Finding fun in the wind.
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 April 2012 14:23:31
I'll tell you, I wasn't wearing my swimming cozzie yesterday! It was warm but it was very, very windy. Mr D was out cycling and said there were times when they weren't going anywhere because of the force of the wind against them.
Following suggestions from Carolyn on the theme of "Walking" for finding fun in one's life, yesterday I decided to go for a walk, but a meandering kind of walk. Not one for fitness (although it did help loosen my aching back) but for pleasure. If something caught my eye, I paused and looked and examined, as a child does: so at times I hunkered down and watched a veritable ant highway, as they scurried across the path, dragging bits of leaf, or food matter. I stopped to examine a couple of shiny black beetles, waving their attenae, and to wonder who or what lived in the holes between the tre-roots. I felt the ferny softness of the new growth on the end of pine tree branches, and shivered in fear as I watched the tall, slender pines wave and bend and creak in the increasing wind. And I opened my arms out wide and "leant against" the wind as I used to do when I was younger - sadly, even with the strength of the wind, my weight defeated it and I staggered backwards..!
I set my phone alarm to go every ten minutes, and wherever I was I took a photo. I had planned to pick something up too, but that fell at the first hurdle when there was nothing but a dandelion or a bit of concrete. I picked the dandelion, and put it in my buttonhole, but after that I stopped collecting things.
As I set off I took a photo of the Bleedin' 'eart in the courtyard. I love this plant! Especially as when I bought it, I thought it was an annual, so the following year when it appeared again (much bigger!) it was such a pleasant surprise! Unfortunately after last night's winds it's looking a bit sad and battered, but I'm hoping it will perk up again soon.
I'm on one route out of the village, and the farm is on another. At the end of my walk I will come in again on the road that you can see, but for now I'm heading out towards...
...the meadows where the cows are. The field where this family was standing was particularly wet, so they all look as though they're wearing black knee-high socks! It was very boggy. When they came over to see me, they were practically sinking thigh high in the water/bog/marsh
I took this looking directly up at the sky. A completely different view.
Another 10 minutes walking took me to the old railway track where I spotted these wild strawberry flowers. I wonder if I'll remember where they are come the fruiting season! I love the taste of wild strawberries.
Here's some lichen on a tree; I remember seeing lots of this lichen in Madeira. It is supposed to grow only where the air is pure and free from pollution. There's a lot of it around here, where certainly there is nowhere near the pollution that there is in the towns.
I rescued snails too! I found this beauty in the middle of the track: of course, there wasn't anyone about except me, so he probably wasn't in much danger of getting trodden on, but I moved him to the side just in case. Mr D thinks I'm mad, but I can't bring myself to kill the snails in our courtyard, even if they do eat the plants. I just pick them up and put them over the other side of the paving, so they'll have to slide further before reaching the plants!!
When the alarm went off this time, there wasn't much to photograph, so I took a photo of the new road. It used to be a much sharper bend, and I can only assume that it was thought to be dangerous, so the Conseil General de la Loire spent a lot of money making it a shallower bend. You can see how boggy the ground is: we've had a lot of rain.
Here's a view of the village as I come back into it. The road at the bottom of the photo is the road that I took out, at the beginning of the walk. And finally, I arrive back home just as the alarm goes off again...
Here are Bruno and Lenka from the hotel next door, starting to put together the terrace for the restaurant. We know that summer is on its way when the terrace comes out!
And my adventure finishes, as they all should, with a drink-and-a-biskit. This time, it is Thé aux fruits rouges and my very favourite Palmiers biscuit.
I didn't find this week's "Finding Fun" activities very scary; I had been worried I would find myself deep out of my comfort zone, but I was safe! I may even try some of the other activities that Carolyn suggests. One of her suggestions is "taking a pencil for a walk" - not planning where you will take the pencil, but rather aimlessly drawing on a page. It reminds me of what I used to call "joggle maps" - in the back of the car, on the way to Nana Disley's house in Walton,Liverpool...
...I would hold a pen loosely on the page. It would move and joggle as we went over bumps and around corners. Afterwards I would try to identify where we were when certain marks were made. I could never understand why the maps were never the same each time!
I'm now going to go and see what other people have been doing with their Fun activities!