Friday

In the late afternoon, after a day of being on my feet without pause, I sit down to a cup of espresso, along with the last of the madelines I had brought home for Easter. Ha! Last of the treats... so it must be time to travel again?





Well, no. End of April, all of May, much of June -- those are the best months here (unless, like last year, spring comes late, mosquitoes come early and tornadoes rip through this area). The work outside seems never ending, but it's grand work: digging, tidying, fixing and eventually planting. To travel in this period seems unthinkable -- except when I remember that this is the best time in any number of destinations across the ocean.

As if telepathically intuiting my musings, Odile, the inn keeper from Marseille who is fast becoming a good friend, writes and asks when I will be coming for another visit. Good friends should never live in far away places. I think of my Warsaw friend whose sage advice I could use from time to time -- when will I see her again?

I sip my tiny bit of coffee and I keep an eye on the artichokes that I'm cooking right now. They're nice, but they're large. You could not eat them raw. Still, I think most instructions have you over-cook an artichoke. After fifteen minutes, I drain them and think back to my artichoke salad in Nice. But that was so long ago! Madame who served me the artichoke salad will have had her birthday, the Niçoise season will have moved forward to a warmer set of temperatures. Time doesn't pause.






Even as many things, over time, stay the same. Breakfast in the sun room! Ed, hair still wet from a morning shower, is getting ready to go to his techie meetings.






(Morning sunshine -- that's a surprise! The forecast called for clouds and showers!)






I tell Ed I cannot work in the yard with Oreo's unpredictable mood swings. He points out how much the cheepers band together and enjoy each others company.



(a typical huddle under th lilac bush)


Well yes, but if you took away one, would they notice?





And how mean must Oreo become for me to take the rooster away from Ed?


I go grocery shopping, putting off outdoor jobs until Ed's home again at noon.

And then we work hard. More wood chips to heave onto flower beds, more weeding, more bramble removal. We have a surprisingly lovely day for it.





Cool, but not in a bad away. Looking at the forecast, we have a beautiful set of days before us -- nothing at all like the wretched snows that fell on April 15th in 2014.


In the evening, Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse for a few hours.

Before I even get ready to feed her, she has her funny time with Ed.











He tells me how much she has grown! Yes, she doesn't seem so tiny in his arms anymore.






After her supper, she is ever joyful and expressive and of course, being a grandma, I can give her all of my attention.












The parents come, Snowdrop goes home.






It's late when Ed and I finally give in to tiredness. Upstairs, I leave the window open just a crack. You can hear the owl that way and in the morning, beginning in April, the birds are at their loudest. Who would not love this month?!