February 2020
The times they are a'changin'. This year someone forgot Winter. The Pyrenean slopes are devoid of the white stuff, with afternoon temperatures soaring to the 20's. We may be doomed, but so far it's quite a gentle doom down in the South of France.
Say one thing for climate change.
Say that my birthday, once in midwinter, is now well into spring!
And nowhere is that more clear than with my hoard of birds. Sorry. Flock to you...
Everyone, that is, except his missus.
It was always and will always be thus.
In other Early Spring Bird News, the lesbian swans started laying breakfast in mid January! I'm not sure what the lethal dose of omelette is, but my arteries live in fear now that the second of them has started laying too.
Birds, as I'm sure you are aware, are the only living dinosaurs. Thus, being short of non-avian dinosaurs, we've decided to plant one.
This weeping cedar will one day grow into one of those dinosaur shaped trees. Await the next photo in about twenty years time.
June 2020
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| A French Penal Colony |
Doesn't it look awful? Well, Fear not, it is not as ghastly as it seems. The dual security entryway is unfinished, allowing the inmates to escape from time to time before being rounded up by the never-vigilant guards.
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| The unfinished, virus-delayed porch. |
Admittedly, as prisons go, this has gotta be close to 5 stars. However, for all of its unbelievably amazingly incredibly good points, there are a couple of downsides.
For example, my garden is going bananas:
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| The Back Gate (Palms and banana trees) |
And the 'new-normal' idyllic tropical weather comes with its non-idyllic side:
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| A hard rain's a-gonna fall. |
With the inevitable result...
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| A hard rain's a-bloody falling. |
But I digress. This self-made prison has almost all we need. Almost.
The exclusion of other humanoid members can be difficult. My family in the UK have suddenly become much more remote. Flight now is just a distant memory, and the borders open and close like the proverbial barn door waving farewell to the bolting horse. The world seems to have stretched larger in its apocalyptic insane decline.
Being glued to this one spot can change your view of life. Gone are the days of travel. Africa really is a couple of big continents away now, and our chances of seeing it again become increasingly small. Tracking and photographing wild animals now must take on a slightly different flavour.
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| Shock! (A Bemused Crowned Crane) |
We do have our own African wildlife park here. A pair of African Crowned Cranes and a wild cat too.
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| Purple Haze (Russian Sage on Pampas) |
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| Mauve on Red (Tulbaghia on Salvia) |
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| Target (Blanket Flower - Gaillarde) |
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| Common DayLilly on hair grass |
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| Bee Blossom |
There is life.
Teeming, crazy, bizarre ... life. You just need to look...
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| Investigating White Holes (A honeybee peers deep into a Jasmin flower) |
Bees are of course everywhere. The garden is literally abuzz with them.
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| Mine's a pint (A honeybee drinks from a Russian Sage) |
They are everywhere and nowhere baby.
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| Leaving on a jet plane (A honeybee takes off from a Passion flower) |
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| A bee feeds from Lavender. and not just your common or garden honey bees, |
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| Bumblebee on a Lamb's Ear flower |
Looking closer, you may notice other bees that are even smaller.
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| Sunburst! (A tiny dwarf bee tangled in a St. John's Wort) |
and smaller still...
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| Hebe baby bees. |
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| A bee-fly on Lavender |
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| Waspish (Hover-fly on a Cotton Lavender) |
Talking of imitation, when I first saw one of these guys darting from flower to flower I was convinced that France had native humming birds.
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| A Hummingbird Hawk-moth on Lavender. |
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| A Five-spot Burnet Moth on Lavender |
And then there are their relatives;
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| Two Meadow Brown Butterflies say hi. |
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| A Small Copper butterfly on a ...fake butterfly? |
And there are many other insects too.
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| A Grasshopper on a Fennel flower head |
Bugs abound.
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| A Minstrel Bug on Lavender |
and some multi-tasking beetles sometimes called Bonking Beetles. I can't imagine why...
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| Red Soldier Beetles in action on a Cotton Lavender |
As always in nature, there is no such thing as a free meal. Risk is everywhere. Life is balanced by death. Around every corner doom awaits.
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| Come into my parlour |
On a suspended lotus pad, frogs await a passing unsuspecting meal.
In amongst all this vibrancy of life and colour there is but one thing missing...
So what is the lesson we learn from this story? Is its purpose simply to show-off some photos?
No, there is a deeper meaning; that this small world is a metaphor for our planet, a sign given to us... nah, shit, it's just to show off some photos....
There is just one moon,
And one golden sun.
And a smile means,
Friendship to every one.
Though the mountains divide,
And the oceans are wide,
It's a small world after all.
Chorus:
It's a small world after all.
It's a small world after all.
It's a small world after all.
It's a small, small world
(Repeat ad nauseam until it's permanently etched into your neural synapses.)
This too shall pass....
(*Delete as necessary.)
But that story is for the next blog. Let me rewind to the last month of our imprisonment. Not that I expect any real change any time soon.
But let's not get picky...
So what have I been doing?
The best way for me to answer that is to look back at my Facebook feed.
Yeah, that is how sad my life has become.
It comes down to this. I live here. And this is where I am. And, I strongly suspect, this is where I will be. Until whipped away by the grim reaper...
Day 1: Rain.
It rained most of yesterday. It’s going to rain again today. At times like this I find it a good idea to be philosophical.
I thus refer to the great philosopher Eeyore:
“The nicest thing about rain is that it always stops.
Eventually.”
I wonder what he thinks about viruses...
“Days, weeks, months. Who knows?”
Day 2: Seeing things...
This isolation must be getting to me. Everywhere I look in our garden there are flowers, birds, insects, and then this...
What greater gift than the love of a cat?
Charles Dickens.
Day 4: FEED ME!!
Life moves on. One day; child sitting in front of our tiny terraced house in London reading Gerald Durrell, next day student, next day veterinarian, next day parent, next day retired.
Now? Chief cook and bottle washer.
Half my day is spent cooking for the ravenous beasts.
I need to be free.
I am not a number!
I am a free man!
I walk out into the garden in search of solace. And what do I see?
I live in the Little Shop of Horrors...
Day 5: Nothing.
Oooh. A bad day. Let's skip it...
Day 6: Feeling lonely?
Let me take you by the hand...
When life is not coming up roses,
look to the weeds,
and find the beauty hidden within them.
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
But I refuse to call them 'Boris'.
You may have noticed that almost all my photos now come from my garden. Well, photos of me picking up the shopping or dressing up in a mask do not a great photo make.
There is another reason though, and that is because the garden is just so full of colour and life it's difficult to know where to look next.
So, with apologies, I'll keep on posting photos of flowers, macros of monsters and collages of colour. It's fun.
So here's a couple of quotes I live by:
An old Chinese proverb:
Life begins the day you start a garden.
Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone. – Jean Jacques Rousseau
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. – Greek proverb
Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years...
Unlike viruses...
all in my brain
Lately things, they don't seem the same
Acting funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.
Day 17: Growing up.
The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.
Salvador Dal
Our pair of Crowned Cranes are growing up, so we've built them a new feed station, tropical style...
Well guys, lockdown is gradually coming to an end, so it looks like this much anticipated daily photo-shot with added barely-witty remarks must also come to an end.
The new normal seems nearly here, with the local roads as busy as ever. Masks and distancing seem widely (but not totally) accepted over here, despite there being virtually no corvid around here. The new StopCovid app is out today, and we are insisting that all visitors must use it. The usual 'Darwin Award' rebels have been quashed.
Restaurants open today.
We still have to be careful, but yesterday seemed almost as before with Sophie & the kids around for a bbq and swim. I even had my first game of snooker since BC (Before Corvid).
Later on a video chat with my brother then with the gang from Wales dragged me back from this utopia, bringing home to me that the world has got much bigger as distance becomes much more significant. It's going to be a long time before travel between France and the UK is going to be possible, even by car.
A long time before I see my other kids and their sproggs.
Bittersweet.
So farewell guys, and thanks for all the fish.
And so we enter the next phase. Much like the old phase.
The age long tradition of La Bise has gone, to be replaced with masks and a suspicious look.
But fear not dear reader, this too shall pass.
It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.
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