l51

Nightingales at last, quietly, unassertively in the slow April drizzle. Sparrows wait for their breakfast on the barn window shelf; toasted breadcrumbs and grains of soft cheese. So cheeky they practically cross my doorstep threshold.

Emile is continually puzzled by my kneeling work in the meadow. My knees are wet and muddy.
‘Still weeding?’ he asks. I explain that I am lifting out some wild weeds and sowing others. This baffles him further. A bevy of buzzards circle and wail overhead so I point to them and tell him they are observing my work too. A shrug of his shoulders, a stretch of his neck and a pushing up of his lower lip but not a ‘Wisshtt’. This means he is curious and not dismissive, I think.

When I go in for my bread and cheese lunch the post woman arrives. Here, all the post people are so proud of their yellow vehicles that they rarely get out of them. She drives down my dead end alley just to put a few bits in the end post box; then she reverses back up. I ask her if she has a copy of the urbanisation plans and enquiry minutes. Looking surprised, she finds a box of them and gives me one leaflet.
‘I didn’t think the English would be that interested’, she comments.
‘ If the chalets and mobile homes creep any nearer, I’ll be really interested!’ I laugh.

Money comes to the villages and hamlets mostly through the summer tourism but a new mixed housing estate is planned in the main village and there is a lot of talk, talk. We’ll see.