this is enough to be getting on with xxx

My goodness me it has been hard to get back into a routine after our jolly holiday. Leaving the garden for two weeks was not half as bad as it might have been, we timed it to perfection at the cost of missing Maggie and James’s wedding but this was the right time, everything in the ground planted and only the need for water and a watchful eye for which we thank our friends Graham and Anne and of course Genevievre who walked down every day to feed our menagerie. I looked through all our photos and this one of HOSS says holiday to me, relaxed, content and eating. We parked in a campsite looking over a glassy lake and a village nestled on the waters edge. It was hot and dry and setting up camp was fun. After a good aperitif, a simple meal, then coffee watching the sun dip down behind the mountains we agreed that there is nothing better. I can honestly say that every day had the same format and every day had a little treasure to remember and document.

Everywhere we stopped we found a little gem and in Villefranche despite this being an impressive  medieval town perched on the top of a hill as you enter the town square you become aware that the paving is doing something very unnatural and it then becomes Art. The corner of the square had been lifted and curved up.  How wonderful.

We passed acres and acres of sunflowers, sweet corn, grape vines, walnut groves and rows of rows of cash crop trees. We just loved observing  the different stages of maturity of the woods and got a real vision of our own wood which was most definitely influenced from this south of France tree planting.

To finish off the trip we arranged to visit Mike’s cousin Colin and his wife Gill who have lived in Charante for ten years and who we have not met in 30 years.  It was as though we had only seen them last month but I must admit that I would not  have recognised them in the street, but once sat down with a gin and tonic in their beautiful home in St Maurice des lions we discovered we have so much in common.  It felt very natural  to sit and eat with family, as though no distance in time and travel had occurred. Well after our good byes and promises of keeping in touch Mike and I both felt we has discovered yet another treasure on our holiday, Colin and Gill.  Life is really not what you know in life,  it is who you know and our lives are a little richer for having renewed our family ties.

We are back home now and there are pages of blog to catch up with, but I think this is enough to be getting on with   xxx