It
was Midsummer. An incandescent summer’s night and day. She’d gone to sleep with
a full moon spreading its light at midnight. She rose with the morning lark,
which she could not hear. Six in the morning. Day had been awake for some
time!
With the rising sun behind her she strode full of energy. Overjoyed she always is to see her sweetpeas there at the roadsidc where they grow every year. Stepping down ‘The American Way’ named after
someone who used to live in that secret house hidden from view of the
single-track footpath. There, with a full view of the sweep of the river, aloft
on the cliff, his house stood without water and electricity. Owners have fought
to have both installed. It is a protected heritage house.
Careful she was not to slip on the dew-laden rocks and roots forming the
well-trodden descent to the river’s edge. The flowing current could be heard
magically in the morning magnificence before she caught a glimpse of shining
water. Step around ‘Le Moulin de Merle’, a watermill where she noted the
growing sandbank. Above the dam the waterlily pads conceal frogs which ribbet
and croak amongst those green plants. All this has been witnessed during the
passing of time, the thousands of years since an Ice Age formed vast cliffs
called the Roc of Sorciers. Majestic, they look down.
At the road bridge she decides upon an extension to her walk. All is unplanned.
She is free to respond to a moment, a whim, an immediate choice for her and for
no one else. It was joyful to be alone at last and able to move her legs and
arms to and fro in a rhythm of a roaming rambler. Her mind is excited at this
unusual event to be out and about when no one knows where she is or what she is
doing for she has seen no one.
Along the banks vegetation encroaches upon the one-person track towards
absolute primeval stillness, though she knows that the sun moves as it rises in
the sky stretching shadows along the ground. Miniature flies float in morning
sunrays as gossamer spiders float their webs preciously. Along and along, as
birds sing-a-song and flutter tree-to-tree, leaf-by-leaf, woodpecker taps a
different rhythm. Cuckoo calls, still singing in tune at the end of June, for
July it will fly. By August it must be gone to Africa. Woodpigeon rool-rool---coo-coos
reflecting the languidity of a hay-mown scent of summer.
Darker it gets. Trees reach for the light above the canopy. Moss hangs
on every branch above rock and stone where ferns, bracken and other humid
hugging plants thrive. In dappled morning light, She feels
safe not
seeing a soul in the Devil's grotto. Ah, unexpectedly, she hears a cough! A trace of humankind. Is someone wild
camping? No, ‘tis a jogger!
How dangerous to be moving quickly across such rugged rocky ground, where
footfall or rainfall dislodges crumbly, gravelly stones even though larger and heavier
boulders dig deep. Tread carefully. She has learned by experience.
'Bonjour..
fait attention!' but she hears no
reply and suspects he is not French and thinks they would be too sensible to be
running in that place in such early morning warmth.
The land is rising upwards out of woodland which has been like that
since probably the Magdalenian era. Rising upwards into agricultural land where
the single track opens to allow tractors to travel along the grassy chemins.
Again she delights in looking at hedges and trees of walnut, holly, oak
and beech. A sign says ‘Private’
but she ignores it as she has always walked by here around the Pigeonnier and
indeed has seen French persons doing likewise. Out onto the road, feeling the
morning heat rise from the tarmac. Let her cut across another chemin and another
harvested field and wend her way back along lanes to the village where people
are queuing at the boulangerie. Everyone shares happiness. Then to discuss with
a fellow inhabitant what is to happen to that huge acacia tree at the end of
her garden. She shares her concern
about the ever-increasing number of acacias popping up in her garden. There are
more than ever before. Clearly they enjoy the drought and heat. Autumn will be the time when the
woodman will arrive to cut it down but how will he and she poison the roots
left in the ground in her garden. They have drained the goodness from her
potager and caused much extra labour.
She will wait. She can
wait.
With cheerful pride and self-ennoblement she breezes home for coffee and
croissant at half past nine, breakfast time! What a wonderful three hour walk!
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| Wild sweetpeas at the roadside verge |
  |
| Under the bridge a new sculpture has appeared! |
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| Wall art! |
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| Garden art |
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| I still haven't returned at an appropriate hour to dig up this mystery. |
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| River art |
Moulin du Pré has a new owner and is being renovated.
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| Natural art! |
