Slow France

‘I have travelled the world, seen sights, met fascinating people, but only when I returned home did I become aware of the beauty on my own doorstep.’  Rabindrath Tagore

Sometimes it takes going away to make you appreciate where you live even more.  

And you can still be SLOW...

We are just home from France. We hadn’t planned to go. We were in the campervan, not too far from home, pedalling along the Mawddach Trail, the most beautiful cycle path in Wales, sneaking up on quiet herons, stopping to watch great crested grebes with their Everton toffee chicks.  A day or two later we trundled off to Hay on Wye to wander among musty books and lemon-drizzly-tea-shops.

Then the van just seemed to want to keep going south. So we stopped in a layby, booked a ferry from Dover, slept on the prom and next day we were in France.

I continued with the Wildlife Trusts #30 Days Wild Challenge (to do something wild each day in June) while we were away.  There are birds in France I don't hear in Wales, a nightingale sang in the Somme, turtle doves purred in the poplar trees of Champagne and a beaver nibbled reeds in a quiet corner of the largest lake in France (Lac du Der, south of Reims).

Being A Slow Tourist

We felt a gentle pull to the West and found ourselves in Normandy.  On the beach at Dives Sur Mer, from where a certain William the Conqueror set sail in 1066, I made patterns with shells on the beach.  I left them for the tide to play with and went for a long walk under a 'Monet sky' (The Impressionists were inspired by the wide skies and alabaster cliffs of this coast, we followed their Trail over the next few days).

When I came back, a little French girl in a turquoise swimsuit was busy adding to my display, a beautiful fish, more flowers and abstract patterns.  She was lost in her creativity. Maybe I had inspired her. Maybe she will be an artist one day, or maybe she just had a real fun SLOW day on the beach?

Fish added by little girl

Back home, the garden welcomed us with a couple of pints of strawberries, a bundle of rhubarb sticks and some curly kale.  I walked around with my cup of tea, dead-heading, pulling berries, inhaling the vanilla scent of clematis and apologising to my birds for being away. Slowly, they returned to the feeders and pecked at my apple offerings. 

The blackbird meanwhile, had discovered a corner of the bed where the strawberry net hadn't reached and was brazenly helping himself.  I let him go for it, enjoying seeing the strawberry colour smeared on his yellow beak.
It's nice to be home.

http://www.lacduder.com/en/a-haven-for-birds

The Only Stork in the Village

Here he is, 'Storky White', he made a fantastic clicking-castanet sound with his beak each time he arrived back at his nest.  His Mrs hadn't joined him yet and after the coldest night we'd had in the van so far at minus 3 degrees C, I can't say as I blamed her!  We were parked in a designated campervan stop practically under his nest in the sleepy village of Chevannes sur l'Etang, Alsace, on our way to the Swiss border. Etangs are ponds and there are lots of them around the village with three way-marked routes to choose from. We picked one amongst watery woodlands and heard our first yellow-hammer singing 'a little bit of bread and no cheeeeeese.'  Storky White was hunkered down in his nest at 6.30pm, with only a bit of his tail visible and a blackbird sang his flutey song as we munched on crusty French bread and watched the sun sink behind a stand of willows.

Some Posts from Our Slow Campervan trip to Greece

(On March 12th we pointed our campervan east and began a trip to Greece to welcome the Spring.  Charlie has made me the most wonderful retreat on wheels - photos later - we travel slowly and live simply, by 'wild' camping).

The Night of a Thousand Cranes...

We spent our first night parked on Dover Prom, lulled to sleep by the shushing of waves on shingle.  Night two was spent on the edge of Lac du Der - Chantecoq, the largest lake in France.  We arrived to the sound of bugles and looked up to see thousands of cranes ribboning across the lilac sky towards their island roosting site. That night I dreamt of cranes dancing in stubble fields under the silver moon.

A bugling alarm clock woke us at 6am the following morning. I leapt out of bed, which only the sound of passing geese, and now cranes can make me do. I sleep-walked to the water's edge, a lone witness to the noisy take off of cranes, gliding low past the rising sun and sliding over water the colour of freshly sliced blood oranges. The sound was like a whole orchestra of those long trumpets with banners below being blown to herald the start of a medieval jousting tournament. A flock of curlew joined in the chorus and a chiff-chaff or two added some rhythm.

Later we found La Ferme aux Grues (Farm of the Cranes) and climbed to the top of a tower hide to watch 50 feeding cranes po-go-ing and bugling whilst a spec of a skylark poured its high brow song over the brash punk rockers.

We watched great crested grebes doing their courtship display, coming together to form their necks into a heart shape, heard green woodpeckers laughing and chiff-chaffs, reed buntings, sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, curlews, starlings and herons.  

Spring had arrived in France and the air was filled with the glorious sound of it; bugling, trumpeting, yaffling, honking, chirping, tweeting, splashing, flapping, fluttering, buzzing, swishing, drumming, clicking, whistling and barking.