Smiles

If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it. ~Andy Rooney

Some of the visitors that turn up in spring make me smile. We now have three bats that wizz around in the air above the garden, they make me smile. The toads have turned up too, I like them because they are a bit comical, however I become fearful that I will maim one whilst gardening ..AGAIN..

The swifts, swallows, or hirondelles call em what you will, always bring a big smile to my face, although they drive the dog crazy. woof, I look forward to their arrival.

The bluebells are opening, and the orchids are starting to push their way through.

The bank alongside our garden provides us with a show of pink orchides with spotted leaves. Like all the villages around here all the weeds (wild flowers) get strimmed by the men who are paid to keep the villages tidy. Although here they arrive with their strimmers after they have flowered. I took this picture last year before the strimmer arrived.

Voila une fleur my Roadside Orchide

But not all the things that turn up in spring make me smile, the darned ANTS are back indoors, this year in the bathroom!

The French word for smile is sourire.

The French word for ant is fourmi.

Etymology for the word smile.

Butterfly Brains

French Fancy wrote about loppers, uum I thought I made a brief start on my gardening last week maybe I should try and do some more today. I had been expecting rain all day and was surprised. A new Blogger (Lust in France) was off to spread muck on her other garden and so I was motivated.

Because I am a butterfly after about 15 minutes I often return to the house to work on my French. I have been choosing small articles from the newspaper and translating them, and then analysing the grammar in the articles too. Interesting to note that the articles always have a picture with them too, funny eh.

So far I have chosen an article about an up and coming local writer, from Fougeres, a restored Lavoir near Antrain, and the latest is about the THT lignes or tres haute tension. (Great big electricity Pylons). These Pylons will stretch all the way from Cherbourg up through Calvados and through the Ille et Vilaine and onwards through Mayenne. The local mayors who oppose these new lines have used their right to be heard in court.

I am such a blog hog that I use a small kitchen timer and when it goes off after 10 minutes I go back to my other chores..

Back in fifteen minutes...more strawberries to move!

Here is a picture of a butterfly taken last summer on our laurel hedge, its a fairly long hedge and shows signs of growing this years new coat.

Garden Visitor.

Oh and back to the newspaper articles, one of the reasons that I am analysing the French text is because I think that my brain may have been fluttering elsewhere when they taught English grammar!!..oops...or maybe I didn't go that day, I cant remember.

The French word for onwards is continuer.

The French word for passes through is traverser

Etymology for the word oppose

Monday back to Normal

The village is covered in confetti which was thrown yesterday, it became stuck onto everyone because of the rain. Paper flowered "trees" are dismantled and the quietness of the village returns. People are going back to work after the August holidays and all the publicity is "back to school", September is only around the corner. Even things in the garden have slowed down except for the courgettes....