Sunday 10 April 2011

Freight Train, freight train.....

A tad cloudy today for the most part. Temps lower than (I'm fast getting used to) usual. About 18 to 20 degrees at most.  And the bleeding mice - Moulots - large, pretty field-mousey things, have found the recently planted Beans!  Hopefully, they might have moved on - though, free food, easy to collect from underground, is likely to prove irresistible to the boogers, I fear!

All was well yesterday evening when I watered the two beds, Peas & Beans respectively. This afternoon when I returned, after a couple of hours out to collect my Skyplus digibox-thingy for Freeview radio primarily, the sods had been in action and gone. The only sign of their attack being their subterranean, mole-like, raised trails in the topsoil:





God knows how many seeds they've scoffed - tricky to tell, without digging the plot over again!  Boogers!

I took J to the rail station in Poitiers yesterday afternoon. She was letting the train take the strain on her journey to London: Poitiers to Paris, Metro across the capital, then Eurostar to St Pancras. Loaded with wine, of course. 'Twas a heavy load! Should possibly have been freight-trained.

En route to Poitiers we passed this wonderfully French used gate emporium. It's actually an ironworks where they also make these confections but there is always a great and interestingly baroque selection of used ornate metalwork propped up outside the works:

It could only be France:




They do have a sort of appeal, I feel. Though you'd want a rather grand place to erect them.  

I drove off from Poitiers rail station with J's baguette - bought for a rail-time picnic - on the roof of the car. Not ideal, to say the least.  As I rounded a bend I heard a slithering noise on top, looked in my mirrors and saw the loaf slide from my vehicle onto the bonnet of a too-fast, French boy racer, in his gleaming, red Alfa Romeo. It then skittered out of sight towards the gutter.  It couldn't have caused any damage to the Italian car, as the driver didn't try to pull me up; he didn't even flash his lights, hit the horn (very unFrench) or overtake and pull me to the roadside to grumble. Perhaps he was just too surprised. Or worried about how to express his rage to a Swede - the car is still Swedish registered and on Sweedle plates.

Charlie is back on form. He feasted a la mode on Lapin in the night, leaving the rear bits - legs, haunches and scut - behind on the bedroom floor. Very thoughtful, I' m sure. Maybe he left it for Jack or me, thinking we might fancy a bit of baby-rabbit stew for a change.  I chucked it out for the scavenging birds. No doubt a Buzzard or Crow of some kind would be more than happy to have it.

The Cuckoos arrived a few days ago and now they are chirrupping away noisily all day, together with the 'Hup, hup, hup...' of the Hoopoes who also turned up a few days ago. They are really rather pretty, striking birds and come in considerable numbers to this region. One flew over as J and I were having lunch a day or so ago. They are always a pleasure to see, though the only time I've ever seen the headcrest open is when they fly in fast and land on a tree-branch. When they do this and stop suddenly, they have little control over the head-dress which seems to flip forward and open, almost before they can stop it or themselves.






2 comments:

  1. friends who have a home in Brittany as well as Wales don't just return with wine. They also return here with coffee....Carte Noir in France is a different, much nicer blend than you get here under the same name!

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  2. Hi Gwynneth,

    We used always to take coffee back to Uk, when we, too, had a holiday place in Brittany. Now we just don't bother. Though you are right about the quality, I'd say.
    What do your friends think of Breton? - Welsh by any other name, it seemed to me, with an admittedly very basic Welsh vocab!

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