Quel monde formidable or loosely translated ~

What a wonderful world!

(with thanks to Google translate, not that I needed it in this case! – call it a comfort blanket! -and Bob Thiele (as "George Douglas") and George David Weiss, who wrote the song Louis Armstrong made famous!)

 I’ve said on more than one occasion that it’s great to have the time to stand and stare, take photographs and generally marvel at the wonders of the natural world that are all around us and constantly changing.  Just the other day I was reading an old copy of Country Walking magazine, and in it was an article about a children’s writer and illustrator, called Jackie Morris, and I was particularly struck by two things she said.  First, she said that she never minded doing the same walk over and over again, as she always saw something new and it changed with the seasons and over time, a sentiment I’m sure most of us would agree with, with the proviso that sometimes new walks and places are equally good.  Secondly, and I was vividly reminded of this when driving Linda to the ferry very early the other morning, those that know me well will realise that early mornings don’t feature much as I’m rather prone to burn the midnight oil – indeed as I write this the minute hand is rapidly climbing towards the “witching hour!”  But, back to that early still dark morning, heading north towards St Malo as the dawn was trying to break, but the black clouds of racing storms were doing there upmost to prevent daybreak!! Jackie Morris describes how she loves walking in a particular place “at the beginning of the day, when all the colours are washing into everything.”  What a wonderful image and this was it in dramatic action, this morning, from my study window!!
 

Back in the days of the original blog, when the select few amongst you received a varied monthly blog of our exploits, my thoughts and rants and anything else that took my fancy, for some time I wrote a section called “Ici devant nous” or “Here before us,” which often chronicled the amazing flora and fauna around and about.  Well, I suppose in a way this is a return, as I intend this to continue as a “monthlyish” offering.  As always, hedging my bets, not because I’m worried about finding suitable copy, no more concerned that there will be too many amazing things going on to restrict myself to once a month!

 

As the intro has gone on a little this time, I’m going to confine myself to just one rather funny incident, which again took place just outside my study window.  A few mornings ago we had our first significant frost, and awoke to a white world.  Needing logs for the fire I went to collect some from the barn and was puzzled by what appeared to be much frantic bird activity in the leaves of the beautiful mulberry tree in our neighbours garden.  Had it been spring with a plentiful crop of tasty fruit I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, instead have checked to see if the magnificent pair of golden orioles that gorged there earlier in the year had returned.

Closer inspection brought a smile to my face, as the bird activity was actually an avalanche of the huge leaves that had been clinging on to the tree, despite most other trees having lost all their leaves.  I guess the frost was the final trigger and rather like visiting a barber for a number one, what had been a magnificent head of leaves, now lay in a thick carpet around the foot of the tree, with very little left on top!! 

However, that isn’t the end of the story, because a day or two later I was again out at the front of the house, taking the compost bin to the garden, when I heard tapping coming from the same mulberry tree.  Again instinct told me it was the wrong time of the year for a woodpecker to be at work, and anyway the tapping was rather too leisurely for any self respecting woodpecker!  Again, closer inspection bought the answer, as I said above there was very little left on top, but that which was there, either monsieur or madame le voisin (neighbour), I couldn’t see which because there was a stone outbuilding in the way, was using a very long stick to dislodge – they were obviously only going to clear up these leaves once!!  Well, as this picture shows they had very thickly carpeted the grass below, and you might spot the “lazy woodpecker” leaning against the tree if you look closely!!