On the tenters

We're just hoping that dreadful woman won't make it the hat trick.  The pollsters seem to think not, and of course the French electorate has a long and noble tradition of putting a shot across the bows of  the establishment in the first round.  Well, to strain the analogy, this time they've gone rather further and holed the traditional parties of government below the waterline: straining it further still, said shot may prove to have been in the foot.  We'll have a good idea of the probable result soon after 8:00 pm.

Home from home, but not, we hope, for much longer

The village was looking pretty this morning from the route des poubelles: we had motored up to take a look at some of the wild flowers that are so impressive this year.   It was clear enough to allow us a glimpse of snowy Pyrenees, but they never show up well in photographs.  We have seen more poppies elsewhere: the amazing bank of them that I painted a few years ago has but a few blooms this year.  But the orchids are just lovely,   Even the dandelions are pretty impressive - I think the pale yellow one below is responsible for the tennis ball sized seedheads we keep seeing by the roadside.  Someone must have plonked down some hives up there: the bees were much in evidence. 

 

 

Our painter friend Josef has a magnificent yellow climbing rose in flower round the door of his studio, and Peter and Christoff's house is similarly decorated, but in crimson.  We even have a flower on the neglected little rose to the right of the front door here.  This helps to make up for the lack of imagination when it comes to the Toon Cooncil's approach to planting, which amounts to some sparse clumps of summer bedding.  In stark contrast, the village immediately to the north-east has really gone to town with plantings of flowering perennials: un des plus beaux villages de France has a lot to learn from its neighbours. 

All this botanising makes us quite eager to get back to our garden,, where we hope to find roses in flower when we return on Thursday - which might just help to take our minds off politics.