63.

On April 6th on my way back to France after a very cold and hard winter, of weather and work, I hear the first cuckoo and swallow, see my first brambling, marked similar to a chaffinch but more dark yellow and stripes to its head. Later, finally at this place, on April 11th. I see and hear a solitary bee eater, chirruping not far above my head, holding its position and its distinctive arrow head shape before curving off higher and away. Bumble bees motor in and out of the bramble patch and turf pile and I gaze at the jungle that I will have to tackle, petit a petit, pas a pas. The snow fell in three great lots, Emile tells me, and here, the drifts were impassable. Every time the snow plough cleared them the snow fell again. The temperature dropped to minus 12 several times and during the last fall in March it was just as cold. But you know, Emile continues, weather used to be like that every winter when I was younger.


Now it is so warm, 21 degrees in the middle of the day, the cold is hard to imagine but I remember an earlier winter I spent here; I look at the delicate Sophora and it has only a dozen flowers and is browned and bent from its winter trials. But it lives. Late plum and cherry blossom, late daffodils in the meadows and new cowslips on the slopes. A fire each night.

On April17th. I see the male hen harrier again, scooping his territory, checking the quarters, low and tipped like an aircraft. Talking of aircraft, the sky is empty of any but the local gliders. A coup for nature…for the Icelandic volcano. A glider to surpass all of them, a golden eagle circles lazily at immense height; silent, so silent it sails over the valley and into the gorge .

On April 20th. the nightingales arrive. The blackcaps set fair competition in their musical invention but the nightingales win out best.

April 27th. Camping on the plateau. Very warm and some folk are swimming in the lake. Last year it was wet and cold at this time. The garden is luscious and flourishing. Courgettes, tomatoes and squash to go out soon..