or so waves of blue and pink will creep up the banks.
I see a tail less lizard on a stony path leading to the river. A cat`s trophy. Beads of blood become black spots; first the lizard is a dull, buff colour, but on my return it has become a shimmering, turquoise corpse.
Later, I'm out along the lanes with a wheel barrow, looking for some broken pallets that I spotted some time ago. They will make great compost bins. With very little warning I see blue flickers of lightening behind the mountain ridges. I had forgotten that earlier, I had watched the sky turning to a violet slate . Marie was quite right. Rumbles of approaching thunder follow; forlorn splashes are turning quickly into sheets of rain. A car stops with hazard lights on; there’s no moving in this sudden deluge. In seconds the roads are glass lakes, skating routes; streams of water bubbling into verges. Someone continues to drive, slows down, stops and asks if I need a lift. I cannot see the driver through a curtain of hair and water. I point to an open barn beside the lane and say I’ll shelter there, but thanks.
Emile’s last hay is bundled into fat cylinders in that barn. More are roughing it out in the fields. I join the dry ones, along with a tortoiseshell cat who hisses at my intrusion and slinks to a higher position. I sit out the storm until, amazingly quickly, the sky clears.
The car has gone and I head home with the barrow but minus any pallets. Everything is steaming; the trees, the grasses, the road surfaces and me…
May 4th
Beside the slow river a man with a navy blue cap is sitting, rod resting beside him. He says he is only really here for the nature; doesn’t have much luck with the fish. A golden Oriole sings its ‘lillity leeo’ high in the bankside of poplars. Armies of budding foxgloves line the ditches and tall, slender leaved campanula are showing pleats of colour on their breaking buds. In a week or so waves of blue and pink will creep up the banks.
I see a tail less lizard on a stony path leading to the river. A cat`s trophy. Beads of blood become black spots; first the lizard is a dull, buff colour, but on my return it has become a shimmering, turquoise corpse.
Later, I'm out along the lanes with a wheel barrow, looking for some broken pallets that I spotted some time ago. They will make great compost bins. With very little warning I see blue flickers of lightening behind the mountain ridges. I had forgotten that earlier, I had watched the sky turning to a violet slate . Marie was quite right. Rumbles of approaching thunder follow; forlorn splashes are turning quickly into sheets of rain. A car stops with hazard lights on; there’s no moving in this sudden deluge. In seconds the roads are glass lakes, skating routes; streams of water bubbling into verges. Someone continues to drive, slows down, stops and asks if I need a lift. I cannot see the driver through a curtain of hair and water. I point to an open barn beside the lane and say I’ll shelter there, but thanks.
Emile’s last hay is bundled into fat cylinders in that barn. More are roughing it out in the fields. I join the dry ones, along with a tortoiseshell cat who hisses at my intrusion and slinks to a higher position. I sit out the storm until, amazingly quickly, the sky clears.
The car has gone and I head home with the barrow but minus any pallets. Everything is steaming; the trees, the grasses, the road surfaces and me…
21.
May 4th.
Silence.
The village has dropped into silence. Even the dogs lie in hot and soporific stupor, too relaxed to be aggravated. Lunch is being eaten, but I , of course, am outside, enjoying the 2 hours of absolute privacy.
Goldfinches are weaving a tiny nest of cobwebs and grass in a slender cypress and I'm watching them. One, - I like to think it’s the female, carries the nest fabric and dives into the tree; the male sits on the fence and twitters liquid trills to her. At some signal they fly off together in an undulating dance.
The crickets, grasshoppers and all their relations sing with the heat and in the background is the crowded sound of cowbells. On the first of May, Emile fetched the assortment of bells from his barn; I watched him clanging along the lane to his yard. There he selected the lead cows, dressed them each with a bell and now the top fields are ringing night and day.
May is definitely the musical month. Every year at this time the village impresario, a maestro or diva of a starling begins its long repertoire of perfect mimicry: from Buzzard to chicken cackle, car alarm to Golden Oriole, tail down, throat ruff fully inflated, the amazing performer takes centre stage for hours on end.
“Coucou!” Time’s up: Marie is out with sheets to hang and she has spotted me at the garden table. I`ve tried moving it to different corners but I'm nearly always found out.
“Storms coming soon so get these things dry quick”, she says staccato voce.
“Is that what the meteo says, then?”
“ No, they said non-stop sunshine but they often get it wrong. I know this sky.”
I look up and to the west. Sure enough, there is an ominous grey and pink tinged cloud edge to the horizon and the sun is a long time from setting.
May 4th.
Silence.
The village has dropped into silence. Even the dogs lie in hot and soporific stupor, too relaxed to be aggravated. Lunch is being eaten, but I , of course, am outside, enjoying the 2 hours of absolute privacy.
Goldfinches are weaving a tiny nest of cobwebs and grass in a slender cypress and I'm watching them. One, - I like to think it’s the female, carries the nest fabric and dives into the tree; the male sits on the fence and twitters liquid trills to her. At some signal they fly off together in an undulating dance.
The crickets, grasshoppers and all their relations sing with the heat and in the background is the crowded sound of cowbells. On the first of May, Emile fetched the assortment of bells from his barn; I watched him clanging along the lane to his yard. There he selected the lead cows, dressed them each with a bell and now the top fields are ringing night and day.
May is definitely the musical month. Every year at this time the village impresario, a maestro or diva of a starling begins its long repertoire of perfect mimicry: from Buzzard to chicken cackle, car alarm to Golden Oriole, tail down, throat ruff fully inflated, the amazing performer takes centre stage for hours on end.
“Coucou!” Time’s up: Marie is out with sheets to hang and she has spotted me at the garden table. I`ve tried moving it to different corners but I'm nearly always found out.
“Storms coming soon so get these things dry quick”, she says staccato voce.
“Is that what the meteo says, then?”
“ No, they said non-stop sunshine but they often get it wrong. I know this sky.”
I look up and to the west. Sure enough, there is an ominous grey and pink tinged cloud edge to the horizon and the sun is a long time from setting.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
20.
Snakes and Serins. April31st.
I know, I know, I haven’t been writing, because I have been outside all the days long .
The weather is magnificent, the prairies are a mass of lady orchids and the snakes are out. And snake killing is done by Emile, with great pride. First he is on his terrace, above my garden. I hear him grunt and then yell, “Marie, a pole, a stick!” The tone of voice makes me slow up what I am doing and start watching. Sure enough, Marie hears the urgency and is out from the house in a flash; bright, flowering overall tucked over knees and thick switch in hand.
“Grass snake! He was going to strike!” I'm listening with horror but can do nothing. Later, when I go up to look at the beaten body, still twitching, I say, “ But Emile, grass snakes aren’t poisonous. They are beautiful”
“Wshtt Pfitt,” he spits,” I don`t know about that. It`s a snake. And you, you`ve got to keep that grass cut up against these walls; keep`em clear”.
“Yes Emile, but you didn`t need to kill that snake.”
“Wshtt….Pfitt!” This is an expression that has much meaning for Emile and is said frequently, as non sequitur, insult, or mere adjunct or punctuation. It is up to me to interpret this time.
Later, in the early evening, the heat subsiding, Marie shrieks on the terrace. “A lizard!” Now there are a thousand and one little brown lizards, everywhere, up the walls, on the rocks, on the compost heap. She can`t mean one of these. It’s one of those large, green, slightly hooded ones. And it needs David Attenborough, right now.
Tant pis: spade in hand, Emile finds it at the foot of a climbing rose, …and chops hard. Now why? It is totally harmless.
I say nothing. I stick hard to my seat under the Cherry tree. Even the lovely running song of the Serins , like the winding up and down of thin chains, can’t distract me from an internal rant against ignorance.
Snakes and Serins. April31st.
I know, I know, I haven’t been writing, because I have been outside all the days long .
The weather is magnificent, the prairies are a mass of lady orchids and the snakes are out. And snake killing is done by Emile, with great pride. First he is on his terrace, above my garden. I hear him grunt and then yell, “Marie, a pole, a stick!” The tone of voice makes me slow up what I am doing and start watching. Sure enough, Marie hears the urgency and is out from the house in a flash; bright, flowering overall tucked over knees and thick switch in hand.
“Grass snake! He was going to strike!” I'm listening with horror but can do nothing. Later, when I go up to look at the beaten body, still twitching, I say, “ But Emile, grass snakes aren’t poisonous. They are beautiful”
“Wshtt Pfitt,” he spits,” I don`t know about that. It`s a snake. And you, you`ve got to keep that grass cut up against these walls; keep`em clear”.
“Yes Emile, but you didn`t need to kill that snake.”
“Wshtt….Pfitt!” This is an expression that has much meaning for Emile and is said frequently, as non sequitur, insult, or mere adjunct or punctuation. It is up to me to interpret this time.
Later, in the early evening, the heat subsiding, Marie shrieks on the terrace. “A lizard!” Now there are a thousand and one little brown lizards, everywhere, up the walls, on the rocks, on the compost heap. She can`t mean one of these. It’s one of those large, green, slightly hooded ones. And it needs David Attenborough, right now.
Tant pis: spade in hand, Emile finds it at the foot of a climbing rose, …and chops hard. Now why? It is totally harmless.
I say nothing. I stick hard to my seat under the Cherry tree. Even the lovely running song of the Serins , like the winding up and down of thin chains, can’t distract me from an internal rant against ignorance.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
18.
April 27th.
Aubergine coloured hair seems to be the trend with women of a certain age here, Look closely and you will see the blueish pink tinge on the scalps. Marie has a wedge of dark reddish black coiffure and at this very moment I'm watching her toil up the red dust track to join Emile in the white Renault van. Her pinny sits nicely on the table top of her stomach, which also raises her skirt to practically mini level. The effect is finished off with short green wellies.
I feel a surge of nostalgia; a grandmother memory moment. To fight off nostalgia one has to not yearn to go back and put things right; merely remember, like watching a picture show.
Looking at an old photograph, I can still remember precisely the feel of the sun, the look of the light, a black and white picture. M. stretches his hand out to touch a plump baby’s leg and I take that moment with the camera; including the scattered toys, the wooden garden table, the old gym benches around it, the ducks rifling amongst the grasses. Skeins of nostalgia are there...
April 27th.
Aubergine coloured hair seems to be the trend with women of a certain age here, Look closely and you will see the blueish pink tinge on the scalps. Marie has a wedge of dark reddish black coiffure and at this very moment I'm watching her toil up the red dust track to join Emile in the white Renault van. Her pinny sits nicely on the table top of her stomach, which also raises her skirt to practically mini level. The effect is finished off with short green wellies.
I feel a surge of nostalgia; a grandmother memory moment. To fight off nostalgia one has to not yearn to go back and put things right; merely remember, like watching a picture show.
Looking at an old photograph, I can still remember precisely the feel of the sun, the look of the light, a black and white picture. M. stretches his hand out to touch a plump baby’s leg and I take that moment with the camera; including the scattered toys, the wooden garden table, the old gym benches around it, the ducks rifling amongst the grasses. Skeins of nostalgia are there...
Monday, April 21, 2008
16.
April 19th. Dogs and Caves.
My furthest neighbour, Robert, passes me on the lane, in a flurry of mud and gear. A gnome on a quad bike. He is going up into the hills to meet friends and make a great deal of noise, as it’s the weekend. We two have a mutual antipathy, since I complained about a young dog he kept in his barn and which wailed every night so that I couldn’t sleep. My silent misery matched the animal’s protest until I lost it and threatened to go to the Maire. The puppy was re-housed with his other hounds.
He keeps an assortment of these in pens, within hearing distance. They are all amiable enough, but out of the hunting season, spend their days on the roofs of their kennels, to avoid the accretions of their own shit that join with stone, weed and rock to create their ground. Every so often, at a signal from one of their own, they set up an almost choral howl. This deeply upsets me and on worse days makes me think of selling up…..
But then there are almost silent times, profoundly quiet days, when I can only hear birds, the occasional voice or vehicle. The children are at school, the dogs are too warm and I watch, work, walk and listen.
In a landscape minus human beings there is a surfeit of beauty but a human says those words and so sees the landscape and edits it, alas. The mountains tell of deep and distant time, before and beyond human experience and thus frighten me a bit. Too far to walk, to high to climb, to deep to fathom. In a cave not far away, 2 km. inside, are marks of childrens hands and rust and black drawings of horse and hind, 15000 years old. What are equally as fascinating are the more recent graffiti, which mark the walls for perhaps one km. in. 200 years ago, people were perhaps too afraid to go further inwards. The caves had a quite different meaning for them.
April 19th. Dogs and Caves.
My furthest neighbour, Robert, passes me on the lane, in a flurry of mud and gear. A gnome on a quad bike. He is going up into the hills to meet friends and make a great deal of noise, as it’s the weekend. We two have a mutual antipathy, since I complained about a young dog he kept in his barn and which wailed every night so that I couldn’t sleep. My silent misery matched the animal’s protest until I lost it and threatened to go to the Maire. The puppy was re-housed with his other hounds.
He keeps an assortment of these in pens, within hearing distance. They are all amiable enough, but out of the hunting season, spend their days on the roofs of their kennels, to avoid the accretions of their own shit that join with stone, weed and rock to create their ground. Every so often, at a signal from one of their own, they set up an almost choral howl. This deeply upsets me and on worse days makes me think of selling up…..
But then there are almost silent times, profoundly quiet days, when I can only hear birds, the occasional voice or vehicle. The children are at school, the dogs are too warm and I watch, work, walk and listen.
In a landscape minus human beings there is a surfeit of beauty but a human says those words and so sees the landscape and edits it, alas. The mountains tell of deep and distant time, before and beyond human experience and thus frighten me a bit. Too far to walk, to high to climb, to deep to fathom. In a cave not far away, 2 km. inside, are marks of childrens hands and rust and black drawings of horse and hind, 15000 years old. What are equally as fascinating are the more recent graffiti, which mark the walls for perhaps one km. in. 200 years ago, people were perhaps too afraid to go further inwards. The caves had a quite different meaning for them.
15.
April 17th.
A mower in the distance announces a good day. A jay, as bold as you like, loops in and out of an old Laurel, pounces onto the grass and is up again. It seems a long time ago now when I could hear the jays quarrelling and grating over the autumn acorns.
Winter survived, the frogs are declaring loudly around the pond, accompanied by the rising bubble and jug of the nightingales, hidden in the scrubby copses. Joy,--in spite of the wind, for it is, indeed, spring.
It`s breathtaking to brush through the prairie fields full of ragged robin, lady orchids, ox eye daisies and rusty sorrel flowers and to listen to the shivering of new, silver backed poplar leaves.
I can lie back in a patch and listen to the frantic business of the insect hordes. I can watch the black redstart, indignantly flicking its tail and chkk-chkking at a cat, slowly meandering its way through the long grass, dark ear tips just visible.
This is the life. Spring, the glorious season. A good number of the trees have survived that winter and there’s a promise of real heat in the air. To confirm it I hear a hoopoe. It is ‘churring’ at me from the walnut tree, in warning. Then it takes off on its skidaddling flight, beautiful black and white wing markings fanning its flight towards the big ash, where it sets up its ‘hoop- hoop hoop’ call.
April 17th.
A mower in the distance announces a good day. A jay, as bold as you like, loops in and out of an old Laurel, pounces onto the grass and is up again. It seems a long time ago now when I could hear the jays quarrelling and grating over the autumn acorns.
Winter survived, the frogs are declaring loudly around the pond, accompanied by the rising bubble and jug of the nightingales, hidden in the scrubby copses. Joy,--in spite of the wind, for it is, indeed, spring.
It`s breathtaking to brush through the prairie fields full of ragged robin, lady orchids, ox eye daisies and rusty sorrel flowers and to listen to the shivering of new, silver backed poplar leaves.
I can lie back in a patch and listen to the frantic business of the insect hordes. I can watch the black redstart, indignantly flicking its tail and chkk-chkking at a cat, slowly meandering its way through the long grass, dark ear tips just visible.
This is the life. Spring, the glorious season. A good number of the trees have survived that winter and there’s a promise of real heat in the air. To confirm it I hear a hoopoe. It is ‘churring’ at me from the walnut tree, in warning. Then it takes off on its skidaddling flight, beautiful black and white wing markings fanning its flight towards the big ash, where it sets up its ‘hoop- hoop hoop’ call.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
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!]
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!]
Thursday, April 10, 2008
13. April 6th.
The sunshine is truly cheering. So much stronger. While the plums are losing their blossom, taking on a slightly shabby, dirty look, the pears and sweet cherries have more than enough. The apples are biding their time and I'm thinking how handsome these trees are, so good to see full sized, big headed fruit trees. None of those dwarfed, domestic, patio types dare show up around here.
Big black bees are busy coupling and zooming and the general insect racket is a pleasing background music. The kestrels give a repeat performance every so often, mating high in the pear tree, with chattering, rising cries.
Yesterday I watched the female hen harrier quartering and hooking low over the meadows, so near and silent. I could see her white banded rump and gingery striped breast. Usually it`s the ghost grey male, black wing tips bent back, hunting in that almost skating, gliding flight. Later on I can hear their courtship and exchange calls, higher, towards the forest..
Sylvie thinks I'm out too early, sowing and planting. She doesn’t trust this spring, she says. She nevertheless hands me six seed potatoes to plant. . Unnamed, she is proud to say they have been in the family for years and years. Small, white tubers for an early crop. I shall put them in today, I say. As I am out there, I hear the first cuckoo.
Later that night I go out onto the roof to look at Orion hanging over the hill, and the moon sliver slung between it and the mountain. The tawny owls are hooting and the bats are flicking past the alley lamp.
The sunshine is truly cheering. So much stronger. While the plums are losing their blossom, taking on a slightly shabby, dirty look, the pears and sweet cherries have more than enough. The apples are biding their time and I'm thinking how handsome these trees are, so good to see full sized, big headed fruit trees. None of those dwarfed, domestic, patio types dare show up around here.
Big black bees are busy coupling and zooming and the general insect racket is a pleasing background music. The kestrels give a repeat performance every so often, mating high in the pear tree, with chattering, rising cries.
Yesterday I watched the female hen harrier quartering and hooking low over the meadows, so near and silent. I could see her white banded rump and gingery striped breast. Usually it`s the ghost grey male, black wing tips bent back, hunting in that almost skating, gliding flight. Later on I can hear their courtship and exchange calls, higher, towards the forest..
Sylvie thinks I'm out too early, sowing and planting. She doesn’t trust this spring, she says. She nevertheless hands me six seed potatoes to plant. . Unnamed, she is proud to say they have been in the family for years and years. Small, white tubers for an early crop. I shall put them in today, I say. As I am out there, I hear the first cuckoo.
Later that night I go out onto the roof to look at Orion hanging over the hill, and the moon sliver slung between it and the mountain. The tawny owls are hooting and the bats are flicking past the alley lamp.
Monday, April 07, 2008
12.
SomePlace Pyrenean Journal. Bertrand and Sylvie
My neighbours on the east side are two siblings. Bertrand and Sylvie potter with ancient tractors, creaking wheelbarrows, geriatric goats and are nearly always in tweed and wool, impregnated with oil and god knows what stains. Sylvie adds a pinafore that sits like a ledge cloth over her precise stomach. She is not so much fat as well fed and protuberant in various places. Friendly would not be sufficient description for these two. They have welcomed me with uncanny warmth; they, who have rarely seen a stranger, let alone an English woman. They learn all that they know from the village and from their television. There are no books. The only printed paper they glance at, they assure me, is the junk that comes into their letter box , and a calendar left by the paramedic/fire service, Les Pompiers.
Their land runs alongside mine, as Emile and Marie’s does, on the other side. Strange really, that we have these long strips of fields, like allotments, all facing south to the mountains, with nothing beyond except prairie and forest. In Britain I would pay a million or more for these views. And here are layers of lives, laid down over the generations. The ruined walls, the roofless barns, the collapsing wells; echoes of rural histories and industriousness; not quite a palimpsest, the landscape is more a quilting and a layering of lives. No one here, one feels, starts with a new beginning, so much as turns and goes over again; meeting the necessities of a hand to mouth existence. My arrival has inserted a different way of living. I dig in the field and discover pottery, old tool bits, and leather scraps. But it is not my history. However long I stay here, I suspect, the etrangere status will stick. Perhaps rightly so.
Sunshine eases into my joints; there are changes in birdsong and the sward. 3 bluetits are shinning up and across the walnut trees, their courtship rivalries voiced in metallic ‘tsiiits-chinks’
The plums and cherries are all in exuberant mode; pale sweeps of flowering creep up the mountain sides and the red kites are cheeky in their display flights and courtship dances.
My ownership of this small piece of land has intensified my attention to the details of the microcosm. I notice the smallest alteration: the creeping potentilla, the speedwell, the blue flax are pushing their frontiers. The daffodils, free of snow and wind, stand upright and bright. The first spotted orchid leaves are there, in the low grass. Emile is out too, raking out the old tomato haulm from last year but I’m too far out of earshot to catch any complaint.
SomePlace Pyrenean Journal. Bertrand and Sylvie
My neighbours on the east side are two siblings. Bertrand and Sylvie potter with ancient tractors, creaking wheelbarrows, geriatric goats and are nearly always in tweed and wool, impregnated with oil and god knows what stains. Sylvie adds a pinafore that sits like a ledge cloth over her precise stomach. She is not so much fat as well fed and protuberant in various places. Friendly would not be sufficient description for these two. They have welcomed me with uncanny warmth; they, who have rarely seen a stranger, let alone an English woman. They learn all that they know from the village and from their television. There are no books. The only printed paper they glance at, they assure me, is the junk that comes into their letter box , and a calendar left by the paramedic/fire service, Les Pompiers.
Their land runs alongside mine, as Emile and Marie’s does, on the other side. Strange really, that we have these long strips of fields, like allotments, all facing south to the mountains, with nothing beyond except prairie and forest. In Britain I would pay a million or more for these views. And here are layers of lives, laid down over the generations. The ruined walls, the roofless barns, the collapsing wells; echoes of rural histories and industriousness; not quite a palimpsest, the landscape is more a quilting and a layering of lives. No one here, one feels, starts with a new beginning, so much as turns and goes over again; meeting the necessities of a hand to mouth existence. My arrival has inserted a different way of living. I dig in the field and discover pottery, old tool bits, and leather scraps. But it is not my history. However long I stay here, I suspect, the etrangere status will stick. Perhaps rightly so.
Sunshine eases into my joints; there are changes in birdsong and the sward. 3 bluetits are shinning up and across the walnut trees, their courtship rivalries voiced in metallic ‘tsiiits-chinks’
The plums and cherries are all in exuberant mode; pale sweeps of flowering creep up the mountain sides and the red kites are cheeky in their display flights and courtship dances.
My ownership of this small piece of land has intensified my attention to the details of the microcosm. I notice the smallest alteration: the creeping potentilla, the speedwell, the blue flax are pushing their frontiers. The daffodils, free of snow and wind, stand upright and bright. The first spotted orchid leaves are there, in the low grass. Emile is out too, raking out the old tomato haulm from last year but I’m too far out of earshot to catch any complaint.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
March 31st. SomePlace, Pyrenean Journal
The poplars are showing their sienna gold, new leaves; like waiting, ordered armies, they whisper amongst themselves. The lime yellow of the willows joins in the fanfare of spring colour and chiffchaffs, blackcaps and swallows accompany the whole concert. The first swallow arrived on the 29th. March; definitely earlier than last year. Later that day, two more joined up and by the next day there were a dozen or so, swooping and slicing low over the long grass land, inspecting the barns and chattering in their tinkling voices all along the telegraph wires. Non stop sunshine lifts the most stubborn of hearts.
I try to transpose this landscape, in my imagination, into Dartmoor, Devon, Wales, but it doesn`t work. There the signs, - the ditches, fences and hedges, would present some recogniseable language; I could read them as familiar. But here they are different. A group of ash, birch and hawthorn are somehow displaced in my imagination. There are no holloways, trodden by millennia of feet and wheels; no cottage gardens or grand demesnes, only ruined castles and tumbling barns, marking some ancient, landowning histories. These sweeping fields are not divided by trimmed or layed hedges. Huge sweeps of land, vast agri strips, their umber or emerald lines changing direction and stripes, to denote edge and perhaps propriety, decorate this wide space. Clouds of cherry and blackthorn blossom plume up the hillsides and the Prussian blue of the bigger forest crosses to and fro’, upwards towards the mountains. Here the hares are big, the deer frequent, the boar strange and the birdsong pervasive. And in spite of the Wednesday and weekend hunting sprees this a sort of a fecund paradise
The poplars are showing their sienna gold, new leaves; like waiting, ordered armies, they whisper amongst themselves. The lime yellow of the willows joins in the fanfare of spring colour and chiffchaffs, blackcaps and swallows accompany the whole concert. The first swallow arrived on the 29th. March; definitely earlier than last year. Later that day, two more joined up and by the next day there were a dozen or so, swooping and slicing low over the long grass land, inspecting the barns and chattering in their tinkling voices all along the telegraph wires. Non stop sunshine lifts the most stubborn of hearts.
I try to transpose this landscape, in my imagination, into Dartmoor, Devon, Wales, but it doesn`t work. There the signs, - the ditches, fences and hedges, would present some recogniseable language; I could read them as familiar. But here they are different. A group of ash, birch and hawthorn are somehow displaced in my imagination. There are no holloways, trodden by millennia of feet and wheels; no cottage gardens or grand demesnes, only ruined castles and tumbling barns, marking some ancient, landowning histories. These sweeping fields are not divided by trimmed or layed hedges. Huge sweeps of land, vast agri strips, their umber or emerald lines changing direction and stripes, to denote edge and perhaps propriety, decorate this wide space. Clouds of cherry and blackthorn blossom plume up the hillsides and the Prussian blue of the bigger forest crosses to and fro’, upwards towards the mountains. Here the hares are big, the deer frequent, the boar strange and the birdsong pervasive. And in spite of the Wednesday and weekend hunting sprees this a sort of a fecund paradise
Saturday, March 29, 2008
March 27th. Return.
Returned from a two week stay in England. The grass appears to have grown enormously and for the first few days back I felt like a real stranger again. Not that I didn't want to get back. I had arrived in Britain during storms and an arctic chill. Plastic bags decorated the bleak trees and verges, signage had sprung up and through, like the council knew it was supposed to be spring. Friday and Saturday evenings still sprouted their bunches of lurching blobs; a gross animus pervades. Is this just me?
Yet on return to the mountains I know that I will never be truly at home here, that the traces, signs, faces and features do not share my recent history, that I am a visitor, an escapee from the shades and clouds that drove me here to focus inwards and to the land that might give me motive and sort me out.
Returned from a two week stay in England. The grass appears to have grown enormously and for the first few days back I felt like a real stranger again. Not that I didn't want to get back. I had arrived in Britain during storms and an arctic chill. Plastic bags decorated the bleak trees and verges, signage had sprung up and through, like the council knew it was supposed to be spring. Friday and Saturday evenings still sprouted their bunches of lurching blobs; a gross animus pervades. Is this just me?
Yet on return to the mountains I know that I will never be truly at home here, that the traces, signs, faces and features do not share my recent history, that I am a visitor, an escapee from the shades and clouds that drove me here to focus inwards and to the land that might give me motive and sort me out.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
If you manage to get up very early in the morning and go out into the snow that fell, just before the full night began, you may see the tracks of animal traffic. These are untainted, as yet, by thaw or new snow. The passers by leave their signs. Here is a hare, two prints in front, with just a trace of hock or thigh. These first are the hind feet, passed under and through the fore legs, which print themselves behind. I follow them alongside and find scrapes where this hare has found tasty shoots. The hills are silent, no birdsong, no cursed dogs. I'm almost ashamed to sully the cleanliness. It's not that cold, just white, but the trees up the mountain have already shed their shawls and the thorn blossoms are like dirty handkerchiefs. I can hear the river clearly; the water sounds are exaggerated, framed by the muffled landscape.
Being a poor gardener one gets excited by very small things. And they are here, the tips of ruffled daffodils around the well. The snow lies like a skirt around each prima donna. In spite of the snow, the season is changing. Molehills are lumped in a diagonal across the field, like big brown mushrooms. I watch a greater spotted woodpecker shin up the bare trunk of a beech. 'Pchikk, pchikk!' Its call ecoes its French name: 'pic epeiche'. Its loopy flight gives it away before the sound.
In the house, ash from the fire fills a metal bucket and fills me with pleasure too. The simple and repetitive routines I indulge in, riddling the stove, collecting the wood and ash, are profoundly satisfying. Yesterday's despair has lessened. Nature might be waving at us frantically, her imperatives obvious, but, as James Lovelock says: enjoy life while you can; and that is why I am here, lucky, in this wild and abundant place.
Being a poor gardener one gets excited by very small things. And they are here, the tips of ruffled daffodils around the well. The snow lies like a skirt around each prima donna. In spite of the snow, the season is changing. Molehills are lumped in a diagonal across the field, like big brown mushrooms. I watch a greater spotted woodpecker shin up the bare trunk of a beech. 'Pchikk, pchikk!' Its call ecoes its French name: 'pic epeiche'. Its loopy flight gives it away before the sound.
In the house, ash from the fire fills a metal bucket and fills me with pleasure too. The simple and repetitive routines I indulge in, riddling the stove, collecting the wood and ash, are profoundly satisfying. Yesterday's despair has lessened. Nature might be waving at us frantically, her imperatives obvious, but, as James Lovelock says: enjoy life while you can; and that is why I am here, lucky, in this wild and abundant place.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
8. March 9th. Pyrenean Journal. Oaks.
I'm off to plant a red oak, whatever the weather, before I crumble into an elderly bigot.
The wind howls, the sleet streaks and drives and hail tinkers with a tin roof. The broad beans are just miserably proud of this thin blanket of snow. Garlic, too; erect points of bright green hope. No optimistic blackbird pipes up this time. But I am out; winding up the wind, slurping over the field, to dig a hole for the oak. Emile has told me not to plant it too near the fruit trees, as its root system will eventually be unsympathetic to them. That is, the fruit trees will not prosper. Now that is interesting because I also know that oaks planted near other oaks ARE mutually conducive. They can, in a way, share each others' root systems, and, so to speak, download nutrients to others in their group that are perhaps struggling to survive. Ah trees, what magic is working there!
I'm off to plant a red oak, whatever the weather, before I crumble into an elderly bigot.
The wind howls, the sleet streaks and drives and hail tinkers with a tin roof. The broad beans are just miserably proud of this thin blanket of snow. Garlic, too; erect points of bright green hope. No optimistic blackbird pipes up this time. But I am out; winding up the wind, slurping over the field, to dig a hole for the oak. Emile has told me not to plant it too near the fruit trees, as its root system will eventually be unsympathetic to them. That is, the fruit trees will not prosper. Now that is interesting because I also know that oaks planted near other oaks ARE mutually conducive. They can, in a way, share each others' root systems, and, so to speak, download nutrients to others in their group that are perhaps struggling to survive. Ah trees, what magic is working there!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
7. Pyrenean Journal, March 8th. Here and there.
After a forgiving February, sleet and hail are sweeping across the plateau. The pale blossom of the blackthorn/sloe is torn from tree and twig by a vicious wind. I'm trying not to let the weight of depression measure my days. I watch the TV, read books and newspapers, write my journal, fiddle with paint and listen to the weather. Outside in the wider world, [because that's what it feels like here; like I'm in a removed space, a world separated from the real, political, conflict strewn planet that does exist], platitudes are breathed, wars are conducted and managed, habitats are defiled, ecosystems lost or interrupted and profits made there. Here, because I'm not outside, because the weather is persistently atrocious, I find myself lost in a mind rant on the corruption, ineptitude and irrationality of the human species.
If we were living at the tail end of human existence, with environments either degraded or lost, what would we dream of? Our lost landscapes? The dust deserts and skies of Ulan Bator? The soft fields and water mills of Suffolk and the Cotswolds of little England? The crusted crags of the Pyrenees or Rockies? The melon slice of a beach or the enveloping forests of our childhood, when trees were no surprise? Or a palingenesis, a new space,a rebuilt paradise?
After a forgiving February, sleet and hail are sweeping across the plateau. The pale blossom of the blackthorn/sloe is torn from tree and twig by a vicious wind. I'm trying not to let the weight of depression measure my days. I watch the TV, read books and newspapers, write my journal, fiddle with paint and listen to the weather. Outside in the wider world, [because that's what it feels like here; like I'm in a removed space, a world separated from the real, political, conflict strewn planet that does exist], platitudes are breathed, wars are conducted and managed, habitats are defiled, ecosystems lost or interrupted and profits made there. Here, because I'm not outside, because the weather is persistently atrocious, I find myself lost in a mind rant on the corruption, ineptitude and irrationality of the human species.
If we were living at the tail end of human existence, with environments either degraded or lost, what would we dream of? Our lost landscapes? The dust deserts and skies of Ulan Bator? The soft fields and water mills of Suffolk and the Cotswolds of little England? The crusted crags of the Pyrenees or Rockies? The melon slice of a beach or the enveloping forests of our childhood, when trees were no surprise? Or a palingenesis, a new space,a rebuilt paradise?
Monday, February 18, 2008
6.Pyrenean Journal, Some Place, Feb. 22nd
Two booted eagles, with seagull like cries and chatterings pass down over the roofs of the village, coming in from the mountains, followed by two complaining crows. Later on they are higher up, hovering almost motionless, silent, wing edges blurry and fingered, so high up they are difficult to discern, against the azure light, but I can see their pale legs, dangling, angled forwards.
"In the garden again, Alees," says Emile, peering through the hedge, put there to hinder the peepshow.
"Yes, Emile, I'm making a garden that's a bit different, with enclosed compartments to bluff the wind and lots of climbers around them. A wild flower meadow, too, down there, nearer the well".
"Hmphhh, there will be plenty of wild flowers out there, soon". He indicates up the hill towards the early orchid prairies. He has a point, of course, but has missed my stealthy mention of enclosures. I didn't have the heart to include the words: 'more privacy'. I'm not deterred, however, not yet. The welcome sunshine and drying soil are too great a temptation. I grin at him, turn my back and get on with my labour. Did he smile too, before I turned?
Labels: February 22nd. Eagles and sunshine
Two booted eagles, with seagull like cries and chatterings pass down over the roofs of the village, coming in from the mountains, followed by two complaining crows. Later on they are higher up, hovering almost motionless, silent, wing edges blurry and fingered, so high up they are difficult to discern, against the azure light, but I can see their pale legs, dangling, angled forwards.
"In the garden again, Alees," says Emile, peering through the hedge, put there to hinder the peepshow.
"Yes, Emile, I'm making a garden that's a bit different, with enclosed compartments to bluff the wind and lots of climbers around them. A wild flower meadow, too, down there, nearer the well".
"Hmphhh, there will be plenty of wild flowers out there, soon". He indicates up the hill towards the early orchid prairies. He has a point, of course, but has missed my stealthy mention of enclosures. I didn't have the heart to include the words: 'more privacy'. I'm not deterred, however, not yet. The welcome sunshine and drying soil are too great a temptation. I grin at him, turn my back and get on with my labour. Did he smile too, before I turned?
Labels: February 22nd. Eagles and sunshine
Saturday, February 16, 2008
5. Pyrenean Journal, Feb. 18th.
Marie is back at my kitchen table. She says she likes the coffee and the chat, for a change. We've talked of the emmerging wild daffodils and now she has veered back to the shootings. I'm waiting, holding my breath. "The German soldiers came knocking on the front door there, asking for the two lads. They fled by the back door, just there, where there used to be a corridor, into the alleyway, but soldiers were waiting for them there, too. Oh, they had some information, for sure". "Were they Maquis?" I can't resist asking. She shrugs and her mouth turns down. "Whatever,...they took them over to the Lavoir and shot 'em. And now what do they want to do, the old veteran's committee?" We wait and sip, and sip again. "They want to put up a memorial. Is it going to be straightforward?" We sip once more and wait again. Marie appears to be enjoying the silences. "No! We say around here that those who talk behind backs have several faces. Hmphhhhh! Well, there are multi faced people around here, I can tell you, because the next we hear, there's a disagreement, a debate, even. Somebody doesn't want that memorial. " Her head bends again and jerks in the vague direction of the square. " We'll see."
There are simmering feuds in these hamlets. Who knows when they originated. They are usually unmentioned but ever present, affecting everyone in insidious ways. I'm learning to pass the time of day with many in this small place and I've come to interpret a sudden averting of eyes, a refusal to say bonjour and a swift turn of the head as sure signs of these old wars.
Marie is back at my kitchen table. She says she likes the coffee and the chat, for a change. We've talked of the emmerging wild daffodils and now she has veered back to the shootings. I'm waiting, holding my breath. "The German soldiers came knocking on the front door there, asking for the two lads. They fled by the back door, just there, where there used to be a corridor, into the alleyway, but soldiers were waiting for them there, too. Oh, they had some information, for sure". "Were they Maquis?" I can't resist asking. She shrugs and her mouth turns down. "Whatever,...they took them over to the Lavoir and shot 'em. And now what do they want to do, the old veteran's committee?" We wait and sip, and sip again. "They want to put up a memorial. Is it going to be straightforward?" We sip once more and wait again. Marie appears to be enjoying the silences. "No! We say around here that those who talk behind backs have several faces. Hmphhhhh! Well, there are multi faced people around here, I can tell you, because the next we hear, there's a disagreement, a debate, even. Somebody doesn't want that memorial. " Her head bends again and jerks in the vague direction of the square. " We'll see."
There are simmering feuds in these hamlets. Who knows when they originated. They are usually unmentioned but ever present, affecting everyone in insidious ways. I'm learning to pass the time of day with many in this small place and I've come to interpret a sudden averting of eyes, a refusal to say bonjour and a swift turn of the head as sure signs of these old wars.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
4. Pyrenean Journal, someplace, February 14th.
Emile's wife Marie sits opposite me, drinking dense, black coffee from the tiniest of cups. Her eyes are misty and pink, but this is normal. She's not upset or ill, just rheumy and reminiscing. "I remember my mother in law telling me that two of my husband's brothers were shot, shot right by that Lavoir, there, in the square." She says this with no precursor, no entree atall. "And it all started in this house." In this house? My eyes widen but I`m afraid to prompt; the moment feels too precious and I'm afraid she might lose the thread..No one has told me any histories, any stories of the village, as if they were theirs to keep close. Or maybe they just didn't talk about their wartime past. Or perhaps it's me, the foreigner, who stops up their voices. One thing is for certain; though they appear not to gossip, they know everything going on around them. They have long ears, perhaps even peep holes through the walls, and a village telegraph for sure. Every so often, in conversation, one may nod sagely and tap the side the side of her or his nose. To hear of something as dramatic as a shooting, and connected to my house, now that is worth waiting for. Marie bends her neck and points with her head in an indeterminate direction. " Yes, well, they wouldn't have been caught but for someone betraying them". She pauses, I wait, I say nothing, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says that another time will do for the rest of that story. The coffee was good, though, and the log fire has warmed her up, but she must go and check out the cows.
posted by SOME PLACE @ 10:01 0 Comments
Emile's wife Marie sits opposite me, drinking dense, black coffee from the tiniest of cups. Her eyes are misty and pink, but this is normal. She's not upset or ill, just rheumy and reminiscing. "I remember my mother in law telling me that two of my husband's brothers were shot, shot right by that Lavoir, there, in the square." She says this with no precursor, no entree atall. "And it all started in this house." In this house? My eyes widen but I`m afraid to prompt; the moment feels too precious and I'm afraid she might lose the thread..No one has told me any histories, any stories of the village, as if they were theirs to keep close. Or maybe they just didn't talk about their wartime past. Or perhaps it's me, the foreigner, who stops up their voices. One thing is for certain; though they appear not to gossip, they know everything going on around them. They have long ears, perhaps even peep holes through the walls, and a village telegraph for sure. Every so often, in conversation, one may nod sagely and tap the side the side of her or his nose. To hear of something as dramatic as a shooting, and connected to my house, now that is worth waiting for. Marie bends her neck and points with her head in an indeterminate direction. " Yes, well, they wouldn't have been caught but for someone betraying them". She pauses, I wait, I say nothing, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says that another time will do for the rest of that story. The coffee was good, though, and the log fire has warmed her up, but she must go and check out the cows.
posted by SOME PLACE @ 10:01 0 Comments
Saturday, February 02, 2008
3. Some Place, ..........Pyrenean Journal, February.
A grey green covering of lichen, like a burdening of blossom, emerges from the old trees as the snow patches diminish. The grass appearing seems too bright, too intense. A grey, Irish mist sort of day frames the fuzzy orb of the sun. In full light the little owl bobs up and down on the barn roof and makes a cross patch sort of cluck, chuck. Later next month the first swallows will sail in and my spirits will soar. I`m in the field, sinking the last posts into the sodden ground, each barrow load of cement mix aching my arms.
'You'd be better just burying those posts straight into the ground and tamping them in with the soil and stones.' Yes, Emile is peering over the nascent hedge. How does he manage to pop up with advice at every turn? Since the crowbar reaches what appear to be the roots of the mountain at a 15cm. depth, I feel I can't do this.The sun is trying but the wind, amongst other things, defeats, so I plead cold hands and sulk indoors
A grey green covering of lichen, like a burdening of blossom, emerges from the old trees as the snow patches diminish. The grass appearing seems too bright, too intense. A grey, Irish mist sort of day frames the fuzzy orb of the sun. In full light the little owl bobs up and down on the barn roof and makes a cross patch sort of cluck, chuck. Later next month the first swallows will sail in and my spirits will soar. I`m in the field, sinking the last posts into the sodden ground, each barrow load of cement mix aching my arms.
'You'd be better just burying those posts straight into the ground and tamping them in with the soil and stones.' Yes, Emile is peering over the nascent hedge. How does he manage to pop up with advice at every turn? Since the crowbar reaches what appear to be the roots of the mountain at a 15cm. depth, I feel I can't do this.The sun is trying but the wind, amongst other things, defeats, so I plead cold hands and sulk indoors
2. Some Place ... end January.
This was to be the year of making a garden. Well the snow has been down for 2 weeks, newly planted trees are leaning horizontally and the trunk of a young cherry has snapped raggedly at the stake tie. Stored onions freeze in the barn. 'It`s the season', says Emile grimly. 'Nothing to be done.' He pauses. 'It's not always like this.' I'm learning.
'Tie the tree at a lower angle next time,' he shrugs.. I cross the alleyway where the wind shrieks, clump out into the field that I try to call garden. I test the wind as it thumps me, gulp the air, appreciate the razor chill, avoid the mud sumps that lie at the base of my little trees and force my hands to struggle with a fork, levering up a few leeks for the pot. Will it ever be spring?
This was to be the year of making a garden. Well the snow has been down for 2 weeks, newly planted trees are leaning horizontally and the trunk of a young cherry has snapped raggedly at the stake tie. Stored onions freeze in the barn. 'It`s the season', says Emile grimly. 'Nothing to be done.' He pauses. 'It's not always like this.' I'm learning.
'Tie the tree at a lower angle next time,' he shrugs.. I cross the alleyway where the wind shrieks, clump out into the field that I try to call garden. I test the wind as it thumps me, gulp the air, appreciate the razor chill, avoid the mud sumps that lie at the base of my little trees and force my hands to struggle with a fork, levering up a few leeks for the pot. Will it ever be spring?
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.
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.
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