58.

May 10th.

This is the first evening it is warm enough to sit out,. A warm wind from the south west stirs up the grass. The cut fields shine in stripes until Monsieur Raymonde turns the haylage with his tines, way into the evening gloaming. The shrieking swifts are here once more. A just off full moon rises in the grey-blue sky, behind the white flowered horse chestnut, while the sun leaves its last pink tint on the west facing edges of the crags. A flock of bee eaters darts and dances, way up, chirruping all the while. A pity that such lovely birds raid already beleaguered bees.

Emile has told me about Marcel Benoit, this afternoon. Apparently he joined up with the resistance, the Maquis in 1940/1 at the age of nearly 18. He lay out in the woods near the top plateau, took refuge there with a small group, received air drops from the allies into a tiny airfield until it was discovered and the Maquis routed. At this point in the story Emile tilted his head and sharply raised it and I was meant to read into this that someone’s family was tainted with the scent of betrayal.. I couldn’t interrupt though, as this was the longest talk I had had with Emile, to date. Three young men escaped into Spain, two were shot and the other two sank into the shadows of the mountains and their own families, returning to the harvests, the cultivation of their land and the movement of their beasts. People around stayed stumm and grew up beyond the war. One of these was Benoit. Probably silent for many years but now boldly speaking of his history, as he enters his 87th year. Is his conscience clear, I wonder?

I wanted to ask about the two brothers shot outside my house; whether there was a connection, but I thought better of it.

57.

May 8th again.

A grey day. There has been a storm during the night; the wind rattled the shutters and old window panes and plane and poplar twigs strew the square. The Mayor again brings out his piece of paper and, as his hands shake, he rests the sheet on his growing belly and reads out his speech. It is moving nevertheless. No one sings the Marseillaise this time but it is piped through two speakers and we stand to attention. I feel a bit of a fraud. Mme J. is more confused than ever, sings, then falters and listens. She grumbles to anyone who attends to her, after the 2 minutes silence, that the young have no connection with the past. Quite whom she means by the young is unclear. There were certainly folk in their 20s and 30s still perusing the stalls, pointing and chatting during the ceremony. Someone agrees and says that litter is a big problem now. Somehow they have made that connection. They are going on a trip to Austria soon, where it is cleaner than clean, they say. Taxes are high and there are heavy fines for littering, but that is worthwhile, they add. I say, you should see England; this is unsoiled here, in comparison. A few tutt and move on. They are rarely interested in England and my comment only confirms their apathy.

Back in the hamlet for the afternoon it is muggy and warm. I ask Emile, when his rotovator is quiet, whether he used to attend the ceremony. ‘ Pfftt’ he answers. I wait, sure of elaboration. ‘What’s the point? Same thing each time; Mayor just a bit more pissed.’

‘That`s surely the point, though, Emile, the same reminder each year for the victory in Europe’.
‘I`ll tell you what does change and depressed me each time I went: the number of faces which disappeared. Too much like an empty mirror. I was only a thought during the war but I don’t want to be the only one left here who remembers my father describing a squad of German soldiers marching across the square.’

This must be the longest statement I have heard from Emile and I am impressed with the imagery.

I tell him that I had talked with Mr. Benoit, who told me that he had joined the resistance when he was 17 years old and hid in the forests above, taking drops from the allies.

‘I`ll tell you about him another time, Emile hints, ‘ but I have to go look at the cattle now’.

I feel pleased with this conversation and sit on the roof, listening to the afternoon sounds: mowers, tractors, birds, dogs, children. Only 12 houses and all this life.

May 3rd.

I am watching two lovers. The raven couple, always around, twining and intertwining, air acrobats. Their croak is softened, almost musical, but their dance is interrupted, first by a magpie who makes straight for them, quite high for a magpie; and then the very insistent, male kestrel chases them far off, and the magpie is left behind.

I've realised, with a bit of research, which I should have done before, that the kestrels are, in fact, lesser kestrels. The male has no flecks or spots on his ginger brown back, and when his wings are open and I can look down on him from the roof, his wings have a blue-charcoal grey line at the elbow, or wrist? And his tail is the same tone. This would explain why they are so vocal, although not living in a social group.

Marie is at the washing line again; I notice she never hangs out underclothes there. So I’ll never get to see Emile’s underpants, due to this obvious custom. I write this with some relief. Sheets, covers, curtains, jeans and coats flap about in the wind, adding a clapping to the bird performances.

55.

May 1st.

On May 1st. I hear Bee eaters lirrupping high overhead. A gorgeous sound; the harbingers of the real summer weather. The nightingales are quieter this year. What does that mean?

As I am coming down the lane from the hills a male cuckoo keeps flying off the telegraph wire ahead of me and moving further down. His tail fans as he leaves the wire. Finally he dives into the valley, twirls a bit and disappears into a copse from where his bell like call rises up to me . It has been a morning of sights, as on my walk, about an hour ago, a stone marten crossed my path with a limp rabbit in its mouth. It hauled it up an ash tree, only meters away from me and languidly lying across a fork, rabbit still held, it watched me pass. I couldn’t resist stopping, of course, and it still watched. I moved off and then looked back . It was gone. It is these moments that I wish I carried a camera or camera phone as well as my heavy binoculars. But I don’t and probably won’t.

This afternoon, in the windy sunshine, I'm mowing the grass and for sure I can hear Emile singing above the motor noise. He is tinkering with the small, yellow tractor and he is singing loudly and pretty tunelessly in Occitaine, but it’s the first I've heard.

54

April 28th.

I must swallow my words today, for Sylvie and I are taking the b & w dog to the vet. We are stroking her while he seeps an excessive amount of a type of morphine into her forepaw. She had, he diagnosed, a liver tumour and extreme anaemia. She had lived 19 years without illness, irritating us all with her yapping but endearing us to her benign and gentle nature. It is Sylvie’s decision. Her death costs her and Bernard, who refused to take her up in his old Renault, 93 euros. They are a little taken aback, shocked even, but I’d be happy to pay that for a peaceful death!

On the drive back down the curling hills we see the vultures again, a pair, very high and circling, there undersides sparkling in the sharp, early evening sunlight. Sylvie becomes animated, convinced again that they are after her hens. I try to tell her that they are particularly interested in carrion but she says that they are eagles and eat anything living or dead that they can carry away. We leave it at that; after all she had just watched her old dog fall asleep for the very last time. Now I feel a bit of loss and a bit of guilt and go and sit by my fire, staring into the flames.

53 APRIL27TH.

The little black and white dog, who for years has lived in the barn and yard of Sylvie and Bernard is slowly dying and yaps no more She has a distended stomach, moves stiffly, lies for hours and can pass nothing solid . I suggest a blockage, a cancer perhaps, but Sylvie and B. don’t think in terms of vets, so have syringed some olive oil into her, front and rear. They live in hope but I go and speak a few words to the gentle girl who lifts her head heavily and stares at me with doleful eyes until my heart falters and I turn away. There is a rank smell emanating from her stall. She has annoyed me for years with her noise but she should be eased out of this mortal coil quickly and painlessly.

3 or 4 Griffon Vultures swirl and loop in the high thermals, their pale heads catching the light and their long and spread fingered wing tips, dark and shadowed. Earlier in the day I had seen the 2 Egyptian vultures, very distant, but with the binoculars their back wing edge markings clearly visible.

52. April 25th.

Horses and quads roaring up the hill path, shouts of excitement; no more hunting so the dogs are restless and noisy, setting up unison howling .

There is an eccentric English woman here who has gone through a few husbands and has lost most of her money. She keeps horses and a quad bike for transport and rides one while trailing the other two behind her, one on a lead rein, the other pony galloping free, way behind. She has adopted some dogs too and to exercise them she tears down the tracks on the bike with the dogs thundering behind her. I haven’t spoken to her yet, but I hear lots.

This has been the wettest winter the locals say they can recall, although the ski businesses are happy with plenty of snow still, @ 2000m., even avalanches.

The annual flower seeds that I've been sowing in the meadow gaps are all germinating; but no sooner do the Cosmos break than the slugs raze `em to the ground. I must use those slug pellets based on ferrous sulphate that the hedgehogs will not mind. . They work by interfering with the digestive system of the molluscs. They die. Snails of course, climb , so will attack plants from the top and sides. Clematis up against a fence or wall, for instance, will suffer from above while the snails can hide during the day in the crannies of the wood, stems or stones. Still, enough Sweet William and Ox Eye Daisies are spreading to cover the bare patches and give a wonderful sward this year. The flowering will be early but I'm optimistic that the Rudbeckia and Echinacea and Corn Marigold will follow on with some Cornflowers and Cosmos surviving for later summer. I can’t wait; amazing how this process can fill me with pleasure and erase the blues