Malaucene, cafe
Tuesday: Windows open on the Plain below with its villages and orchards. The little terrier across the road has been yapping all morning long, at a group of workers in their workers’ yellow vests doing I don’t know what. They made some attempts to shut the dog up, but finally renounced. Yesterday I passed them, on my bike, working along the road higher up.
The almond trees are all gradually flowering. It is a tree that can grow wild in the countryside so there are lots around, and it is special to be here and see them begin to flower, as the first sign of spring. I think dogwood in the woods around Vancouver used to do something similar. Last night, sitting reading (The Dolphin Letters) in the big room I watched twilight come towards the hills beyond the village and two almond trees, one wholly in bloom, the other starting, shining against the dark hills, mostly pine and oak—green oak, but also the kind that keeps its warm brown dry leaves all winter.
Thursday: Wonderful not to have an internet connection in the house. Am I the only one who can get distracted by its presence (I don’t have a cell phone), checking the latest, mostly political news at all hours of the day, unable to read a long print article through without being tempted by something online. Here I’m reduced to reading old New Yorkers through, word by word—I’ve just discovered that even the brief descriptions of past art shows are interesting, one last December in NYC, for instance, about Shaker furniture and minimalism (Agnes Martin, my compatriot). Twice-weekly visits to a café with internet in the next town are good enough, plus full of human interest.
Yesterday afternoon we decided to hike up again to ‘Clairier’ and poke around in the Roman ruins, an oppidum dismantled for centuries in the woods, mostly unvisited, except, it appeared, by some kids who have fashioned a stone hut from some of the heaps of stones, with a moss-covered tree trunk roof. Lots of moss: the site is on the icy north side of the ridge. It’s a magic place, a little like coming on Machu Pichu for the first time, in scrub oak and broom and brambles. Yesterday we went hunting for a ‘wall’ that my brother-in-law had seen once years ago, in its glory, but couldn’t find at all more recently. We pushed through prickly brush (possibly along animal—boar—trails) and found what we think must be its remnants, and then freezing, walked by to the human trail on the sunny side.
On the way back down to the car, past the goat (cheese) farm, I found some violets in flower in a cleft of the rock and along the roadside.
And oh, this morning sitting in the sun on the gravel with a mug of coffee in the small, walled garden, there were white roses in bloom along the wall, and four almond trees coming into or already flowering outside.