We are home again, after a month-long trip away. A trip during which I completely failed to get my laptop out.
It was good to come home. We were driving along, close to Le Dorat at the time, when I felt that “aren’t we fortunate to live in such a lovely part of France” feeling washing over me. I had a sudden urge to invite all my friends to come and stay and to share in what we have here.
This morning I walked Nell around the chemin and it was good to be back there and back into our routine. We had left the Crooked Man at home, doing battle with HMRC back in the UK and so took our time in enjoying it. A wide variety of fungi have appeared since last we walked round. There was a Great White Egret on the lake and Naked Ladies (aka Autumn Crocus, Colchicum autumnale) flowering on the verge there. I love Colchicums and have had them in previous gardens so I was wondering about perhaps planting some for next year. I have been reading up on them just now and have learned how toxic they are and that they pose a particular threat to felines. So maybe not. Perhaps my Autumn dash of colour needs to be something more like the amazing yellow-flowering Autumn Crocus next door – from an entirely different plant family, Sternbergia lutea. Confusing, isn’t it? Not only that, but these Autumn Crocus put their leaves up first. They do provide the most amazingly colourful welcome home.
Maybe it would be easier just to concrete over our little patch of earth. At least we would not be faced with quite so much hard labour every time we come home from our travels.
We went out today and bought a weed burning stick. I don’t think that we bought sufficient gas canisters…
I suffered some slight trauma when Nell and I arrived home from our walk, though not quite so much trauma as the Lime tree behind our outbuildings. Long time readers will know how much that I appreciate that tree.
View this post on Instagram: Mr L likes the tree in our garden. At least we think it makes it across the boundary and into our space. Anyway, I was telling him about how bare trees have the same outline shape as the tree’s leaves and here I am proving it. He asked me what the tree is and somewhere from my deepest recesses I dragged up an idea that it is a Lime (Linden) tree but really ought to get some authority on that.
#arboriculture
A post shared by Beth Loft (@lapetitemaisontordue) on Apr 19, 2018 at 1:21pm PDT
I don’t know how to get that IG image to show up here and I can’t find the original but I really did want to show the comparison…
I have watched that tree grow through the summers of 2018/19/20 and have fretted a little. It isn’t our tree, it belongs to the empty house next door. It was clearly getting into a guddle with the power lines and I wondered what would happen one day.
Today was that day and THIS happened!
I don’t know about the poor tree but I certainly am traumatised. I wish that they could have moved the power pole rather than brutalise the beautiful tree.
(Actually, all of this was yesterday now – but I realised when I looked up from my keyboard that darkness had descended and it was not the right time to be taking photos of trees! I am struggling with my computer once again. I think that it dislikes being neglected and goes into a terminal sulk once I open it up at home.)