A vast expanse of days…

the river sings, birds sing, crickets sing and I am inclined to join them...

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Enfin les vacances!

I don’t think the eight weeks holiday stretching in front of me has yet calibrated into tangible reality. It will, a few adjustments to my internal clock which always takes concentrated effort and I will be fully absorbed in the heady feeling of uncluttered days. For now, I am still waking at dawn with bird song and leaping into the day as if there is a deadline written for each task, of which there are many, my list is written and is as long as every other holiday list.

Not surprisingly, I have fallen behind in almost every department at our little smallholding, helped, not in the slightest by June’s wholly inclement weather, fear not, I will not be ranting on about how ghastly the weather is I promise, it is what it is and besides, she and I are not speaking! Especially after such a sombre debut which did little - make that nothing - to impress or inspire.

It did, however, leave me without excuse to ignore the chimera of paperwork that has lurked menacingly on my desk over the last thirteen weeks - how does that happen? All of which, I am relieved to say, is now scanned, copied and pasted, replied to, sent to whichever nightmarish government office was requesting it and filed. Hopefully never to be seen again.

French administrative necessities are a nightmare of bureaucratic red tape, not even marginally simplified by digitalisation, indeed, in many cases they are made worse. At least before the need for passwords and usernames I could actually call an office, speak, eventually, to real human being, now I am forced to converse with a robot, a French robot! Reason enough for a wonderful feeling of having succeeded in accomplishing the impossible when the pile of papers are no more…

Enveloped in a light, floaty euphoria, the like of which can only be associated with having completed a dreaded chore, I went for an aimless wander.

I felt worthy…

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River walking, in search of the elusive Kingfisher and finding ‘ragondin’ instead… photo taken 05/07/72024

“The thrush called strangeness into the sunset.”
― Georg Trakl

All is calm but the music…

As birds fly, it is a ten minute walk to the river, I have ten minutes, an hour, hell, two even, I am on holiday!

I forget, momentarily…

This time is mine to relish or squander, there is no need for hurrying. I take the long way round, hope that a few rays of sunshine will escape the confines of thick ash grey cloud that has kept it pinned in invisibility for the entire day and send silent prayers to whoever may be in charge of cloud manoeuvring switches to click the one marked FFW. Nothing happens, ashen clouds sit stubbornly, sombrely motionless. It seems not to matter.

Despite that I pine for warmth to ease my aching shoulders, that I want to bathe in sunlight until I and the hill are one melded, painless contour. I am outside breathing fresh July air, it feels like an emancipation…

There is music floating up from the town, perhaps another like me, celebrating summers beginning. The notes fade as I descend, are replaced by different music. Natures raucous myriad evening songs are blaring out from trees and hedgerows, from the meadows and the woodlands, the air is filled with the dissonant but nonetheless captivating melody of an orchestra tuning down. May bugs (Melolontha melolontha - Hanneton in French) buzz in pheromone filled air all around me, it is time for mating, they are excited to perform and numerous.

Soon all these voices will sleep, the valley will fall quiet, all but for the crickets who will join the sweet symphony of the nocturnal chorus.

I ask the trees, “do birds dream?” They give me no reply, only a Blue Jay squawks from within gnarled oak branches, I take it as an affirmative.

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River hunters…

Swimming in gold…

Wolfie, my scruffy canine companion, also bored of being confined, is as lively as a puppy, tugging my arm this way and that at the first sound of movement; mostly snakes venturing out to warm chilly blood or the scent of too many deer. He surely knows already where I want to be, his urgency seems even greater than my own.

I hear water flowing high and fast in the river before we arrive, it too, musical, burbling its tunes over rock and sand, smoothing hundreds and thousands of years of tumbled stones glistening olive green and rusty-iron brown under the surface. I marvel at his resilience as he steps, without flinching or showing the slightest hesitation, into icy cold water.

I watch him, watching the water, sniffing clouds of muddy river bottom murkiness he causes with his paws before an interesting hole, too intriguing to ignore in the far bank lures him further. I call him back, he is no match for the potentially vicious coypu lurking within, but am ignored, the hunter intent on the hunted. The mostly nocturnal inhabitants will likely not venture out until darkness has fallen, especially if there is imminent danger splashing watery warnings just outside their entrance. I leave him to his ineffectual shenanigans.

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Dandelion dusk… a late comer.

Turquoise and gold.

I begin my own watching, another hunter intent on the hunted, peering along meandering, lush river edges, hoping - always hoping - between weeping branch and reed to catch a glimpse of an elusive turquoise winged flash. I watch young brown trout swim past my feet so quickly, I wonder what their hurry is, don’t they know these are slow days? A dragonfly settles, just well enough camouflaged on a weathered root to settle for the night, light catching on delicate patterned wings, they are not the wings I am searching. I look up river…

Oh but I know you’re there, I hear your chattering staccato voices, those squeaky mouse like notes you sing. I know your clever warnings…

Fleeting wings refuse, once again to beguile me, this gentle evening is not the one.

A memory floats and takes form; an abandoned sandstone quarry, long idle and filled with water, the old boys of the village said it was fathoms deep, that an old and evil, sharp toothed pike the size of a shark lay in wait at the bottom. Were you to try and swim in it, your feet would never feel dry land again. I never did test the verity of the story though I caught a few normal sized pike on a cobbled together fishing line… and, often I would see those turquoise wings glancing across the water, teasing old pike from his deep dark murky mess of sandstone dust and weed.

Through this reverie I hear splashing, look back down through shimmering golden light,I hadn’t noticed the grace of the suns presence but there it is, beckoning me in low beams. Wolfie has tired of waiting for river life and is wading on his short legs towards me surrounded, now, by a ring of golden liquid light. I smile as he pads out onto dry grasses, shakes droplets into glimmering dusk and rolls, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, in a huge cow poo!

As I wander back through the almost silence of a setting sun, side by side with my damp companion and his not so delicate aroma, the light transforms ash clouds to smouldering cinders, fiery red light leaks onto the valley, slowly climbs the hill with us, always just one step ahead…

I have one most welcome companion to walk home with at least…

“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.” — John Steinbeck

With love

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Before I go…

I have been reading little over the last few days due to work backlogs and a very badly timed and irritating network malfunction to our line, Friday they say but I’ve heard this before! I’ll catch up I promise…

I have managed to keep up with these, they are not to be missed;

Eleanor Anstruther

has published chapter four of her novel Fallout, a story that raises emotions and questions alike;

In 1981, prompted by the arrival into their kitchens of the survival manual Protect & Survive which had been issued by the Home Office in case of nuclear war, four women in Wales gathered a small group of like-minded people and marched from Glamorgan to Berkshire.

Start here if you haven’t already or tap below.

Prologue

And

Adam Nathan

will be publishing the last part of his so brilliantly written short novel Moby, I am still not certain that it is fiction at all!

A postmortem account of Silver Water, Inc.'s breakthrough communication with sperm whales and the tragic events that transpired off the coast of Baja California Sur in August 2022...

You can read part one here or tap below.

#5 – Moby – June, 2024 (Part I)

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