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.