Early Spring

Cowslips

After the wettest January for 50 years and a dry one for me, the weather finally broke with blue skies and my first outdoor apéro this year.  The weather this week looks good, temperatures around 16-18 degrees and spring is in the air.  There is a warm south easterly wind today, so hopefully the ground will start to dry out.  Daffodils are blooming and the farmland looks bright green or ploughed brown with furrows.  The woods seem ready to start unfurling their leaves.  I have seen the odd butterfly and bee in the sunshine.  Bats fly at dusk.  I am building bird boxes in the hope of tempting birds to nest in them this year.  I need to get them up quickly as some birds will nest soon.

Duck and chicken eggs

The Black winged kite braved the rain at the weekend swinging on a wire.  It did look sorry for itself, as there was a deluge for an hour.  A week later, we went past and saw three, so maybe a family group?  The ducks love the wet weather and spend all day looking for worms and other tasty treats.  I now get two chicken and three duck eggs a day, one white duck egg and two very pale green, so that's breakfast and lunch sorted!  Poached eggs and omelettes.  Today two Red kites went over and there was a roe deer in the field below and a further five, a stag and four hinds, on the way to rugby.   Evie and I, on a walk, almost stepped on a hare in it's form.  It ran away very fast and the dog had no chance of keeping up.  Hunting stopped in January, so we see more wildlife in the fields,

Jean-Phillipe is building the terrace sun blind and together we will move the twelve tons of granite to complete the bank and edges to the path.  I await a devis (quote) for some electrical work and aim to replace all the twenty-plus year old sockets and switches in the Grange.  I will add a few USB charging points to bring the 1610 building into the 21st century.

Tunnicliffe, Moorland fox

I have re-read the "Nomad" books written by Norman Ellison in 1946-49 about the English countryside.  He broadcast on the BBC and brought the natural world of the time with adventures, expeditions and natural history, into peoples lives.  They are illustrated by my favourite wildlife artist, his friend Charles Tunnicliffe, with incredible woodcuts.

Route de la Bastide

After six years with access via an unnamed road, we now have a road name and number "141, Route de La Bastide"  It's still a dead end which is great, NO traffic and we are the only house! 141?  We get the odd lost driver, mountain biker or walker.  But beware, using Google or Waze maps to get here, drive to Puycalvel first, otherwise the apps takes you on an unmade road which is impassable for most cars!

Celandine

The children are on holiday for two weeks, we will find out soon, if President Macron will extend this time to four weeks and add on school time in the summer to help with the coronavirus pandemic.   We will fish, walk and ride bikes.  Charlie is helping with the many jobs that seem to materialise at La Bastide!  Vaccinations are still slow, about 85,000 a week, not the 500,000 achieved by the UK.  Bookings are late and mainly from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, my guess a quiet season again, but we are getting enquiries, hopefully next year thing's will start to change to the new "normal".

With the weather sunny, warm and bright, the trees are starting to bud and I get called outside to tackle gardening jobs, which include cleaning the gutters!   Who would want to stay in during the sunny springtime.  The heronry at Cambournet-sur-le-Sor is already busy with nests built and herons already sitting on eggs, the water level is high, so no waders, just teal, shoveler, a new bird for me "red crested pochard"| and the odd gadwall.  On a wet field 50 or so white wagtail feeding with a few chaffinch.  I did not know the pied wagtail found in the UK is a sub species.

Plum blossom

Charlie has decided that bacon and egg is his favourite breakfast....there goes my bacon stash.  In lockdown we are lucky to be able to roam the meadows surrounding La Bastide.  The kids are now cycling in the sunshine and soon will be back in the pool.  Once it has a new liner!

Well that's it, beautiful blossom on the trees here at the end of the month, (apricot, cherry plum, almond and quince)   One bird box up, more to be finished and kids back to school tomorrow, the start of March.  I am on the vaccination list, just need to arrange an appointment!