A walk past the local Pharmacie

Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply....
~Edna St Vincent Millay

The weather has been good this week, the water level in the garden recuperator (water butt) is almost at the bottom, and the soil in the vegetable garden is turning to dust. We have been taking early morning walks at 7.30 it is a nice time of the day to be outside. The village has a small school and I saw some children walking through the school gates even at this early hour.

All is set to change as three days of rain are forecast so I will be back indoors admiring the cobwebs.

On my plod around the village there are flowers to cheer me on my way, but men with strimmers slash and destroy these helpful flowers.

Rustique Bouquet

Perfectly arranged

Latin ~ Digitalis Purpurea , Breton ~ Brulu, Anglais ~ Foxglove. A man named William Withering who recognised that this plant which had often been used in herbal medicine could be effectivly used to help people with heart disease Link here about William.
Link here about camomile.

The French word for weed killer is desherbant or herbicide.

The French word for recognise is reconnaitre.


So what do you see, weeds or flowers?

Not perfect

Today I took a late morning walk around our village.

The woofer and I plodded around the block, which means out of the village around some fields and tracks and back towards the church and then home.

Although the children only just got back to school, because it is Wednesday the young children have the day off. So the school and school yard where silent. The shrubs which line the roads from our village are a long way off showing any signs of buds or blossoms.

The birds were singing, catkins swung in the breeze, the sky was a lovely shade of blue, but colour was hiding from me.

However in the dryed up leaves a bright yellow flower had poked its head out. This flower isnt perfect, but it made me smile.

Less than perfect.

Sometimes less than perfect is very welcome.

The French word for bird song is ramage. or simply chant oiseau.

The French word for catkin is chaton.

The Yellow Peril

I wish that the postman turned up at exactly the same time every day.

Each morning I let my dog out into the garden, she charges off and chases away the blackbirds, well in fact any birds. I always hope that the yellow post van does not crunch the gravel on the drive way opposite. My dog will grow in size and bark ferociously.

If I am not dressed for the outdoors there is little that I can do to get her back inside until he has delivered the post to this side of the road too. Like a demented wild thing she will tear up and down the garden hedge as he arrives at our garden gate and pops the letters into our neighbours box.

What is it about postmen and dogs?

The picture below was taken last April, the yellow gorse is in flower, and if you look carefully you can see the postmans van.

Yellow Van

For some pictures of a well behaved German Shepherd go and visit Vagabond she has some delightful pictures of her dog in the snow.

The French word for van is caminonnette.

The French word for blackbird is merle.

The French word for wild is sauvage.

Forbidden

A lot of Brits comment on how the UK has become a "Nanny State" the UK bends over backwards not to offend everyone, but in doing so dilutes many of its own traditions. I was very surprised when I visited a blog yesterday to see this message on a bus in England.

I have recently been reading that there is a campaign for The right to dry, in other words hang your washing out in your own garden. Blimey if it was warm enough I would love to hang out my washing today, but its just too cold.

This morning I have just read about people being asked to leave shopping malls in America because they took photographs of their family eating a meal, I didn't realise that you couldn't do that. So dont take photographs in enclosed shopping centres or the bouncers will get you!

It makes me realise that I don't want that kind of lifestyle and so I will stick to being a person who enjoys wandering around trees, rocks,and looking up at blue skies...I wish errmm what blue skies........and not much traffic.

PS there is a bus stop here, but I still haven't seen the bus, milk lorries, white vans, huge tractors, but where is that bus?

I see only tractors around here

PPS......Dont get me wrong France has a billion rules about things that you can and cannot do!

The French word for forbidden is interdit

The French word for clothes washing is lessivage.

Fluttering and buzzing

Just like everywhere else there is a worry about the bees or should I say a lack of them! Click on the picture to get a better look at these flutter byes!

But I cant really say if there are more or less bees around?...The French word for bee is abeille and there certainly were lots of bees and butterflies a buzzing and fluttering this morning. The tracks or chemin de terre around the village are like little tunnels because the maize has grown so high. It really does affect the landscape. I think that I prefer the scenery in the springtime! Now it is so dark in places the bees and butterflies all zoom in on a flower where the sun penetrates the canopy above.

Two months back the maize had just started to grow and we still had views.

I think that it is a shame that we mess around with food as much as we do, ie GM and chemicals.

I am told that the maize is mainly used for cattle feed around here. I do remember this recipe from many years back called Hush Puppies .........great name eh. I think sweetcorn was used a lot as a food for poor folks, I love corn on the cob with garlic butter, but you dont see whole corn cobs for sale very often.

Now back to the butterflies........One of my fave tv programmes years ago was Butterflies, I reckon that Wendy Craig was very underated!..I cant embed the video, but just click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdEIWu4gT5g