Many of you will know how a sudden death, albeit not unexpected, can affect you. I was a little surprised to find how shocked, aghast, full of awe, I was. How I would wake in the night with a gasp. How I realised that things might change rather, now, in ways I could imagine but also in some I might not foresee. Several times a day, I needed to stop what I was doing to take a few deep breaths.
Gradually, a sort of peace crept in. On an early October day, I walked up a lane from Pardaillan through scented air, searching for the right spot for a particular photo. The white, flat, gable of the little church, surrounded by the autumn colours of the prune orchards was what I was after. But despite the blue sky, golden orange leaves, white tower, from which its bell was ringing, the picture wasn't right. It was better the day before. The day before when I hadn't had time to stop as I drove the back way from Sauvetat to Duras, and the sky had been prussian blue with an impending storm while the sun blazed from the south-east, behind me, onto the white gable jumping against the blue-black sky, firing the plum trees in layers of sunset colours.
But the light was different, the storm had blown away a lot of the leaves. I got some pictures, but they don't show the luminous colours I had seen.
But the sun was warm and I identified the scent in the air - warm, dessicated plums and aromatic dry leaves, hay and cut maize and fresh air. I waved to Christophe the carpenter who rocketed past in his van. The bells rang. Gathering swallows twittered excitedly on every fence and wire. I took a peaceful, deep breath.