Age knows no Mercy

When you get to my age and read about the death of a particular woman from when 'Times have been a changing', and from when Times long ago produced male musical heroes who made one girlishly hysterical, one knows one is on the long long climb downhill!!

Suze-Rotolo  was 67 and I have that Freewheelin' LP and it's cover somewhere I'm sure.
They were in love.   Then listen to This

March begins  but yesterday was not a good start!
My mother's been in hospital unexpectedly with bronchial problems and I hear again of more acquaintances and friends who have cancer.   Life isn't easy.  I weep too much as it is.

My car needs a lot of money to be repaired. My heart has been pounding as to what decision to make. Should I let it limp to death and abandon it for another  that I know not so well.... or give it a kiss of kindness and hope it WILL be kind to me and see me through for another few months or even a year, until I can get it together to buy a newer model!

Good news on the house front with thanks to Captain Sensible ..... a floor is being laid and rooms have the sign of being loved and are keen to be lived in having been unlived in for almost two years.  I DO SO HOPE to get my brain and life in gear to write that other blog.

Spring HAS to give way to NEW LIFE even though the bitter cold of today  has said goodbye to the FALSE HOPE of the February warm weather.

March must hurry forwards to April and Easter and a time when a woodburner will not be required.

Be still and know

Signs of Spring advance.

Tonight, be still and know.
I stood outside leaning on the oak support of the porch
(which in England or in India would be called a verandah),
langourously looking
at the whispery-grey branches of a bare plum tree,
where in just a few months,
will be adorned white petals
and the hummmmmm of beeeeeees
and after that small red-baubled jewels
will entice one to make jam or tarts.
I stood
heart full
looking at different light in clouds of night
knowing that Spring is coming.

I stood and stared and tried to find peace in my heart.
Be still.

February is such a lovely time of year when one can stand,
feel privileged to witness the rise of temperature
to appreciate the suspense of Springtime
whilst watching a world of stars in space,
scudded by moonlight behind clouds;
to know the unseen gentle brush of breeze against a background
of a seemingly, apparently empty world
yet which is full,
repeating itself year on year,
since a time before we have ever known.

This place is special.

It bares the bones of life and France.
No roaring sound of machine or man.
Emptiness.
Sheer emptiness
full of flora and fauna.
Alone in France?
Never!
Always an animal or person or stone or tree
to reveal a truth
or a smell
to haunt the mind.
It has taken so much time for me to learn it,
to know it,
to believe in it
and
yet
it drives me wild at other times to be without people.

Be still and know.

It drives me wild to oftentimes hear the silence that is not silent.
Sound is always here.
The rustle or more of the wind,
The trickle or pelt of the rain.
A vehicle moving in the distance,
A tractor passing by,
The tick of a clock,
The cough of a sheep or poney.
My cough.
My cry.
The loiret close by.
Big Feet purring likes to know
I am here.

I stood outside and hung the washing on the line.

Be still and know.

Gourmandise des Rois

Epiphany cakes for kings and frangipane lovers

We invited H to share with us this best of gateaux called La Galette Hollandaise.    A galette is a pancake but in this case it is pastry, often flaky pastry, stuffed with almond paste.   This year we have given our Gold Award for 'galette des rois' to the Angles sur L'Anglin  boulangerie.   I don't think this one has flaky pastry. The pastry is crisp and crumbly. The almond paste has not been stinted on and fills the pastry shell... no gaps here! ... and seems to have a slight taste of rum. The icing sugar on top is dry  like crisp and even snow. 
At 10 euros for the cake which serves 8 not greedy people, I reckon it is good value with our cup of Blue Lady Grey tea which I mixed with a little Green tea (unspecified) and some dried Rosehip berries from Spain.
So we chatted. I explained my amusement of making her laugh by adding decorations (feves,that is beans or figurines from previous affairs with foody delicacies!) .......a plastic fir tree from 2010 Buche du Noel, an unexpected guest or lonely shepherd,  the angel keeping guard over the baby for now the Kings had departed to wish us all a Bonne Année.   What a pleasure that she should receive the feve... a little frog.. Perhaps her Prince will come!

We shared gifts. I think I prefer this day to Noel and its Eve and New Year's Day and its Eve. For me it has more meaning with the coming, and going of the  wise men, Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior. I feel a new tradition occurring and pourquoi pas? We are in France-home of the Good Food Appreciation Society.

And today what joy .. my daughter's Christmas Gift arrived. It was posted on 8th December and we feared it had been lost but here it is with so many little things in it that I shall open them little by little.   She's always so very very good at choosing exactly the right gift!

Never have we seen a vertical rainbow

Is it an omen?   As a rainbow it must be good.   On the way home from work we were astounded to see near the setting sun a vertical rainbow.  The sky was blue with large long clouds reaching out like fingers beckoning to us and skudding across the sky as if to make an escape.  As they reached their end they would wisp upwards like meringue being whisked into peaks.  We've witnessed a great many aeroplane trails in the sky, both this morning and this evening.  The sunrise was so beautiful as it lifted itself over the mist laden paysage.

My internet research has led me to facts that I never knew before! This article is about photography.

Sunset Rainbows  are special for three reasons.
(1) The sun's rays are nearly horizontal, so the top of the rainbow will be high in the sky.   A sunset rainbow is the widest arc you'll ever see from the ground. Almost half of the full-circle rainbow can become visible....  This means the ends of the arc are nearly vertical as they intersect the horizon. Sometimes only the end segment of the rainbow appears, and if you see a photo of a vertical rainbow at the horizon, you'll know it was made at sunset (or sunrise). With a little geometry work and a sun angle chart, you can tell time using a rainbow at the horizon.

Ireland Sunset Rainbow near The Cliffs of Moher (photo by Shannon Field)

(2) At sunset, the sunlight contains more red hues and less blue (because of atmospheric scattering). This will affect the appearance of the rainbow by emphasizing the red bands and muting the blue bands. The same red tint will apply to anything on the ground illuminated by the sunset. The effect can be quite dramatic.
(3) If you're lucky, you can get a rainbow against sunset clouds. This phenomenon is gorgeous to behold, but photos seem to be few. Be sure to turn around next time you're photographing a sunset, and see if the sky behind holds anything interesting.

With grateful thanks to Photocentric

Noises in the Night from not the Stone Martian but the Stone Marten

Awoken again, but this time as the alarm went off, with a screeching noise coming from the attic above the stairwell.  I went to the landing where Big Feet was looking with interest at the ceiling.  Captain Sensible got the fly whisk and banged about on all the upper floor ceilings. The noise had ceased by then.

I have suspected for over a year we have a stone marten in the roof.  At first I was quite spooked and used to lose sleep but I have now got used to it!   It crawls in at night knocking the roof-tiles about!
Evidently we need mothballs to dissuade it of co-habitating in the space that we can't access.  They don't like noise, though they van make a lot themselves... so leaving a radio on at night is supposed to deter them!  Little critter... but don't they look cute? 

Chris of Planet Passion 

has a very good description of both  

the Stone Marten and the Pine Marten.  

 I have often seen the latter in wooded areas.  I hope he does not mind me promoting his website here.

Listen here to the sound I heard this morning. 

For those who have not yet twigged... if you hover the mouse over the highlighted areas that are then underlined and click you can go to the next site.  Make sure you return here!

Best Wishes for the New Year

This is a scene that is no more.

The first photo is on Christmas Day 2009 and is where we had our last picnic. 

The second photo is of the same place by the River Anglin where now poplar trees have been razed.  

I am sure regeneration will occur but to see devastation was yet another sad blow to the year 2010.

 

OUT OF CHAOS WILL COME ORDER

SO THAT BEAUTY WILL EMERGE

FOR WHEREVER THERE IS HOPE THERE IS ALWAYS NEW LIFE

MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO IN THE MAGDALENIAN AGE 

DIFFERENT TREES  PROVIDED  SHELTER 

IN JUST A FEW YEARS TIME NEW PEOPLE 

WILL EXPERIENCE THE SHADE OF YOUNG TREES.

THAT'S LIFE 

WHOEVER YOU ARE AND WHEREVER YOU MAY BE 

WE WISH YOU WELL FOR TODAY 

AND  FOR ALL THE DAYS AND MORROWS OF 2011

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF

with all best wishes for a

H A PP Y   N E W   Y E A R 

much love from SweetpeainFrance 

and Captain Sensible

at VillagedeVaux

Bon Fin d'Année 2010

Best Wishes to everyone;  friends, family and all those who I do not know and may never meet, who read my postings, for the end of the year..... and for the next year I wish you all the best of opportunity.

I was reprimanded today for saying Bonne Année because one can't say that until after midnight!  How very logically French and quite exact! 

Until then one has to say "Bon Fin d'Année" and why not celebrate the going out as well as the coming in?  We don't have any black coal though!

Happy New Year to you all. 

In the Bleak Midwinter

I've been singing this carol and only this carol this year whilst I clean, hoover, walk, be ...
and it just keeps singing in my head all the time.
I love it. It is sad. It makes me cry.  It fills me with the beauty of the world.
It is a solitary carol....... so I have been thinking of people I know in England and people in other parts of the world.  And it makes me see the glass half empty and the glass half full.
I like people very much and it always pains me enormously if I feel I have inadvertently hurt anyone.
I want to give, yet sometimes it is impossible to be able to give, even my heart.
The Youtube video I have chosen is quite poignant. 

If you wish you can watch the choir and listen to this moving song of praise.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,


Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;


Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,


In the bleak midwinter, long ago.



Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; 


Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign. 


In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed 


The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. 

 Angels and archangels may have gathered there, 


Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; 


But his mother only, in her maiden bliss, 


Worshiped the beloved with a kiss. 
 

What can I give him, poor as I am? 


If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; 


if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; 


Yet what I can I give him:  give my heart.

With grateful thanks to Christina Rossetti

On Christmas Day, On Christmas Day, No Picnic was had on Christmas Day

On account of the below freezing weather conditions which we have tolerated before on our legendary Christmas Day picnics, and on account of our fatigue in many areas it was just as well that we did not have such a feast mid-day. So TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT and TO DO SOMETHING SENSIBLE we took a 3 hour walk across fields and woodlands, through ancient rural villages, uphill, downvale,  along river banks showing evidence of medieval strip farming,  across fords,  to afford ourselves a place in the winter sunshine at a special lake where we had previously had our Christmas Day picnics and so... we SIMPLY ATE  our smoked salmon sandwich rolls with a clementine for dessert followed by coffee laced with Whiskey Mac.

In the evening once our hunger was restored we ate a first course of Salmon Provençale pre-prepared... with a green salad followed by the main course of Shoulder of Lamb from the field next door  served with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, onions, garlic and steamed broccoli and carrots. Then one of LIDLs finest cheeses,  a Bleu Bresse, accompanied with mâche (lamb's lettuce). This latter leaf is very popular with the French. It belongs to the Valerian family so is therefore probably very good for relaxation and healthy sleeping habits.
When I bought wholemeal bread at Leclerc I just could not RESIST the desserts and after umming and aahing over whether I should choose buche de noël or  ???? I chose these two on account of the little lutin and his spade for Captain Sensible and Sweetpea coloured raspberries!

And then they and the day were gone!

Thank goodness, that's all over for another year. The dreaded day has passed well, all things considered!