Up the road, afternoon.

The mirabelles will be plentiful this year.  They hang unripe on the trees in clusters like tiny bright green eggs; some are even falling already in an early June drop.

Down the road, evening (Sunday).

The hogweed stands out like Elizabethan embroidery couched against the plushy velvet of the barley.

It's cool enough to be glad to turn back, thinking about chicken soup and dumplings.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon.

On the darkest part of the track, the hawthorns overhead have dropped millions of tiny round petals, so the black ground is covered in a pointillist array of white dots.

Up the road, afternoon (Friday).

The barley is green-gold silk, the wheat almost the blue-green of leeks, like Caesar's chariot team were said to wear.

But I want to drink Marcel's wine-red peonies.

Down the road, early evening.

Smells of tarmac moistened after rain, and of new-mown-hay of the cut verges.  I sit cross-legged in the road playing with the tiny turned oak spinning top from my pocket.

Up the road, morning.

Already the road is hot, but there are pools of shade to cool us.  Was there a moment before when I stood in this familiar ash tree's finely cross-hatched shadow?

Down the road, evening. (Why not, I've neglected it long enough?)

The solitary small orange and brown butterfly wanders along, then settles on the verge among the grass blades and buttercups. It takes off again as my shadow falls on it.

Down the road, early evening.

The countryside has turned furry: plush heads of barley and also the seeds of willow, which have been filling the air with lint for days, tickling our eyes and noses.

Down the road, early evening.

The red buds of the sorrel are emerging; I associate them with mild and sunny days, a chalky pink haze against the bright greens of the late spring grass and verges.

Approach to Bogard, afternoon.

Violets, purple vetch, red clover, stitchwort, woodspurge, speedwell and alkanet,  primroses still,.  We walk as far as the fishing pool and sit on the low stone parapet of the bridge.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

There is an algal growth which I have not seen here before, ominous of nitrate pollution.  The unseasonable cold wind has blown it into a corner, a spongy, wrinkled green mass.

Up the road, afternoon.

Despite the poplars glowing coppery gold in the sun, the bright green grass and wheat, the dandelions turning to clocks, it is cold; I almost wish I were wearing gloves.

Lamballe, round the lake, with Iso and Princeling.

Momentarily, I'm back twenty years, and the one who runs and clambers and chuckles ahead, frowns and smiles at me from brown-gold eyes under forward-falling hair, is my sister's lad.