This afternoon I heard a cuckoo. As someone else in the area has also said they have heard a cuckoo too, I'm calling it, it's now officially spring. With spring comes the first vide grenier (car boot but it lasts all day), which we went along to this morning, saw loads of chums and got a useful implement, commonly known as a "truc", which will make getting ivy off walls a lot easier. A bargain at only one Euro too.
I moved the trail camera to see what is invading the Garden area before we block off the hole in the fence (sometimes it just isn't worth it after all). So far I don't have any images of that, which is big enough to make a clear path, but I have been hugely entertained by Woody Woodpecker's Missus, who is enjoying the last traces of walnuts from under the least appetising tree. Here is her best shot - I will load a video in due course.
Something is setting off the camera at night too, but there seems to have been a mist, so I've not been able to spot what it is. I'm hoping for something more significant than this fellow, because he doesn't really merit a path!
Soon we need to start clearing beds for serious 2023 crops, so we are working our way through the leeks that I heeled in during the dry season last year, but which have enjoyed the heavy clay soil and a damp December and January. They are really very good, and the best I have grown here in France, though not necessarily up to my Worcester leek standards.
With spring come flowers, and we have some lovely ones at the moment. The anemones continue to do well, the plain daffodils are still being a host, while the cowslips and the mutant cowslips (being slutty with polyanthus I think) are pinging up everywhere. Even the fancy daffs are coming out!
And it wouldn't be spring in France without a demonstration or two, although this one at la Flèche on Wednesday wasn't making that much of an impression on the guy loading his market goodies into his car. A long stretch of main road through the town had traffic stopped while the police escorted about 200 union members, their wives, mothers and children up the high street and then back down again, back to the Electricity Company offices they were picketing when not marching. They were happily singing the French sport theme too - Ultranate's Free from Desire, but didn't know most of the words other than the nanananas.
Next week's edition might be a bit late for a number of possible reasons - apologies in advance.
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