now that april's here..

Now that April's here I have yet to make any sourdough but have cleaned the oven. (Hooray for Oven Pride.)

From the mundane to the sublime.
- Now this will sound impossibly affected and in the worst style of all those books (written by women, I'm sorry to say, who go and live in Tuscandordogneshire and grow lemon trees,) that end up in heaps on the second-hand book stalls in Eymet market. But it's true.
Until a few days ago when April returned, we had the most perfect weather, and every evening when I closed the shutters, I stepped outside to listen to the nightingales and gaze at Mars, so large and red(ish) in the South East sky. Magical. Clear  air, vast dark ink sky with  stars coming out, glowing planets then that magical sound. The birds had given our garden a miss for a couple of years so I was thrilled that they have returned this year.
 There are far fewer goldfinches than usual, no long tailed tits seem to have flitted through, hardly any sparrows, so although there are few changes in this area of vines, pasture and woodland, somehow the environment for many creatures is changing. But we have wrens nesting in the woodshed wall and in the ivy round a plane tree, robins squaring up to each other in the figs, blue and great tits, blackbirds and thrushes and now the glorious nightingales in the big ash tree at the east end of the garden. The orioles will be here soon too, but I can do without their catty screech at dawn!
  Then a couple of nights back, instead of the nightingales it was the toads singing so I knew it must soon rain. Over the lane live Rene and Denice and the underground stream that runs from Mathilde and Francis' up the track, under our far well, (once the water source for the house, see much earlier blog,) goes down through their garden and opens to the world in a most wonderful fairy grotto, all crumbled rock outcrops, dripping trailing ferns and grasping twisted tree roots. And in the pool at its foot are natterjacks, sounds like hundreds of them chirruping away.

 And now indeed we have rain, just like last weekend. The first barbeque invitation had arrived, an Easter get together for 12 of us to admire a friend's new gas effort, v posh. And although we had to eat in the garden room a jolly time was had, one of the social occasions that have made retirement here most enjoyable! We have managed 1 BBQ of our own too, one Friday lighting the twigs in the outside cheminée and cooking too much meat, why do we always do that at barbeques?
A bit more fine would be good as there are still garden jobs to do to smarten up in case we get any house viewings. Jarletou is back on the market after 6 months and the replacement of the roof. (Except one agent, we discovered, had not removed it, as
"It seemed such a shame to take it off when you were going to put it back on; we might have found you a buyer"  !  Cheek of it.)
I doubt it, surrounded as we were for the whole of February by scaffolding, cement mixers, rubble, an enormous lorry with two massive braced arms supporting a huge extendable crane like a hooked red claw, a couple of skips and a carpet of blue plastic tarpauline to keep entrances 'clean'. And during it all, 3 guys working through showers and  downpours, although they did give up during the deluges, standing under our veranda drinking café noir and eating carrot cake, brownies and sticky date cake. It would have taken a buyer with a great deal of determination and imagination.
The inside became as mucky as out. (Sitting in our courtyard on a sunny afternoon a few days ago with the golfing pal of a friend in Devon, I was, bizarrely I thought, conversing about hoovering and how in these old stone houses you spend as long hoovering walls and beams and ceilings as you do floors. He had brought us some chilli plants and deserved more interesting chat, hey ho.)
But now the grit in the house has been hoovered and the outside is restored and the roof, source of so many sleepless worried nights in the last two years looks amazing, I hope someone will see the 'potential'.
The housing market is, we are told, picking up, with French, Belgian and Russians house-hunting in the area as well as British. But prices are not picking up, every buyer is expecting bargains and deals, we are going to be lucky to break even. < sad sighing face thingy > The possible house and garden in Dorset/Somerset is shrinking every day.
 But as Paul regularly says,
"There are worse places to be stuck", and breathing our clear air, and looking forward to dinner at Mama Chow's with friends, (oo good, chilli hit,) I know he's right.