The courtyard poised and ready for action
The wall we never knew we had
The haircut commences
Jean doing stirling work
It is official; we have just sat out in the courtyard in the warm sunshine and eaten sausages for lunch that were cooked on the old barbeque in the corner of the garden. This is a first for all sorts of reasons. It is our first barbeque of the year, it is the first time that the old barbeque has been used for the best part of five years, and it is the first time we have been in France in February.
The onset of slightly warmer weather sent me scuttling out to the tool shed to unearth the secetaurs, the garden rake and the wheelbarrow. All along the right hand side of the back garden, we have a thick laurel hedge, and despite the fact that Jean said many years ago, he was co-opted by a family member to try and dig it out, burn it, poison it and generally do away with it, the hedge has thrived. Having cut away all the growth up to a height of about six feet, I then had to contend with heaps and heaps of bay leaves. I counted no less than twenty wheelbarrow loads that I carted away and we have the most fragrant compost heap imagineable. I posted a couple of dozen leaves off to my dear friend Maggie in England, but apart from hanging up a large bunch to dry off, there is little point in trying to dispose of the rest in any other fashion.
Now that we have extended the width of the garden by about six feet, we realised that there was a lovely old stone wall hidden behind the laurel hedge which gives protection from the sneaky north wind and provides a perfect spot to sit with a book on a sunny afternoon before the real heat begins. However, perfect spots need somewhere to balance a tea tray, so we joined forces and rolled the most enormous cut stone block from the back of the garden into position. We now have English neighbours not too far away and this being half term, they were all out in the garden with their children. They must have been slightly puzzled to hear the two of us swapping Anglo Saxon expletives and grunting and groaning, but eventually the rock was in place and we took turns in sitting on it to catch our breath.
We are planning a party at the beginning of March and it has occurred to me that we have four sets of boules in the garage just waiting to be played with. With the application of the garden rake and wheelbarrow, I have cleared the space for a game or two, and we can easily balance the bottle of pastis on the stone block. One certainly cannot have boules without pastis, and if anything it improves the throwers abilities even though it can make spotting the little cochonnet or small wooden ball, a trifle difficult at times.
Doors and windows have all been left open today and the first thing I heard this morning when I opened the wooden shutters, was a wood pigeon singing in the trees behind the house. Even he sounded as though he had taken off his woolly scarf and was making a good job of welcoming the onset of Spring.
