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Gascony Diary
April 05
During the last
month we have seen the second-homers flocking
down to the Gers. Riding the horses past the
lake one sunny afternoon, there they were,
eating and flying here there and everywhere,
seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. Then,
a week later, whilst eating a lazy lunch under
the medieval stone arches of a local restaurant,
they were there again. Chattering and racing in
and out of the village market place as if their
very lives depended on it, whilst the local
french workers tore their bread and sipped their
wine slowly in the heat of a glorious Spring
day. Like all summer visitors they had, of
course, expected the place to be just as they
had left it, when, last September, they had
packed up and raced off to warmer climes as the
Autumn breezes ruffled their feathers.
Those who come
to spend the summer in our little valley had
first sensed things were amiss when they flew in
to the newly renovated bedroom on the north side
of the house and could find nowhere to nest.
Soaring low through the same doorway they had
undeniably used last summer, they came upon a
curtain rail and closed ceiling instead of the
lofty rafters of the wine store they had known
previously. They tried the south bedroom, but
things were no better there, and whilst they
still delight with their swooping and soaring
around the garden, their fabulous blue-black
backs glinting in the sunlight, I have no
knowledge of where they have decided to nest.
The house sparrows, unlike the swallows had all
winter to adjust to all the goings-on below,
From the first day that the french builders
arrived last November, they have watched and
adjusted and now crowd into the eaves of the
house where they will not be disturbed. I
suppose there is just a chance that, feeling
snubbed, they will fly on next year, on and on,
over the rest of the empty rural french
countryside and across the channel to pastures
new in England where they can sit, beak to tail,
with all the other anglophile swallows. Someone
should warn them about the weather!!
Previous Entries:
[Mar 05] [Apr
05] [Jun
05] [Aug
05] [Jan
06] [Apr
06]
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