Up the road, afternoon

To stay out or return for tea? There is warmth in the sun, the landscape recedes inland in exquisite blue washes. It seems a shame to leave it out here...

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday).

The clods of the ploughed field are like concrete underfoot, and the frost still etches the shapes of bramble leaves in the hedges, and gnaws quietly at chin and nose.

Quessoy arboretum, late afternoon.

Deep winter light through lopped oaks' script, the river winding full between its sallow-sprung banks, peace and plenitude.

Why then, the mind's reaching out always for what will hurt it?

Up the road, morning, Boxing Day.

A salutory long walk, out to the coypu ponds, over the bent maize stalks, where the slim silvery beeches twist elegantly among the crustier oaks, the air cold and bright.

Down the road, afternoon.

Beyond the fog is a beautiful blue and gold sunny day. Its colours diffuse around us, but try as it might, it cannot pierce the chilly veil which masks it.

Down the road, late afternoon (Monday).

After the growing pressure of heat, aromas of baking, and crowding of surfaces in the kitchen, coming into the fresh open air is like taking the lid off a saucepan.

Up the road, early evening, winter solstice.

Unexpectedly, the rosy sky yields a long, low sunset from the brow of the hill, illuminating our faces theatrically; the cotoneaster glows redder red, the grey factory wall warm lilac.

Down the road, late afternoon.

Along the road, which is invisible in a fold in the land, a livestock lorry is travelling. Red and white, it is rectilinear, graphic, contrasting with the curving green fields.

St Brieuc, streets.

Moll is bunched up with uncertainty, a 'snow' machine billows out disturbing froth, but the smells are many and interesting, and she acquires a unfortunate taste for spat-out chewing gum.

Up the road, afternoon ( Thursday )

Marie is visiting her empty house. She congratulates us on good health, has forgotten everything I've told her, her children are all coming for Christmas, she calls us 'mes enfants'.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, late afternoon (Wednesday)

The water is so still, the pool is like a mirrored bowl, the trees, slopes buildings, slightly elongated, it seems, stand out more fine and clear in reflection than reality.

Up the road, afternoon

The camera was a mistake, I don't want to talk to the world that way. I need to walk into the low bright midwinter sun, turn the mind's eye inward.

Down the road, afternoon.

A blue fleece jacket and a fuzzy light brown scarf.

A colourless day and a chill north wind, which yet brings a curious olfactory illusion of orange peel and currants.

Up the road, afternoon.

I drag Tom out for his constitution's sake. He lacks much patience with Mol's sniffing preoccupations, but enjoys the cloud shapes, which, he says, really contain no ultramarine at all...

Down the road, late afternoon.

Next door's shabby red garage doors, the yellowing rendered wall and the momentarily blue sky beyond are raggedly reflected in the long roadside puddle into a muted tricoleur of primaries.

Up the road, late afternoon

The three large conifers next door are deep copper purple in the dusk. 2000, Jean planted them, when the pine blew down, and we spent New Year chopping it up.

Down the road, early evening.

From the hilltop the sun catches the chimneys, the topmost branches, floods blood-rose the overarching, overawing aeriel perspective of flaring cirrhus, jet-trails of angels.

We walk in shadow now.

Down the road, afternoon.

I went hunting lapwings with the camera, but they always whirl up and away before I can get close, which at least shows their black and white against the nutbrown fields.

Up the road, morning (Saturday)

A bright day, and the flocks of wintering larks forget themselves; individuals break away and climb high above the fields in broken circles, singing in staccato bursts, defying the season.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, late afternoon

Almost all my footwear is muddy, and I am lackadaisical about cleaning it. The paths here are all awash, and I add my smarter black boots to the muddied collection.

Woods behind Arondel, walking Moos with Mol, morning.

Among brown leaf mould, open golden palms of sycamore leaves. Low sun haloes roofs, trees, dogs. The world is beautiful and full of pain. I hate how trite that sounds.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, late afternoon.

Smoke from a fire higher up settles over the river, veils the surfaces with haze.

In the dusk a kingfisher on a branch, starts out over the water, insect blue.

Down the road, late afternoon.

The roadsides are like small streams. Mol seems happy to paddle, but we stay out no longer than necessary, and come home to the smells of woodsmoke and chicken stock.

Up the road, early evening, sky.

Veils lift smoking southward, pigeon-blue
and inland appears, flat cut-out layers.
Sunset gashes through just once, bleeds,
and cirrhus blazes a path out north,
toward the dirty pink escarpments there.

Up the road, afternoon.

We meet the handicapped ladies from Bel Orient, out walking.

" What are you getting for Christmas?" they ask Mol "A collar, a pullover?"

We agree a rainjacket would be handy.

Up the road, afternoon, Bel Orient.

How disheveled things look. Some washed-out hydrangeas, a last pink dahlia, the gunnera by the spring collapsing into itself.

A white flash as a rabbit starts up beside the beehives.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

The upside-down puddle world, the sunlight out beyond the shadow of the ridge I'm walking on, the pumpkin and chestnut and beetroot soups I'll make tomorrow, all cheer the spirit.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

The rain starts as we arrive, only eases as we are leaving, but I enjoy its trembling on the skin of the water, the disappearing sun reflected there in horizontals.

Up the road, late afternoon

A redwing in the walnut tree, the smell of woodsmoke. A cold northeasterly wind lashed rain down earlier, and will again, but now the light and air are crystal clear.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, midday.

I tear the darkened crust off the loaf of bread with chestnut flour I've bought, and chew it as we walk the muddy track until we reach the beech trees.

Up the road, late afternoon

Reacquainting; birch trunks scratched against winterwood, the bent tree form behind the old stone crucifix. Keening lapwings flock up from the brown field, flickering, swirl against the turning lilac sky.

Down the road, late afternoon.

The freshly ploughed fields are rich and dark and warm as chocolate, with charcoal trees, and some last specks and smudges of gold and russet leaves, green grass, white gulls.

Down the road, late afternoon.

Grey, windy and colourless, prematurely dusk, leaves and birds flit and twitter over the dark brown fields. The crooked chestnut tree on the corner is reduced to an armature again.

Up the road, afternoon.

I admire the kestrels' skill in hovering in this harsh, cold though southerly wind. Their wild wheeling flight seems exultant, but really it's a hard way to make a living.

Up the road, afternoon (Saturday)

I see two large thrushes duck out of Marcel Pincemin's holly tree, which is covered in clusters of fat red berries. There won't be many of those left for Christmas.

Woods behind Arondel, walking Moos with Mol.

If I were looking at these beech woods from down in the valley, as I often do, I wouldn't know a woman and two dogs were moving beneath their golden skin.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, afternoon.

I grew up among beech trees, and they are perhaps my favourites, I miss them rather. But here they are glorious, in russet and gold and reflected in the water.

Up the road, afternoon.

The curious, pale, waxy, unidentified fungi with the livid gills are pushing up through the dead grass and leaves in the hedgebanks. They go from convex domes to concave cups.

Up the road, late afternoon

The mares have gone from the paddock, and all that remains of the sweet-smelling apples in the orchard is ciderish sour pulp. The countryside is shutting up shop for winter.

Up the road, afternoon

Chaucer's aging winter sun, turning from gold to 'laitoun', weakened and alloyed, I am uncertain about. Rather its light seems to me more pure, like homeopathic tincture, strengthened by dilution.

Down the road, late afternoon.

Wet, cold, wet, cold, how do I get thirty words out of that? We run to the bottom of the field and back, duty done. November is itself, for sure.

Down the road, early evening.

I suddenly see the setting sun is turning the last of the maize into as mad a marigold as the pumpkin's flesh I'm scooping. We hurry out, almost too late.

Up the road, afternoon.

Alban's old vegetable garden has, since he died, been sown with phacelia and now grass. It is fenced as a paddock, and today, a solitary, heavily pregnant cow grazes there.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

Picking up coloured leaves, I hear several odd, hoarse-sounding squeaks from the ground nearby. Something invisible, tiny and fierce, probably mammalian, is trying to frighten me, and everso slightly succeeding.

Up the road, afternoon

The clocks back an hour, and the sun's warmth battles with the wind's cold, and mostly loses, but ah my foes and oh my friends it gives a lovely light!

Down the road, late afternoon (Sunday).

Near monochrome in drizzle, maize stalks bereft in mud crosshatched by harvester and tractors, an occasional gunshot further off, it is a bleak scene, and not one we linger in.

Woods near Pledran, by Gillian's (Saturday).

We with our oil black, white gold dogs kicking through banknote leaves, stooping to pick up chestnut copper coins tumbled from velvet-lined husks of purses, talking about our prospects.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

A solitary swallow flies in a wide arc overhead, doesn't linger, hurrying on to the southern hemisphere.

Brings a deep and startled wonder which I can't share, am losing already.

Up the road, afternoon.

Since heaven relocated elsewhere, or nowhere, we seem to ignore the landscape and drama of the sky; or perhaps they are simply too sublime to be described by earthbound language...

Up the road, afternoon.

Mounds and sacks of apples collected for cider in the small orchard at Bel Orient fill the air with perfume. A brown hen blackbird bobs away from them quickly, exclaiming.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A thick, flat drizzle settles into the evening; yellow leaves, the crab apples and marigolds in our garden glow through it only dimly. All we want is wine and supper.

Up the road, afternoon

I understood Holstein-Friesian bulls, and those of dairy breeds in general, to be aggressive. This one, however, ruminating with his girlfriends, seems quite placid. Nevertheless, I'm glad the electric fence is there...

Up the road, afternoon

My attention is drawn to Marcelle's spruce tree by a robin duelling mellifluously with another in the ash across the road.

Two tiny, enamelled goldcrests are flickering among the branches.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, morning.

The trees here grow on the steep slopes above and below the track, which gives a sense of walking both at their root level and high amongst their upper branches.

Down the road, late afternoon.

I squat on my haunches, take out the pad and pencil and try to draw the dead bark peeling from the electric fence post. Molly gives me about five minutes.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

The leaves floating on the water are specks of gold light suspended.

A cluster of mushrooms draws me over the wet grass, shoes and trouser bottoms slurp up the moisture.

Up the road, afternoon

Too warm in sandals and t-shirt.

A curly-headed Friesian bull rises reluctantly from his ruminations.

A family playing on swings; 'Coucou t'es haut!' the father calls rhythmically as he pushes.

Down the road, late afternoon.

We duck under the fence, cross the field and enter our goat willow plantation. I think I can't have been in here for about seven years. It has grown enormously.

Cesson beach, afternoon.

Two hours of anaesthesia to pass. Black crows on the white shell banks, oystercatchers and curlews at the striped sea's edge. We walk out to the water and touch it.

Up the road, afternoon.

There is no sun like October sun. It rests on my forehead like a blessing, and plays graceful shadows through thinning leaves. My light jacket grows too warm.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

More chestnuts. Molly and I have sore paws and fingers from the spines at this time of year. I photograph them, and their furry husks, then pocket them for later.

Charnier car park, St Brieuc.

Outside the music college, a slim woman takes a small, cream-coloured harp from her car, and leaves it standing momentarily alone on the grass among the fallen plane tree leaves.

Up the road, afternoon

A somewhat sooty smell from Marcel's chimney indicates their first fire of the winter. He and Anne sit side by side by the window, reading.

Marcelle gives me three walnuts.

Up the road, afternoon

Chestnuts are like seashells: I vow not to pick any up, but then I do.

A pocketful, two brown mushrooms found opposite the house, apple, onion, ham, rice, make supper.

Down the road, late afternoon.

It is wintry cold, and rainy. Some chestnuts are falling, it probably won't be a good chestnut year. I fancy a fire this evening, but we won't give in yet.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A brighter, kinder day than yesterday, the sun flashing off the ivied trunks and casting Hopkins' 'sandalled shadow' through the branches of the poplars.

The electricity cables beaded with starlings.

Down the road, late afternoon (Tuesday).

We go looking, but there are neither horse mushrooms in the valley, nor flat ones in the field, only corncobs raided and chewed by badgers, and a grey heron stalking.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

A single magenta rose clashing with the scarlet hips and yellowing leaves.

Someone has been kicking a puffball about.

A stand of maples going up in rare autumn flames.

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday)

Three jays with iridescent wings fly into the poplars, raucous as parrots and high on acorns.

Two young girls, blonde and brunette, with gamine smiles and bicycles, loiter somewhat mischievously.

Up the road, afternoon.

Upturned on a corrugated shed roof, an old enamel casserole, transfer-patterned with coloured vegetables.

A scrumped apple, sweetish on the red side, but dry with unripeness, the green side sour.

Lancieux sur Mer, Friday 26th.

Before lunch, the beach to ourselves.

After, sand-sails, kite-boards, kite-surfers, windsurfers with see-through sails like lace-winged flies.

A reunion, egg sandwiches, beach walking, and what we want, and what we're getting.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, mid-morning

Returning along the track, we see Emily and Moos coming towards us. 'She looks about 17, ' says my sister, just before Moos plants paw prints all over her jacket front.

Up the road, morning.

At Quengo, there is one new foal, though both mares are there. She has an off-centre blaze, one pink nostril, one brown, and pricks her ears warily toward Molly.

Langueux les Greves, Saturday.

White egrets stalk among the salty greens of the estuary. We walk the length of the track, and come down at Cesson. Far off, the seashell sound of the sea.

Up the road, late afternoon

A perfect golden September day. Marcelle, in a butter yellow sweater, bends in the evening sunlight, picking up hazelnuts. Hers are the best ones hereabouts, as all the fieldmice know.

Up the road, afternoon.

A clatter of wings, and nine partridges fly up and whirr across the stubble field, speckled brown and touched with red. Artificially introduced for shooting, happily some survive and breed.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

There is just enough of the right kind of windless rain to make an ever-changing pattern of discrete rings over the smooth surface of the water. It looks very pretty.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

The leafy canopy of ivy-covered oaks and beech is still so thick, the day so gloomy, that walking into some stretches of the path is like walking into twilit evening.

Up the road, afternoon.

Princeling is complimented on his beauty by people we meet, distracting from Molly's drastic haircut. She negotiates the pushchair better than before; he is asleep when we get home.

Woods near Pledran, by Gillian's.

The cliché resemblance between dogs and owners is here uncomfortably apt: one is blonde, rangy, elegant, of elevated origins, wildly delightful, the other small, oddly proportioned, grey-muzzled and rather maladroit...

Up the road, afternoon

I hear them ahead, and catch up with them in an overarching goat willow: half a dozen long-tailed tits flitting among the twigs, and a single blue tit keeping them company.

Down the road, late afternoon.

The smart gold crew cut of the stubble field now looks dingy beige and muddy. As we return, there is smoke coming from Josette's chimney. I feel a little envious.

Down the road, late afternoon.

The wind has blown whole leafy chestnut branches down onto the road, the pale, spiny-cased, unripe nuts still on them. It is chill, and blows Molly's ears inside out.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, morning.

The androgynous, slightly overweight, wary teenager I previously saw kayaking, whose slow, splashing paddling I envied, is today hunkered down among the weeds and grasses on the opposite bank, fishing.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Picking rosehips for jelly gives me a thorn in my thumb and some nettle stings round my ankles, but also a pleasant, elusive waxiness of propolis on my fingertips.

Up the road, afternoon

A clean, rain-rinsed world; pet black sheep in a paddock with a green plastic dog's bowl, a patch of boiled-sweet coloured dahlias, red, yellow, orange and purple, beside them.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, afternoon.

After the vet and vaccination, a woods and water walk treat. We go as far as Le Vieux Bourg, where they are dismantling yesterday harvest fete, the church is locked.

Up the road, afternoon

A ragged rolled back edge of cloud opens a window of sky, lighting the flat, pearly yellow and green shapes of hills and fields and hedges inland to the horizon.

Up the road, afternoon (Friday 29th): butterflies

Brown spotted dull gold on bramble leaf. Black-edged white on bright yellow hawksbit. Tiny china blue pulsing gravely on filigree white umbels. Lemon yellow brimstone on magenta sweet pea flower.

Down the road, evening (Wednesday 27th)

Cutting the wheat at last, yellowbrown straw heaped up in rows, the green block of the combine progressing patiently, Sylvain's blue-overalled form shadowy in the cab, the red tractor tending.

Up the road, afternoon. Two rare raptors in year, good going.

The swallows have cried wolf too long; when the hobby, known by its speed and dark slate plumage, shoots over the wheatfield, they barely have time to shout about it.

Up the road, afternoon, picking blackberries.

A brown butterfly sways sleepily on a ripe cluster, proboscis plunged into a soft berry, sucking dark juice. Alive for a season, lost in blissful drunkenness, I leave it in peace.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon (Friday)

Silhouetted in the topmost dead branch of an oak, a parent chaffinch is feeding a young bird. Their repeated bobbing, pecking and chirping gives them the air of clockwork automata.

Up the road, afternoon.

We complete the tour without rain, but it's growing gloomy. The handsome yellow flowers growing among the wheat are beginning to close, like shopkeepers at the end of the day.

Down the road, early evening.

A tractor bearing down behind us, we race to the corner, just for fun.

It is unseasonably chilly, and Molly wants to get back to Tom, we turn for home.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, evening.

I take a detour on the way home and make an extra tour of the pool. She's been so patient, and the calm water does us both good.

Down the road, evening

Low sun on wet road, powdering the treetops. Meeting the potato planters, who lament weather and carrot fly, running back too late not to get wet. A sudden, double-spectrum rainbow.

Up the road, afternoon, lane to la Tantouille.

We strike out across the field to the stream valley. A raucous cacophany of jays sounds quite unnerving, one might almost think a murder was being committed. Perhaps it is.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, late afternoon

Blackberries and rugosa rosehips, which are both plentiful, look tempting pickings, and make me think of 'jellies soother than the creamy curd'.

A few late fishermen loll on the benches.

Hill above Henon, afternoon.

In the woods, an old chestnut, with three trunks growing out nearly horizontal that curve elegantly upward. It is unusual to see one so large and growing so naturally here.

Up the road, afternoon. Language barrier?

A small boy cycles alongside me at Bel Orient. His speech seems to be odd expressions and pleasantries jumbled together largely unintelligibly, but giving an overall impression of sociable chitchat.

Apologies

Apologies for temporary absence, other matters taking priority. Back soon.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Eight fishermen, well spaced, mostly elderly, with chairs, a radio, meditative. A good number: enough to create a sense of calm animation, not so many as to overwhelm the place.

Up the road, afternoon

The unknown English owners of the Sad House, must have returned at last. Though glad to see shutters open and grass cut, I experience a slight panic at possible acquaintance...

Down the road, late afternoon.

After the rain, next door's plane tree shakes off drops like a wet dog. Bel-Air's radio towers are covered in rain cloud, and the wet wheat is brown as bread.

Down the road, evening

As we pass the wheatfield, something scutters away among the stems. It often happens at this spot, but I've yet to see what it is. I feel I'm being watched.

Up the road, evening.

I've chiselled half a square meter of wall for repointing, and swum for half an hour. The walk in the cooling evening air and lengthening shadows is the final tonic.

Lanes around St Igneuc, with Isobel, Pippa and Ilan

Usually Molly bobs around me freely within the radius of her extending lead. With two other adults and a pushchair, I have to dart around them to avoid entanglement.

Morieux, afternoon.

The beach was a nice idea, but the seaweed pollution makes walking horrible. Two dogs were said to have died from fumes from it recently; we give up, turn back.

Up the road, afternoon.

I enjoy a few just ripe blackberries. Many are sour, a few sweet, some tantalizingly out of reach; my mother used to hook them down with a curved walking stick.

Down the road, evening (making up for lost time)

In the field under the overhanging buddleia, a red admiral rests, bobbing lightly, on a barley head. A woodpigeon clatters out of the chestnut tree, and the butterfly starts upward.

Up the road, morning.

The sky patchy and misty, a cool grey morning, then in the distance a streak of sun, as if a rubber, or dodge tool, had been dragged across the scene.

Pause - rather more than 30 words.

I'm putting this blog on hold for a little while. I'm going away for a few days, which unfortunately has coincided with Mol looking like she's got further ear trouble, which is a worry; she'll stay here with Tom. I hope we'll be out again before long.

Up the road, morning.

The three triangles of a fox's face peep out from behind a heap of straw. It races away between the yellow ridges, then turns and leaps in waves over them.

Hillion peninsular, afternoon (with Gillian and Barley, Friday)

A kestrel circles and hovers so low above us we can see every feather.

The largest swathe of corn marigolds I've ever seen.

The dogs plod and pant and paddle.

Up the road, evening.

Suddenly, and even late in the day, it's very hot, summer's back again. Nearly home, we pause in the shade of the plane tree next door, and welcome the coolness.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Out in the water is an outflow, which gurgles continuously, and where enough matter has silted up to let grass grow. A black-headed gull stands on this small island proprietorially.

Down the road, afternoon.

What a bleached and faded world it is, with the whitening wheat and barley, the ladies' bedstraw and white clover lining the roadsides, everything looks as if drawn in chalks.

Up the road, afternoon.

Dozy after a lazy day and a nap, I slowly recover and feel the benefit; the world seems full of possibility, the sea in the distance very visible and blue.

Up the road, afternoon.

The broad leaves of maize rustle and rub against each other in an imperceptible breeze. It gives me a persistent suspicion they are whispering about me as I go by.

Down the road, evening

A host of swallows whirl and dip like leaves, telling lies about sparrowhawks and landing to pick up mud from Antoine's bulb patch. They're building a nest in our garage.

Down the road, afternoon.

Working my fingers into the earthed-up ridge at the edge of the field, I scrump a couple of potatoes. Unnecessary but fun. They'll go with the peas from the market.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Though around the lake is mown, and the reedmace cleared against coypu, the slope beyond is left rough, a wonderful, intricate tapestry of yellow, brown and purple weeds, including reedmace.

Up the road, afternoon

Much of the beauty at this time lies in the fine linework: the beards of barley, nodes of knapweed, thistles, the branching and rebranching of compound umbels against the sky.

Up the road, afternoon

We take refuge from a shower in the school bus shelter. I try, unsatisfactorily, to compose a ghazal couplet, but later decide to drop an idea from another poem, satisfactorily.

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday).

Tom comes along with us, experiencing a fresh air deficit. We put the world, and the garden, theoretically to rights, and look around less than I do on my own.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

This has become quite a dark tunnel now. We skirt the edge of a hayfield overlooking the town, where small groups of brown gatekeeper butterflies are starting to flutter upwards.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

July is an inert and characterless month, I reflect, then start enjoying the baked gold of the grasses, speckled and bejewelled with purple and yellow flowers and brown seed heads.

Cesson beach, afternoon, with Gillian and Barley (Thursday)

The sand is grey and slippery, marbled with watercourses. We paddle about ineptly; I fall over, Gillian cowers at the thunder. We take the cliff path, and get quite wet.

Down the road, afternoon.

The wheatfields beside the road have alot of barley mixed in; it is taller and hairier than the wheat, and give the field a disheveled look, like a bad haircut.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

'the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder...'

It must rain soon.

Scent of rugosa roses, buddleia, and cut grass drying, a frog croaks at the water's edge, warm breezes.

Down the road, morning, very early (Monday 30th)

The sun's bright copper globe is momentarily cloaked as it rises in a mist of its own making.

By the time we turn around, the light is clear and golden.

Up the road, afternoon.

I sit cross-legged on the dry earth between the maize rows writing. There's little sign of mirabel fruit in the hedge, only young pale green soft hazelnuts, and bramble flowers.

Down the road, afternoon.

I look and look in the direction of the sound, but can't see the skylark, only specks in front of my eyes. Finally I glimpse it, dropping down the maizefield.

Up the road, evening.

I wear my new sandals I'm supposed to be saving for best, so I can admire my toenails, newly painted dark brown, they look like chocolate dragees, or ladybird spots.

Up the road, afternoon.

Marcelle's garden reminds me of A A Milne's dormouse 'who lived in a bed/Of delphiniums blue and geraniums red', without the geraniums, but the delphiniums are surely very blue...

Down the road, afternoon.

Marie is tending Pierre's deserted garden, weeding the roses.

The mown hayfield is clean and dry, I lie down there for a little. Molly eats grass, telling me she's hungry.

Up the road, afternoon; flora.

Foxgloves still; white campion, blue scabious like licquorice allsorts; constellations of tiny white stonecrop, with pink, fleshy leaves on the seams of micro-granite in the roadside banks; lesser stitchwort, yarrow.

Up the road, afternoon.

It's briskly blowy and surprisingly warm, as much like August as Midsummer. The yellowing barley looks like it's been drawn with pastels; two kestrels are out on a training flight.

Woods near Pledran, by Gillian's.

A small flock of free-roaming goats skipping over rocks and between the trees, giving a feel of being elswhere.

Molly and Barley up to their elbows in the stream.

Down the road, evening

Something macabre I hadn't noticed before in Pierre's old garden: the decapitated head of a garden gnome grins vacantly from the foot of the birdbath, the body nowhere in sight.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Molly disappears into the thicket behind my bench, and I hear splashes and crackles from within. She emerges wet-legged and pleased with herself. I didn't know there was water there.

Down the road, afternoon.

The thistly field has been mowed, a buzzard flutters lumberingly over it.

The goldfinches feed on forget-me-not seeds in Pierre's deserted garden, where I pick a handful of sour strawberries.

Up the road, afternoon.

A buzzard hectored by magpies and crows skulks in a stand of trees. It emerges and hovers, a ponderous, heavy, slowmo version of a kestrel, but without the falcon's stoop.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Two fishermen, father and son perhaps, out early. One rod is the metallic blue-green of a damsel fly, its orange float hangs disembodied among the reflections in the glassy water.

Shopping in Langueux (Friday)

We walk in the arboretum on the way home.

An artist I saw setting up in the morning beside the road, has finished his picture, of the Moncontour ramparts, and disappeared, leaving it on its easel to be admired.

Up the road, afternoon.

A sudden chatter and three goldfinches, crimson faces, black and yellow wings, flutter up from the deep purple thistles. Thistles are against the byelaws, but nobody's told the goldfinches that.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Almost every flower of the rugosa roses seems to contain a honey or small bumble bee, wallowing and tumbling drunkenly in pollen, buzzing higher and higher in their ecstasy.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

A green woodpecker's elongated form, more gold than green against the background of trees, rises and dips, then cackles mockingly. The water goes about its business.

The elderflowers are bounteous.

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday)

How bright the day is! Blue blue sky, the undersides of leaves flashing in the wind, oxeye daisies beaming from banks and verges, the always changing corn in the fields...

Down the road, afternoon.

Prospecting for elderflowers, we cross a new-mown hay-field. The elderflowers are unpromising, but we enjoy the hay-field: its sweet smell and sliding texture under my feet, Molly leaping and bounding.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

The foxgloves are rioting under the elderflowers. It seems to me almost incredible such flowers should grow wild in this part of Europe, they seem so impossibly large and exotic.

Île de Bréhat, all day.

We walk from the Port in the south to the lighthouse in the north, on a daft non-treasure hunt. Mol walks like a trooper. We are happy and oh-so tired!

Up the road, afternoon.

I sit against the chain link of the poultry orchard, scribbling on an old shopping list I've found in my pocket.

Two partridges whirr up from the young maize field.

Down the road, late afternoon.

After a late night, short sleep and idle day, frowsting, reading and dozing, we don't go far and walk slowly. But the moist air is refreshing as a cool damp flannel.

Down the road, afternoon.

Victor has surrounded his tomato plants with old windows. We did something similar once and found the whole crop succumbed to blight, but Victor probably remembers to use Bordeaux mixture.

Woods above Moncontour, afternoon.

Springs have sprung from nowhere, much of the path has become streambed, for which I'm illshod. It's often a choice between wet feet or nettle-stung arms, but I avoid both.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

The emerging reed-mace heads are gorgeously grotesque. These are not bulrushes, and Moses wasn't found in them. Neither was he found in bulrushes, but in yellow flags, which are something else again.

Above Arondel, evening; Moos with Mol.

The dogs, stand-offish and disinclined earlier, are eager and bounding in the cool evening, turning to look at me through the long grass with fey white grins in black shaggy faces.

Down the road, afternoon.

The verges have been mown back by about a metre. I miss the luxuriance of grasses and flowers, but it is safer for walking and driving, and it smells good.

Up the road, afternoon

The sky is lively, full of light and form and movement, the young, pale green barley rippling silkily below is beautiful. And yet the whole seems melancholy.

Must be me.

Up the road, afternoon

Down the edge of the field with the mirabel hedge, the soil feels soft underfoot like beach sand near a river mouth, slightly treacherous. Tiny maize plants poke through it.

Woods behind Arondel, walking Moos with Mol (Saturday 24th)

The woods are so wet I feel I could pick them up and squeeze out water smelling of elderflower, crushed nettle, pine and wild carrot.

The dogs drink from the gravelly stream.

Up the road, afternoon (Friday 23rd)

There is late apple blossom still on some of the trees. If apple trees didn't yield useful fruit, there would be a case for having them simply for their blossom.

Down the road, evening (Thursday 22nd)

The sun going down the sky behind us is warm on my back; I saunter, yawning.

The shape of a cumulus cloud to the north reminds me of a brioche.

Down the road, evening

A corner shaved off the maize field is planted with potatoes.

One year, the cows stretched under the fence and chewed the tops off, which, surprisingly, are harmless to them.

Up the road, afternoon

Johannes, a Dutch visitor, cycles wobblingly alongside us for a time, talking fondly of dogs and children, their emotions and relationships.

A pansy-faced cat watches us from fallow long grass.

Down the road, afternoon.

Not cow parsley here but sorrel softens the verges, shaded saffron and coral and madder red, undergrown with buttercups, and bold accents of hairy, vaulted, white-faced hogweed umbels above.

Up the road, afternoon; Bel Orient

The little dogs lie in wait,
Tikes and mongrels, chiens bâtards,
Chained or at liberty, some wearing neckerchiefs,
They rush out with volleys of barking,
Bandits with nothing to steal.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon (Friday)

A small red tractor is mowing the grass around the mairie. The smell has always put me in mind of bananas; I've heard there is some molecular reason for this.

Up the road, afternoon - The garden at Boissy (Thursday)

His garden was a prizewinning, much-visited wonder; when his wife left he laid it waste with glyphosate and went to Tunisia. An absent English couple own it now, I gather.

Up the road, afternoon

Marcel's hedge of purple rhododendron alternating with philadelphus is beginning to flower. The kindly perfume of the latter, mixed with the bitterness of box hedges, is a memory of childhood.

Down the road, evening; childhood ghoulishness revisited.

You loop the dark-headed, lacey-ruffed plantain flower's tough lower stalk around its tender neck, and oop-la! decapitate it with a flick.

'Mary Queen of Scots had her head chopped off!'

Down the road, evening

Across the sky from the sunset, a long line of mounded cloud, toplit pink, valleys and hills: the Elysian Fields, we would have said, where the little winged horses lived...

Down the road, evening

Everything glows: bright yellow broom and buttercups, and greenfinch wings which break from a dereliction of forget-me-nots, pale redgold sorrel roadsides, the misty exhalation of spring wheatfield. May is exploding.

Walking elsewhere

We shall be absent until the weekend, walking elsewhere.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Ragged robin, a type of wild dianthus, feathery pink beside the water, is one of my favourite late spring flowers, and one I always forget about until it appears again.

Up the road, afternoon; Bel Orient

Four small horse chestnuts -
Conkers from a couple of autumns back
Gloss gone matt, pushed into earth
In black flower pots
Then half-forgotten,
Open their palms,
Made generous by spring.

Hillion peninsular, out with Gillian and Barley

Black dog and cream, in a cheerful truce, flow down the cliffside steps made from railway sleepers. Three hours walking, salty and smelly, happy as sand-pigs, time to go home.

Up the road, afternoon

Blue: speedwell, bluebell, forget-me-not, alkanet, and the underside of rain clouds on the other side of the sky from the sun, a different blue from the sky between the clouds.

Up the road, afternoon

The buzzard's nest has become invisible among the new foliage. I've lost the chance to photograph the bird lifting off, its raptor thighs outstretched, from the thickened mass of twigs.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

A rabbit, two ducks and a heron make off at our appearance. I regret our intrusion. The ducks circle, quacking, then return. We take the upper path to avoid them.

Up the road, afternoon

The sky steals the drama: luminous heaped clouds, upswept flares, rainy smears, cerulean between, a swatch of rainbow. Yet the jewelled gold-green land still plays out a fine supporting role.

Up the road, and down towards la Tantouille, afternoon

The ploughed clay soil is chopped and tossed in irregular chunks, their flat, planes slick and smooth, catching the light and bristled here and there with stray tufts of grass.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

The floating flowers I can't name seem to grow more abundantly around the water's edge every year. Tiny, white with yellow centres, standing delicately proud of the surface, something fairylike.

Down the road, evening

The sky is so thickly plotted and pieced with the torn strips of jet trails, that a flash of real cirrus hides like a wildflower in a bed of cultivars.

Plan d'eau, Dinan, last thing.

A quick run around the plan d'eau, then a town walk.

In the garden, last thing, a smell of wood smoke - someone has a fire still - and a skimming meteorite.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

I sit on my coat on the damp bench in the sun, absorbing the water and sunlight. They freshen and air the spirit, smoothing out some of the doubtful creases.

Bon Abri, Hillion peninsular, afternoon.

We go to the beach collecting photographs, though it is misty and flat. We collect a lot of sand and take it back to the car (the old one, happily).

Down the road, late afternoon.

In the distance, against the grey fog, the black and white cows make their way homeward down the road, looking forward, I imagine, to a warm and companionable milking shed.

Down the road, afternoon.

After the rain, the light makes the land and sky look like painting by numbers: flat, discrete areas of bold colour.

In the corner of a field, bright cobalt bluebells.

Up the road, afternoon. I like Marcelle.

"Always with your camera." said Marcelle

"One never knows." I reply

" True. If you don't have it and you see something, then you say 'if only I had my camera!' "

Down the road, afternoon.

Walking briskly, just to the corner, rain all day. I'll light a fire when we get in; a bright fire on a cold wet spring evening is a cheery thing.

Streets of Lannion, lunchtime.

Mol is in holiday mode, pounding the pavements and sniffing the corners of a strange town, sitting patiently under a restaurant table to be fed tidbits, from Tom, not me.

Up the road, afternoon

North facing on the watershed, we're the last to know about spring, first to say goodbye to autumn.

Only now, a single cherry flower passes it along, she's heard something...

Up the road, afternoon

'Golden girls and lads all must
As chimney sweepers come to dust'

is all about dandelions. Their jolly yellow heads turn to chimney sweeps' brushes, then blow away as dust.

St Igneuc, afternoon

Iso and Ilan and Athos and Pippa and Molly and I all went walking. The wind was chill, but baby and dogs were snug and warm in their fluffy coats.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

We hurry round in the chilly air having dropped off the garagist, regardless of floating flowers and spring leaves, eager to get back to admire the new shiny silver arrival ...

Up the road, afternoon,10 x 3

Marcel's purple aubretia,

Crabtree in leaf,

Layers of landscape,

Oaks still bare,

Tractor spraying wide,

Oddly ordered cattle,

Indolent red bull,

Two yellow plants,

Faraway blue sea,

Walking into April.

Woods above Moncontour, morning.

I walk hard, without pausing, to the closed Chapel. We sit briefly, touch the stones, return, short of time. Light, air, water, calm slightly the annoying chatter in my head.

Down the road, afternoon.

An anomalous burst of sunlight causes the eolians on the plain below to stand out like six strange angels, the grain silos like the celestial city. A kestrel hangs above.

Up the road, afternoon

The oddity of grains of snow falling on spring flowers out of a sunny sky. If what they say is true, the Inuit must surely have a word for it.

Up the road, afternoon

My very large neighbour Josette and her quite large dog Dolly chug towards me in her very small voiturette, and stop. They are, I learn, looking for a lost cat.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

A tranquil place, though not quiet. The sounds of water pouring over rock, a low hum of traffic in the valley, thushes, blackbirds, robins, a woodpecker's yaffle, an onomatapoeic chiffchaff...

Woods above Moncontour, afternoon.

A carnage of tree felling affords a wealth of photographs.

A small plaque on a stick in a slough of mud announces the obvious - 'boue'.

Anemones, celandine, periwinkles, primroses, violets.

Up the road, evening (after the change of hour).

Late light evenings, after-dinner walks, compensate for pre-dawn starts again. The air is cooling, thickened with birdsong; we sniff and look at and listen to the world around us contentedly.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

Over my head, and the sound of running water, a blackcap, or whitethroat, is singing. I strain to see it, but just catch its movement away into the broom thicket.

Up the road, afternoon

Into wind and rain, Molly walks close, to heel like a well-trained dog, licking rain off her nose. I notice a tuft of grey on the back of her head.

Down the road, late afternoon.

The wind is rough and rude and noisy. Except for the willows, most of the trees are sagely holding back their leaves. Our third walk today, we keep it short.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

Boxer dog, white with a black eye patch and red lead, is clearly a worry to his owners. Ill-shod, they take the muddier path, avoiding us. I feel unwarrentedly guilty.

Up the road, afternoon

Throat weirdly sore, I don't feel right. No matter; the sky is mostly blue and the sun has shone today. The birds are singing for real and not against adversity.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

I stand listening to the rain on the hood of my coat and watching the dappled circles it makes on the surface of the water. Years fall away from me.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon, on the way to Isobel's.

The bumpy car-park brings all the warning lights on. A precautionary backtracking to the garage, where battered BX drinks three cans of oil. We consider her eventual demise and replacement.

Up the road, afternoon,10 x 3

Eluding the rain
Rusty wicket gate
Leeks, bolted cabbages
Damp, disconsolate windflowers
Drab green pines
Veiled, luminous horizon
Faraway, brilliant fragments
Renewal of wonder
Landscape loved again
Raindrop ringed puddles.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A football nestles in the grass under the tree next door, looking like a silver plastic fungus. It's been there for months. There's a gold one a little further off.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

Swallows, the first. Two quick, blueblack shapes amid the hailstones over the broken water. I wonder where they are going, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Iona?

Lion and lamb, March tears itself apart.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A blast of late, low sun silvers the road, turns the treetops from burnt umber to sulphur yellow, lime green, brick red, then passes, and they return to umber again.

Up the road, afternoon

I chat with my neighbour; we agree on a sense of grievance. Fellow-feeling is a wondrous thing, on learning someone else feels aggrieved, I immediately feel less so, and better.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, late afternoon

East wind thin and cold, I hug my jacket to me. Before long the sandmartins will be here. I think to myself how good that lemon tart from Tartapain was!

Up the road, afternoon

Reproachful, self-piteous, lugubrious as the day - stop scowling at the ground so!

Force up chin and brows, breathe.

Hear, then see the first bumble bee, there, on the flowering currant.

Up the road, afternoon

Tom comes too, we walk briskly. The air is like a glass of water, the low sunlight gleams off slate roofs in the distance. We reach home before the rain.

Down the road, late afternoon. Change of plan.

We set off to walk as far as we can before Tom picks us up in the car to go to friends'. The heavens open and we race back, soaked.

Up the road, afternoon

The sun is making the fields emerald green in the distance. My mind is skittering off all over the place and I can't develop anything. Alas, sometimes it's like that.

Down the road, afternoon (in the car on the way into town)

A hen harrier, startlingly black, grey and white, floats across the fields ahead of us, stirring up the skylarks. I've not seen one hereabouts for years, and never this close.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, mid-morning / Down the road, late afternoon. Two short ones.

1) From the troubles of the world I turn to daffodils. It works quite well.

2) Though cloudy here, below, in the plain, wind turbines, water towers and grain silos shine whitely.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

Wet windy weather, the puddles aspire to be lakes, the lake a small sea, waves lapping. Trees roar and daffodils bob anxiously, up the hill a polytunnel's covering cracks angrily.

Up the road, afternoon

In sunlight in his window, old Marcel is reading maps.

Football in Plemy, I hear but don't see the action.

The air washed clean by rain, wellies make puddles fun.

Down the road, late afternoon.

In the grey drizzle, skeins of electric blue bailer twine hang on fence posts, the brightest thing in sight. They're there for herding cows, who also see them as electric.

Cesson beach, afternoon.

A lovely, long, light-filled beach walk with Rosie and Porridge. Porridge started white, romped and rolled, and finished sandy grey. Proud of Molly, who plodded and sploshed with good heart.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

A lifeless, lightless Lenten day. Even a snowy magnolia flowering on the corner fails to draw me to it. My thoughts and I don't really want to come out today.

Up the road, late afternoon (4th March)

The light is bright and clear and facetted as diamonds, but the wind is sharp and sudden as broken glass. We turn into it, returning to chop wood and vegetables.

Down the road, late afternoon.

Hail slush still lies amongst the grass. I suggest going a little further, but Molly protests strongly. It is too cold and too close to (her) dinner time. She wins.

Down the road, lunchtime

A quick turn to the second bend between the showers.The air is warm and wet, and the skylarks have suddenly all woken up and are, at heaven's gate, singing.

Collegiale de Notre Dame, Lamballe, morning.

A morning of silvered sunlight, muted shadow and silhouette
Of stones and trees absorbs
The child, his father and his tricycle.
Some times like this I remember
Why I'm here.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

The water is black and white ripples under an offwhite sky. Two boys see how far they can throw stones into it. Fish zig and zag just under the surface.

Up the road, afternoon

In puddles on smooth ground, the oval depressions in the spongey soles of my trainers act like suction cups. I stamp my heels hard to give the road smacking kisses.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, mid-morning

A derelict house below is being re-roofed: principles, purlins, rafters and batons, bright yellow new wood against old grey stone amongst winter trees. Always good to see a ruin revived.

On the way to the watermill, Guettes-es-Lievres, afternoon.

Little girl in a pink coat edges along the railings, feet in and out, balancing. I remember doing this, imagining it could be a daring act a life depended on ...

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

The young trees are meagre, twiggy, nondescript, yet their carefully labelled names can carry you to faraway lands, to groves filled with colour and mystery and the spirits of long-departed botanists.

Down the road, afternoon.

A sunny afternoon indoors with knitting and a film, but I regret nothing. A sparse, languid rain is setting in; the poplars are lacey and lightly coppered with leaf buds.

Down the road, late afternoon.

We come across our former neighbour, putting up a fence for his sister, who rounds the corner pushing a wheelbarrow. We fall restfully into talking of the matter in hand.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

I spend a lot of time poring over rocks and rotten wood, moss, stone pennywort and acorn cups, dead hydrangea bracts, foxglove shoots, dried bracken fronds.

Mol is reasonably patient.

Down the road, late afternoon; avis specere

Mistle thrush in the seventh oak, flies to the fourteenth, sings again.

Three fraying vees of lapwings, high and purposeful, returning home? I wish them luck over lonely northern seas.

Down the road, afternoon.

A soft, muted day now, with birdsong sounding thick and indistinct. I look over my shoulder, and see Tom who has decided to join me. Smiles and tail wagging ensue.

Up the road, afternoon

By Bel Orient, a marron-coloured bull grazes among the pied and spotted cows, who, of a sudden, lift their heads, and, unbidden, make towards the milking sheds.
He follows amiably.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

Joe, I'd call a friend of mine,

Is partial to a celandine.

I searched, but though last week saw many,

Now, after frost, found hardly any!

( Saw some speedwell though ... )

Up the road, afternoon

A young man, burly, crop-headed, kit-bag, jeans and loafers, walking the back road. Cheerful, face open to sun and wind, he has the air of one just dropped off, returning.

Down the road, late afternoon.

I've left my hat and gloves behind, and the east wind bites at my hands and face.

Two crows convene casually to mob a kestrel, then go on their way.

Down the road, late afternoon.

Cold still, but now the sharp, rayless disc of the sun slices through the fog. Low colour floods the world again, a world without form, but shape and line only.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning / Quessoy arboretum, afternoon; two for one.

Trédaniel a.m.

A misty, frosty morning, the water is smoke and mirrors. I can't believe my eyes.

Arboretum p.m.

I'm wearing new, stronger, glasses. The ground looks much closer, I feel much shorter, dwarvish.

Down the road, late afternoon.

We sit companionably on a dead tree's bones in the valley. I wonder afresh at this natural sculpture, its small worlds and familiar faces. Giving in, I take a photograph.

Up the road, afternoon

The lapwings remain, but mirabelles are venturing to blossom, when even blackthorn would be early. The bare trees seem as if surprised by their own leaflessness in the warm sunlight.

Up the road, afternoon

To cross the muddy field to the coypu pond,

I wear walking boots, not trainers. Their rigidity, the odd way they hold my feet, niggle persistently.

Arch supports might help.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

A day like warm April, with music where
Springs through blasted granite
And over moss make tiny, sunless, singing
Waterfalls, and a hesitant mistle thrush's solo.

Galaxies of lesser celandines.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, mid-morning

We meet an enormous labrador puppy who has clearly been swimming. His polar bear coat stands up in stiff points, and he shakes out a shower of water and happiness.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon, and following

High water between the alders, yellow dust off grey-green catkins.

Tea outside with buff Orpingtons and friends.

Homeward, trees cross-hatched black on old rose and Persian blue, the land violet.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon

The dark girl with the pushchair has heels like daggers, toes like spears, a little check skirt cut on the cross.
Tranquil, she picks and perambulates over the sodden ground.

Up the road and over the field, afternoon

The two old sisters bend my ear, the severed wood catches the camera's eye. I've still to shower and change my clothes, we don't walk far.

Somewhere, I hear curlews.

Up the road, late afternoon

The rip of a chainsaw, Victor is cutting down the last of these trees.

A line of writing erased, the treeline of home altered.

A Binsey Poplars, Bonny Portmore moment.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, mid-morning

" Stay!!!" I scream.

Mercifully she does, though panicking towards the busy road.

I careen on my backside down the embankment she can't climb.

Horror averted, I shake for some time.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A cold high wind, the scrawny trees sing and dance, the grass ripples and shivers. A flock of starlings blown about the fields scatters along the skyline like iron filings.

Up the road, late afternoon

I keep to the top road and the setting sun. I am drawn home by pintade with pink onions, garlic, pak choi, and roast potatoes, and 'Persuasion' on the telly.

Up the road, late afternoon

Walking quickly, for a dirty net curtain of rain menaces from the back hills, though momentarily the aeoliens on Bel-Air stand out whitely in the sun, whirling triskells on stalks.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, mid-morning

The cordonnier hasn't finished mending my red boots. I kill time at the fishing pond: a primrose, periwinkles, and acid green leaves emerging from the spiny grey rugosa rose stems.

Down the road, late afternoon.

A lazily whorling vortex of gulls is sharply, prettily white against the lively green of the pasture in the evening light.

The harsh, anaerobic odour of slurry tells me why.