Out with Mol

Approach to Bogard, afternoon.

2012-02-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

The Morse code call, and looking up I see two nuthatches high in the poplars. I crane my neck uncomfortably, but fear to change position in case I lose them.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, late afternoon

2012-02-03T22:04:00.000+01:00

There are icicles, perhaps a metre long, hanging where the springs trickle down over the rocks and tree roots. Despite the lowering light, they seem to possess an inner luminescence.

Approach to Bogard, late morning

2012-01-27T21:26:00.000+01:00

A fallen poplar twig has quite big glossy buds, sticky with balsam. Great tits and blue tits flitter among the branches, there are some celandine around, though few other flowers.

Down the road, evening.

2012-01-22T23:33:00.000+01:00

Nearly six and still light. Birdsong, birdsong, blackbirds and a thrush at the corner of every field, though still there's a cold wind in our faces when we turn around.

Up the road, morning

2012-01-18T09:48:00.000+01:00

My it's cold. We're only out because the car wouldn't start and Mol was done out of an outing. But she struggles and needs encouragement and massage to keep going.

Up the road, afternoon

2012-01-09T23:26:00.000+01:00

At the corner at le Boissy there is a particularly good clump of sorrel, the leaves as large as spinach. I collect a handful to make sauce for tonight's salmon.

Down the road, early evening

2011-12-28T19:46:00.000+01:00

The cold moist air is refreshing on the skin, the sky is lit in bands of blue-grey and lilac.

A fieldfare flies from the chestnut tree with a whirring trill.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-12-22T21:10:00.000+01:00

The heron has been here often lately, it flies off but reluctantly.

The maples have no more leaves now, but abundant clusters of stiff brown keys linger on the twigs.

Hill above Henon, morning

2011-12-21T15:05:00.000+01:00

I have secateurs and gloves, and cut some sprigs of well-berried holly. Molly loses me, but after I've returned to fetch her, she tracks me back to the holly tree.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-12-20T18:56:00.000+01:00

Two herring gulls and two black-headed (their heads winter white), float serenely in a group; they are symmetrical in two planes, sometimes like bookends and always reflecting in the water.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning.

2011-12-16T18:36:00.000+01:00

The leafmould underfoot is thick, brown and slippery, with splitting acorns making specks of pink amongst it. A few last yellow flickers of birch leaves still light the uppermost twigs.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning.

2011-12-16T18:33:00.000+01:00

A flock of long-tailed tits enliven the trees and bushes as they often do here; are they the same ones or is it just somewhere long-tailed tits like to come?

Up the road, morning

2011-11-26T17:36:00.000+01:00

The young bull, foaming-mouthed and bellowing from two fields away, and Ludovic's border collie on the corner, are both excited at the new heifers being delivered to our field by trailer.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-11-20T19:35:00.000+01:00

A swallow in late November, something I've never seen. It lands on the wire, preens, shits, rests then flies. I wonder what its story is, and what its chances are.

Up the road, late afternoon

2011-11-19T17:51:00.000+01:00

Four larks, then another four, then many more so I give up counting, fly up from the field of young grass. They ripple across the sky overhead as I walk.

Down the road, late afternoon

2011-11-03T17:37:00.000+01:00

Momentarily a smear of rainbow appears across the massed abundance of cumulus above the hilltop. Across the sky a lighted window opens in a dark cloud, Cecil B deMille style.

Beach at Béliard, afternoon

2011-10-31T17:13:00.000+01:00

Picking up flakes of oyster shells, pearl white and rose pink and iridescent black like oil plumes, we conclude that oysters are altogether magical things; we'll hear nothing against them.

Lamballe plan d'eau, afternoon, with Iso and Princeling

2011-10-30T10:52:00.000+01:00

Duck-feeding: one magnificent buff-coloured, orange-billed, hissing goose holding court, mallard ducks and a green-headed drake, numerous feisty coots, and a greedy ballet of gulls over the backs of the others.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-10-30T10:45:00.000+01:00

A flatbed lorry pulls into the carpark carrying a Maniscopic earthmoving vehicle. In vermilion, black and steel, with earth caked in its massive tracks, it looks a proud, heroic workhorse.

Up the road afternoon # 2

2011-10-25T18:29:00.002+02:00

A cock pheasant hunkers down when it see us among the grass and late dandelion clocks, then flies up, tail trailing, chestnut brown and bottle green and sealing wax red.

Up the road, afternoon # 1

2011-10-25T18:26:00.000+02:00

The crowded, yellowish roots of the feed beet, as thick as small tree trunks, jostle and shoulder their way out of the soil, still throwing crowns of shiny, spinach-like leaves.

Up the road, late afternoon (Monday)

2011-10-25T18:18:00.002+02:00

After a day of wind and wild rain the late low sun appears and seems to splash everything in the sky and on the land with a abundance of light.

Down the road, evening

2011-10-05T19:56:00.001+02:00

The recent heat has fried and banished many of the chestnut leaves from the corner tree, though it's chill now, I kick the nuts from their husks in sandalled feet.

Up the road, morning.

2011-09-29T09:28:00.003+02:00

Faded ink blue cornflowers and browning tawdry orange French marigolds, walnuts shrugging off their mortal green flesh cases. Jays and crab apples rose-brown against blue sky. The maize cobs hardening.

Approach to Bogard, afternoon.

2011-09-13T18:55:00.000+02:00

A yellow poplar leaf swirls from high on the tree and lands beside me.

An egret stands like a white question mark beside the pool in front of the château.

Up the road, afternoon (Monday)

2011-09-13T18:50:00.000+02:00

A walnut has sloughed off its drying fleshy green casing, revealing the woody shell. I scramble to pick it, crush it underfoot and eat the kernel: small, fresh and delicious.

Up the road, afternoon (Sunday)

2011-09-13T18:46:00.001+02:00

A heifer in our field has its head resting on its hind leg, so making a compact trapezium, rather like a netsuke I remember seeing of a bullock or buffalo.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-09-04T13:21:00.002+02:00

Mol inadvertently runs across in front of one of the old boys who is fishing, just as he's pulling in his line.

'Oops, I've caught a dog!' he says cheerfully.

Down the road, evening

2011-08-29T21:38:00.000+02:00

The young heifers in our field, their white and black coats crisp and clean, skip up to the fence eagerly, and follow us down the road on dancing cloven hooves.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-08-27T19:21:00.000+02:00

We duck under the electric fence to look at the puffballs. One is enormous, and wondrously deformed, but I put one the size of my cupped hands into my pocket.

Woods at Catuelan, above Quessoy, morning

2011-08-26T16:05:00.000+02:00

We strike off and take a path I don't know, but Mol seems confident of the way. Yallery-brownery earthball fungi nestle in the moss and leaf mould like odd stones.

Hill above Hénon, morning.

2011-08-25T20:47:00.000+02:00

An empty car and horsebox stand in the car park; a smell of horse lingers at the edge of the woods. Someone is enjoying a fine ride along the hilltops.

Down the road, afternoon

2011-08-22T21:45:00.000+02:00

Next door's crab apples are shading into red and weighing down the branches, and their copper sycamore has lost leaves which lie like screws of brown paper on the grass.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

2011-08-20T22:46:00.000+02:00

J and I gather sloes. It's early for this but everything is early this year. We throw them into a straw shopping basket. Mol is tied up in the shade

Down the road, morning

2011-08-18T18:31:00.000+02:00

It's hotter than I thought. We skirt the field edges in search of shade and blackberries, and are followed by some cows, but the grass is still dewy and cool.

Green lane near Henon, afternoon.

2011-08-16T20:53:00.000+02:00

Set upright beside an oak and under an bower of elders is a tiny,old, green plastic child's garden chair, with a sprinkling of leaf litter on the seat. Odd!

Down the road, afternoon.

2011-08-12T22:51:00.000+02:00

Weeds are childhood cyphers: nettles to sting you, docks to rub on after, sorrel tastes of lemon and the plantains' ruffs are Mary Queen of Scots. Raindrops are our diamonds...

Approach to Bogard, afternoon

2011-07-28T20:51:00.000+02:00

Already the poplars have shed some leaves, which lie on the ground like green and yellow maps, or curl up into brown brandy snaps, and have that smell of leather.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-07-18T18:34:00.000+02:00

Unripe walnuts hang like small green eggs from Marcelle's tree and the one at Le Boissy.

A few blackberries are just ripening. I eat one, but it tastes quite sour.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-07-17T19:37:00.000+02:00

At the old man's house at Le Boissy, the hydrangeas are the blue of some liquorice allsorts, washed out like curtains in the sun, with some odd, welcome plum-coloured ones.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

2011-06-27T21:03:00.000+02:00

We meet Rosie and Porridge. The dogs are hot and panting, but pleased to see each other, and Porridge has a paddle. We go to the café afterwards for Perrier.

down the road, morning.

2011-06-22T13:09:00.000+02:00

The barley fields have thickened into creaminess. The young swallows, their tail forks still stubby, fill the air, and pass close between the bodies of the grazing cattle, catching flies.

Down the road, evening (Tuesday)

2011-06-22T13:06:00.000+02:00

The strawberries Pierre planted in front of the house where the young couple now live have reverted almost to wild ones. I pick a handful to eat as I go.

Down the road, evening.

2011-06-18T21:50:00.000+02:00

Freed from her bucket, Mol skips along joyfully, tail awag taking in the smells. Swallows skim over the grassheads in the field alongside us as if giving us an escort.

Down the road, late afternoon.

2011-06-12T18:53:00.000+02:00

Rain at last, but Mol's had a haircut, so less to dry later.

With a soft clatter, nine wood pigeons rise up out of the empty pasture over the road.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres

2011-06-07T22:27:00.001+02:00

A fish breaks the surface after an insect glancing over the water. It fails, but a robin dips and catches the insect instead, perching on the branch to eat it.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning.

2011-06-03T12:59:00.001+02:00

They are stocking the pond with trout; a flatbed truck carries large tanks, from which they scoop netfuls of fish into a plastic dustbin and pour them into the water.

Up the road, afternoon - tell me how does anyone know...

2011-05-30T22:00:00.000+02:00

We find a field of mixed oats, barley and wheat, with violet-flowered peas and some other smaller purple-flowered legume. We munch some peas, and I fill my pockets. Risotto tonight!

Down the road, early evening (Sunday)

2011-05-30T21:54:00.000+02:00

The parched fence posts stand up like pale ends of bone. A buzzard sweeps low over the beet field and lifts up onto one, where it watches for a minute.

Down the road, early evening

2011-05-20T21:08:00.000+02:00

The neighbourhood partridge couple, whom I disturbed at the bottom of our garden the other day, patter silently off across our neighbours' flowerbed, the same colour as the dusty earth.

Plage sauvage, near Erquy, out with Princeling

2011-05-19T22:38:00.001+02:00

The colours vivid, intense, sea blue-green-brown, rocks pink-blue-green, shells encrusted upon shells, water rushing. Small boy and dog scramble and paddle and chase. Small boy and I scream like seagulls.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-05-17T18:57:00.000+02:00

The Russian woman is perched on her windowsill in the sun, holding a plate with a very few, glossy-dark, early season cherries. We greet each other for the first time.

The old railtrack, morning.

2011-05-14T22:11:00.000+02:00

Lighting makes woods quietly dramatic places: this spray of leaves here is spotlit for effect, that canopy provides slides, filters and overlays of varying intensities; here is shadow, there clarity.

Up the road, afternoon. I know, it's nature.

2011-05-11T20:59:00.000+02:00

Once a cuckoo's call here was rare and exciting. This one is loud and continuous, morning till night. I fear our lovely new warbler population will be tormented and depleted.

The old railtrack, afternoon

2011-04-28T22:51:00.000+02:00

Molly starts up a grey wagtail, which flutters ahead of us like a piece of whistling paper caught on the breeze.

A patch of tiny deep violet pansies gone wild.

Watermill, Guette-es-Lievres, afternoon

2011-04-21T21:37:00.000+02:00

Beechwoods in spring are incomparable, the flakes of luminous green hang from floor to ceiling as if in suspended animation, bluebells and stitchwort flow below, with an occasional red campion.

Down the road, evening.

2011-04-19T21:02:00.000+02:00

Despite the drought, everything - grass, leaves, sunlight, birdsong, the smells of blossom, of leaf wax and of bonfire smoke, all seem to be filled to bursting with an intense juice.

Up the road, morning.

2011-04-17T16:45:00.000+02:00

One thing I like about the road to La Tantouille is nobody lives there. With the skylarks, yellowhammers, chaffinches and stonechats, and occasionally some cows, we have it to ourselves.

Old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, morning.

2011-04-16T14:00:00.000+02:00

It's sunny at home, but we descend into mist, which lies in strata at the level of the treetops, so I could climb up and reach my hand into it.

Approach to Bogard, afternoon.

2011-04-15T20:26:00.000+02:00

Some people, a couple of boys fishing, a couple of girls doing nothing, sit around the chateau's fishing pond, and two plastic boats are drawn up at the water's edge.

Down the road, early evening

2011-04-07T20:35:00.000+02:00

Though the evening air is cooling, Ludovic, his wife, baby and border collie are still outside on the lawn with a blanket, enjoying surely the warmest day of the year.

Up the road, afternoon (Wednesday)

2011-04-07T18:37:00.000+02:00

The black umbrella put up when the German shepherd runs out at us works well, both dogs are confused and discouraged from aggression, and we are able to move off.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-03-31T18:26:00.000+02:00

The circus is in town, in the car park. Three colourful performing bantam cockerels, one tethered by his leg with string, have been let out to graze on the grass.

Approach to Bogard, afternoon

2011-03-30T20:56:00.000+02:00

I am in a hurry, so we walk just about to the point where an old oak tree has been split and broken down a jagged near-vertical axis, by who-knows what.

Woods outside Henon, lunchtime

2011-03-26T22:17:00.000+01:00

I first hear, then catch sight of the woodpecker as it flies across my path; the whir of its wings seem to echo the drumming of its beak on wood.

Down the road, evening

2011-03-23T22:53:00.000+01:00

The scent of the berberis hedge and the aromatic balsam of the poplars all down the valley, coming into coppery leaf, with the mounting birdsong thicken the air for spring.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-03-21T18:24:00.000+01:00

Though the sun is bright, there are windflowers out, and today I saw the year's first swallow, still I have to pull my fleece sleeves down over my ungloved hands.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-03-19T14:08:00.000+01:00

Soundscape: one skylark up from the grass, another further off, blackbirds, a bumblebee passing, distant traffic and a high-flying jet, a dog barking, a donkey's hee-haw near the water tower.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour, afternoon

2011-03-16T18:52:00.000+01:00

The day is a homogeneous foggy monochrome, except for the electric green flicker of emerging hawthorn leaves above the path.

Molly comes back to the car smelling of crushed celandines.

Garden, morning

2011-03-13T20:57:00.000+01:00

The greater spotted woodpecker comes to the feeder to eat the fat-balls. It looks enormous so close, and the patterning on its back reminds me of some kind of insect.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-03-06T20:39:00.000+01:00

There is the faintest dusting of white on the still leafless mirabelle hedge in the distance.

The skylark Molly started up from the pasture accompanies us, singing, along the road.

Watermill, Guette-es-Lievres, morning

2011-03-02T22:27:00.000+01:00

Tight pleated shoots of wood anemone emerge through the leaf litter. One of last year's beech leaves is pierced and held aloft by the yellow bullet of a daffodil bud.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2011-02-24T15:58:00.000+01:00

The strong welling of water around the sluice is unusual. Then the coypu surfaces, and seeing me, floats for a time in the guise of a log, before diving again.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon

2011-02-23T22:08:00.000+01:00

Bright bronze alder catkins follow on top of last year's blackened cones.

The tip of an overhanging twig divides the fast running water of the stream into a fluid V.

Old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour

2011-02-20T16:14:00.000+01:00

Mol sloshes through the puddles, we hop over and round them, talking happily about The King's Speech, which we have just seen. Mol was patient and waited in the car.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-02-16T13:33:00.000+01:00

A bright open sky, anvil-clouded, to our right, makes the cloudbank on our left dark. The soft pale serrations of distant poplars glow against the winter wooded hills behind them

Up the road, afternoon

2011-02-12T19:08:00.000+01:00

A few daffodils at Brochains', always quite early, and the viburnum in flower, yellow crocus, purple primulas, many catkins and glowing leaf buds of the honeysuckle vines in the hedges.

Hill above Henon, afternoon.

2011-02-10T17:32:00.000+01:00

In the fallow field, among the shoots of phacelia and leftover rapeseed plants, are large numbers of tiny cream-coloured pansy-like flowers, heartsease, I suppose, and the name itself seems cheering.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

2011-02-09T18:53:00.000+01:00

A rugosa rose bush, with acid green shooting leaves and spidery withered hips invites photography, until three rumbustious dogs come pelting around the corner, driving us back to the car.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-02-08T16:50:00.000+01:00

Just lately I am intensely enjoying the gorse flowers. I know they are there more or less all the time, but their yellow now seems especially full of promising sunshine.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-02-06T19:22:00.000+01:00

We walk to the end of the la Tantouille lane, and contemplate completing the triangle, but the haul up to Plemy, then still being far from home, turns us back.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-01-30T22:22:00.000+01:00

The firs are dark against the cloud-opalescing sun, not quite blue, nor grey, nor green. One gull whirls on a wingtip, counterchanging, between sky and trees, now dark, now light.

Up the road, afternoon.

2011-01-24T21:38:00.000+01:00

Three partridges scuttle away across the bare stalks of the maize field.

The mirabelle hedge has been pruned, the logs with their rose-gold cross sections piled neatly between the trunks.

Hill above Henon, afternoon

2011-01-15T17:08:00.000+01:00

Looking out towards the sea, the upright white marks of water towers suddenly remind me of the old stone cisterns of the villages on the Mani peninsular on the Peloponnese.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning.

2011-01-13T17:24:00.000+01:00

Some of the short, fat, grey hazel catkins, biding their time since before Christmas, have, with warmer weather, fluffed out into soft yellow dangles, like expanding foam from a can.

Up the road, afternoon

2011-01-09T22:34:00.000+01:00

It's one of those January days with an almost unbelievable ghost of a promise of spring, where the green on the slopes is gold, in credit at last with light.

Down the road, early evening

2011-01-04T18:59:00.000+01:00

The unrelenting grey opens momentarily, showing a delicate blue and rose band of light to the north.

A kestrel perches upright in the air, then settles in the chestnut tree.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour

2010-12-28T16:31:00.000+01:00

It is mild, foggy and manageable again, the tree trunks greasy and sleek, a very few abstract shapes of icicles, fallen and broken or attaching still to brambles and ivy.

Tredaniel plan d'eau, morning

2010-12-21T16:43:00.000+01:00

One stone tossed onto the ice rests there, the second splashes and sinks. Frosted edges sharpen the identity of every leaf.

Short fat hazel catkins hold sturdily to bare winter branches.

Down the road, early evening.

2010-12-16T09:38:00.000+01:00

The swept-up, bare branches of the poplars in the valley look like the bristles of great brushes, turned upside-down to sweep the drifts of dust-blue cloud across the evening sky.

Lamballe plan d'eau, morning

2010-12-16T09:35:00.000+01:00

The water is unaccountably low; ducks mooch around unaccustomed stony beaches, herons and cormorants stand proud in the middle, and the clumps of moor grass no longer make floating islands.

Hill above Henon, evening

2010-12-11T23:16:00.000+01:00

We stop on the way home, and walk by headlight and torchlight. The village below, church and houses, glow, and the lights along the coast far off shine like beads.

Down the road, late afternoon

2010-12-03T22:01:00.000+01:00

A quad bike slithers up the road as we slither down it.

Two spikes of dock and the line of the electric fence are all that break the snow's whiteness.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon

2010-12-01T21:27:00.000+01:00

The snow, which has not long started, is still at the granular stage, settling on the sandy paths but not yet on the grass, and creaking rather than crunching underfoot.

Up the road, afternoon

2010-11-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

Really the strangest weather: warm sunshine and mild, but with grainy snow swirling down. By the time we get round though, it is harder and colder, bouncing off Molly's nose.

Watermill, Guette-es-Lievres, afternoon.

2010-11-16T22:22:00.000+01:00

The autumn leaves are thin and transparent and lacy. The river must have flooded very recently, parts of the path are washed clean of leaves and covered in soft silt.

Down the road,early evening.

2010-11-13T22:33:00.000+01:00

It is early evening, which not so long ago would have been afternoon. Everywhere is desaturated by rain and greyness, a white achillea flower looks like a piece of litter.

Up the road, afternoon

2010-11-08T22:21:00.000+01:00

An odd white cable hangs, free and apparently purposeless, from the electricity pole.. It flaps and taps in the wind against the pole like a halyard on a boat's mast.

Down the road, early evening.

2010-11-06T18:04:00.000+01:00

I light our first fire, to air the house, before we go out, and smell the smoke from it on the damp mild air all the way down the road.

The old railtrack, Gare de Moncontour

2010-11-06T18:01:00.000+01:00

In spring this deep shadowy stretch is dotted with hawthorn petals, in summer laced with spent chestnut catkins, and now bristly with rotting chestnut husks and patterned with yellow leaves.