Down the road, evening.

The blond Limousin bull is maturing, his neck and shoulders so big and curly he looks like a great red-tawny bison, even more like something from the walls of Lascaux caves.

Down the road, early evening.

A breather from cooking.  The warm lavender evening more like August than late October.  A whoosh of starlings fly over the yellow trees.  Across the field jays cackle after acorns.

Up the road, afternoon.

'How's Anne?' I ask Marcel.

'She's resting in the car. In the sun.'

Indeed, the small car is on their forecourt, the old lady reposing in the sunny front seat.

Up the road, afternoon.

By Marcel's, one dainty toadstool looks spray-painted gold. Later, I pick two good brown flatcaps, pushing through the chopped bracken in the verge, and take them back for tonight's soup.

Up the road, afternoon.

How do we live untroubled beneath the tyranny of clouds,
which, mocking our earth-bound coloured forms,
promise us the slant-lit kingdoms of Elysium,
then waste them with a darkened blast?

Up the road, afternoon.

Out of the mudded maize stalks rise flocks of birds, voices rippling and chuckling: thrushes, larks, finches, but so mixed up and quick and winter-brown I can't tell them apart.

Down the road, afternoon.

Now the maize is finally cut, things once lost are visible again. Squashed yellow cobs lie about the fields, and a passing car stirs thick dust up from the road.

Up the road, afternoon.

The copper coloured cockerel and with his gold and black hens, stroll rather listlessly in the orchard. The red of their combs is the same as the apples above them.

Down the road, early morning.

To say the low mist's blue enough to stain you hands with, and every deadhead weed and cow-chewed cabbage stalk a sun-charged burning fuse, is not to be there.

Up the road, afternoon (Tuesday)

A sharp cry really sounding like 'peewit', a solitary lapwing flying over hard and fast, an early herald of the flocks which will chequer the fields later in the winter.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

Shaggy ink caps push their quaint tall domes up through wet grassy weeds. I leave them to it, they are watery and tasteless, and I don't feel like mushrooms anyway.

Down the road, afternoon.

A grey warm dull day, and I resent the jaunty Provencal colours of the maize. But Marcelle's and Victor's flowers are mad magenta and marigold, though battered by the wind.

Recycling bins, Moncontour.

The shouts of a football game drift over. A few young women (WAGs) stand in the rain alongside, their postures betraying a chilled boredom surely even great love can't offset?

Up the road, afternoon (Friday).

We meet the terrier pup alone in the road. I carry him home (receiving kisses) where he gets a smack. I wonder if that will persuade him to stay around.

Lamballe, round the lake, along the river, up the high street and over the square (Thursday).

After a long walk, eclairs and tarte aux cassis, hot chocolate for the bigger people. Iso uses Ilan's spoon, he his fingers. Molly has water in a white china bowl.