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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.