It certainly has been a soggy late winter in our corner of
France. A week ago we donned our macs and boots and took Lulu for a nice long walk,
one of our favourites. From the track that runs high up behind the château
ruins at Etableau we could see exactly how soggy everything was.
Lulu was enjoying every minute. Her walks for the last month have
been not much fun for any of us. She hates getting her feet wet and we hate
dealing with muddy paws so the walks have often been rather short. In fact we
have taken it in turns to walk her by ourselves, thinking it was a chore that
had to be done rather than the pleasure it should be. No point in both of us
getting wet if it was not much fun.
All around there was the feeling that something was about to
happen. You could almost feel the trees wanting to get on with it, to get
winter out of the way and get going into spring. This is almost the worst time
of year for me. Thoroughly fed up with being cold and wet, with the dark
nights, the mud and the decaying vegetation all around, by now I am desperate
for some proper sunshine and warmth, to see the flowers and the leaves on the
trees. Enough is enough.
We walked for well over an hour and for a time the sun came out.
What a difference it made. The fields looked so bright and lush. The sun on
the trees made them glow and it even had a little warmth in it. What torment –
to feel just a little warmth to give us hope that spring is just around the
corner than have it snatched away moments later as the sky clouded over and the
trees took on their skeletal form again.
We console ourselves with the thought that spring surely can’t be
far off now and in the meantime we can go home to a nice log fire, a hot shower
and a roof that doesn’t leak any more. Well not much anyway, not as much as
this time last year.
Daisy was of course the sensible one. Not for her this wistful rubbish. If it’s cold and wet outside the best thing is to find a comfy place indoors to snooze until the sun comes out properly. Then it will be time to go out.