Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, afternoon.

Three cheery men are busy with cutting up the mossy old beech tree, destroyed by fungus. The logs pile up in fresh creamy chunks in a red metal tractor trailer.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, morning.

The water is dense and mild and soothing. We hop about on the path to avoid the waterlogging.

I turn on engine and heater, and sit and write three haiku.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, afternoon.

High wild water, and the millwheel broken and giving in. Purple alder catkins hang from the black cones of last year; what a tree that has both cones and catkins!

D1 out of St Brieuc, afternoon.

An enormous flock of seagulls whirl over a wide sloping field. They give the impression of being both black and white, as they turn to and fro in the light.

Down the road, afternoon.

Head bandaged up like a casualty of war, Mol swings along cheerfully nevertheless.

A lone brambling, or perhaps chaffinch, calling indignantly, flies out of the chestnut tree on the corner.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon ( Tuesday )

Two black-headed gulls float on the dark still water like ducks, seeming to be motionless, though they have reached the other side in the space of a minute or two.

Up the road, afternoon.

The same kestrel, in a flat and disconsolate grey sky. Two crows encroach into its orbit, and it wheels across the road, stooping to the ground in the further field.

Up the road, afternoon.

The kestrel hangs in the ripped, quicksilver-bleeding, smoking sky, pushing into the wind.

Have they yet dissected, replicated that tiny skull and falcon eye, to find out how it sees?

Retail park, Langueux

Plastic shreds, cigarette butts, mangled chainlink, soiled,sullen human waste, rabbit- and dogshit, bright red plastic fire hydrant, leafbuds on flowering cherries, finch and gull flocks from fields and sea.

Plémy, afternoon.

We drive to the village to offload the overflowing quantities of recyclables. The top of the church spire is touching the clouds, becoming faint and misty, like a Welsh hilltop.

Down the road, afternoon.

I thought Mol might be indisposed for a walk, but she launches into it brightly.

The heaps and mounds of candy-floss cumulus clouds are back, the sky is itself again.

Up the road, afternoon.

The hilltop pine trees have been heavily trimmed, piles of branches and an inviting crop of pine cones lie on the ground. Molly puts up five partridges from the field.

Langueux les Greves, Saturday afternoon.

Older couples walking, some heavily equipped photographers, a sparrowhawk raking a field of wintering finches, ice and salt patterns on the beachs, egrets in the frozen marsh drains, nine goldfinches.

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

The big old beech tree with the mossy hide and thinning leaves, which sprung an alarming crop of fungus all around its roots earlier this year, has now been felled.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, morning.

The springs which run down over the rocks of the old rail cutting from the fields above have formed the most extraordinary array of icicles, some even building upwards like stalagmites.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon (Monday)

The pool has deep ice on it , covered with a skim of fluid water, with objects embedded in it. It seems surreal, like I am walking through a still photograph.

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday)

A slightly milder air, and softer going underfoot. Silvery sky rather than rosy gold, this still, peaceful, frozen time is coming to an end. Doubtless the birds are glad of it.

Up the road, afternoon (Saturday)

A field away, a man in bleu de travail overalls attends to his woodpile. The simple clarity of the blue in the rosy light and against the green fields is appealing.

Down the road, afternoon.

The pieces of windblown ice the frost covered the trees with in the morning have dropped during the day, but not melted. They lie on the ground like transparent woodshavings.

Returning from Henon

The chatter of starlings in the frost whitened apple trees next door. Clothes pegs slippery and prickled with ice in my hands. A tune in my head I've never heard.