We went to the UK for six days recently to visit some of the family. A high point was seeing our second grandson Joseph playing clarinet in his wind band. (His brother used to be in the same band but has moved to the jazz one.) Below is a very truncated clip – clarinets on the right of the conductor.
We came back via Lille and had a good time exploring that under-rated town. We’ll post pictures next week.
When we left Angoulême by train spring seemed to be just on the point of beginning. When we returned it was as if summer had already started, with temperatures up into the mid 20s. The result has been a sense of nature frantically racing to catch up. The flowers have been out, the trees are sprouting leaves and blossoming rapidly.
The birds are almost irritatingly noisy. We’ve heard hoopoes, and cuckoos as well as seeing short-toed eagles overhead. Chris is particularly pleased with his firecrest photo taken a month or so ago. It was the other side of the bathroom window – they are tiny birds and notoriously difficult to photograph.
The abrupt shift into high temperatures after a wet winter has meant that gardens and garden centres are remarkably busy. Our normally quiet area is buzzing with the sound of strimmers and lawn mowers and trimmers. Talking of which, we have managed to install a robot lawnmower which we bought last year at an end-of-season bargain price. It basically wanders around slowly on its own and when it feels run down returns to its charger. It mows the lawn slowly but steadily in many random, gentle undramatic cuts but it looks as if it’s going to be very useful.
The temperatures are such that pools are being opened and we think one of our neighbours has even been swimming in theirs. However, the temperatures are expected to drop to something more seasonally normal, although these days normality is not a word to be used of weather or climate.
As we write this on Friday, we are hoping that the good weather will continue over the weekend as we have the old and new church council members meeting in our house for a bring-and-share lunch on Saturday. The reason they are meeting here is that despite his best efforts to avoid it, Chris has been elected to the church council of the Église Evangélique Libre. Those who pray, please do so!
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