Who’d have though it, flip flops in February? Yet, this weekend we have been bathing in blue skies and 20 degree temperatures. It won’t last of course, the forecast for the week ahead looks much more like what one would expect at this time of year but this little village is taking full advantage of the unseasonable warmth. Luckily for the kids, it’s half term so they’re out playing in the streets or hanging their legs out of open sun-baked windows. The woofers are sprawled out either on my terrace or in whatever bit of garden isn’t in shade. Simon even managed to find some charcoal so we had the first barbecue of the year last night although we did eat inside – we aren’t yet in summer nights.
The warm weather couldn’t have come at a better time. Out running on Thursday morning, I stupidly tripped over a root and whacked my left knee. Naturally, me being me, I dusted myself off and continued my kilometres, blood dripping down my legs and body trying very hard to give up. I’m a stubborn lass. By the time I’d got home and in the shower, my knee was throbbing and in dire need of a little patching up. Except I didn’t have any plasters big enough to cover the messy wound so I messaged Denis. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived with what looked like an entire medical cupboard and bandaged me up whilst muttering words about what an idiot I was. I told him it was his fault after all, if I hadn’t been daydreaming about him and the roses he bought me for Valentine’s day, I wouldn’t have hit the ground. My sister-in-law, Alba insisted I would need a couple of weeks rest before it would be fully healed and ready to go up hills again, she doesn’t know me well enough yet to realise that would never happen. I can’t keep still for five minutes. Mind you, I did put my bare toes out for a few hours yesterday up on the pool deck and exposed my lower limbs to the sunny skies which seems to have made my genou happy. Nothing like a bit of heat therapy.
Mumo and I went over to L’Horte mid-week. Not being one to step outside before Spring, she had decided that the double-digit degrees were just about enough for her to venture further than the front door and she hadn’t visited Pop for a while. The visit also gave me a chance to introduce her to Nicolai and Severine, our tenants at the old homestead and see what they’d done with the land. We got up close and personal with the mini-goats who came running for a bit of a cuddle and a lot of ‘aren’t you gorgeous’ before we wandered down to the river and Pop’s tree. Goats, pigs and donkeys aside, it was wonderful for Mumo to see how L’Horte had been given a chance to survive, after all it was originally the market garden for the Abbeye in St-Hilaire – Pop would have liked it. Sadly the houses have been pretty much gutted now and the doors and windows taken away for scrap. Just shells of a former life.
Speaking of times gone past, I’m back at the computer again tap tapping away. I can’t lie – it’s tough going. For some reason I thought writing the second book would be easier but no. I have to keep telling myself that this is only the first draft, the one what I have written went through three of them and took almost a year to complete but I’m hard to please. My editor tells me this is quite normal and once I get through past chapter three, I should feel the flow. I hope so because right now I’ve hit a dam. Still, the weather isn’t going to break until Wednesday so with any luck, like my knee, the sunshine will make everything better. Life is always brighter in flip-flops…
“There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, summer.” (Gertrude Jekyll)
Widow plus woofs 