A step in the right direction

I've been listening to a lot of talks lately about farming practice and Permaculture, partly in relation to  my own research for writing about a speculative world in 2070, and partly because of the amount of information revealed to us all everyday about how we are - through overuse of pesticides, petrol-based fertilisers etc - basically killing the surface of our one and only human home - and I'm not one of the folk who think we'll just piss off to Mars when this globe's kicked us off.
Therefore, I was really excited to find on one of my favourite dog walks up in the hills that some enterprising and sensible bod had introduced their flock of sheep and lambs into a huge area of vine fields - fenced off and patrolled by one of the calf-sized sheep dogs of this region, the Great Pyrenean hound, or Patou, in local speak.
What could be more sensible? The sheep eat the weeds - usually treated with roundup or some similar poison, (weeds, not the sheep) and then the animals crap thus fertilising the soil . . . It's beautiful in its simplicity and a joy to see rather than some tractor grunting up and down the striped fields spraying clouds of death-juice into the atmosphere.

   

Feeling stressed? Watch this.

I don't think I've ever heard anything narrated in such a calmly and deliciously articulate way, even if the owner of the voice is talking about possible sheep-death caused by brambles . . .
I came across this while researching a plant that ensnares sheep in Peru - I had imagined a triffid-like bit of flora that lances out a green spiny limb and drags the unfortunate animal into a gaping mouth but actually it's similar to the bramble bush in that wool-clad animals will wander while feeding into a patch of the thorny plants and become entangled.  Any further wriggling to get free will make it more captive until . . . well, the end, sadly, through starvation or bird attack, etc.
A clever bit of evolution - a sheep-sized bag of ready made fertiliser at the foot of the plant. Ugh.

Building No 53

We pass this wooden dog house on every walk up at 'Lapeyre', a tiny hamlet consisting of two houses, surrounded by vines and sheep pasture.
A very small and elderly hunting dog used to pop out from it and bark reedily until we had walked enough distance from his territory. These days the house appears to be empty - the dog presumably having moved on.
There are many sounds connected to this walk: the chickens cackling as they run freely in the hamlet's streets (street), the bleating of sheep, the crow colony that occupy the oak trees, and the friendly greeting from 'Monsieur oui, oui, oui', the white-haired inhabitant of Lapeyre. But I miss the barking, and wonder if another hound will be offered the house, or perhaps it was only constructed with that particular dog in mind.

Once again

our kettle has been saved from the bin.

A plankton sized piece of information . . . but in our house the kettle is of vast importance. This particular junk shop item has been with us for about ten years and has had many other 'lid-knobs' in its time.
I think the original one was probably bakelite - polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride -apparently, then followed a series of corks that disintegrated, then a rather beautiful brass curtain rail finial which can be seen - if you really have nothing else to do - on my post-materialism site; then . . . err, ah yes, a lead penguin, then this (above) lead sheep, although without its modernistic wire construction - this added when the wire-wrapped-around-belly-design finally failed.
Unless the vessel itself melts through being boiled dry - something my mother excelled in, I think it will be with us for ever, the knob being changed every six months or so when the last one fails, or something else presents itself as being a super alternative.

Moments in time

If I'd spent five more minutes looking for my sunglasses before leaving the house, or had gone back to check the door was locked, I would have missed this moment.
We (me, son and dogs) had driven up into the nearby mountains/very large hills to escape, for a while, the incredible heat suffocating our town - not complaining! I love the summer, and it is a REAL one this year, but dog walking has become a pathetic amble down the road, well after the sun has disappeared for the day.
So, into the hills we went and walked along ferny lanes that smelt of boxwood and moss rather than the boiled marjoram and tired lavender of our parched garden and lane. On arriving back to the car I decided on a 'me' voyage back, that is to say, let's just continue along this road and see what happens, with no map and no GBH/RSJ/GPL or whatever it is.
After some way the road was barricaded by an open gate and a car. Just as I was contemplating a small track off to the right which would have ended up in some rubbly field, a man appeared and asked if we could wait five minutes as a 'troupe' of 'Brebis' (sheep) were about to be led into another pasture area.
I nodded, got out with camera while the dogs howled in the car, and watched a memorable scene of the young woman herder rattling a plastic bucket, striding ahead of the emerging pack, her cry of "Yeep, yeep" filling the dusty air while the man clapped his hands in manner of a slightly underdressed flamenco dancer.
I don't know why or how the brain makes and stores memories but I'm sure the smells, sounds and sight of that moment will be stored.

Around-sounds

Some favourite sounds: Clatter of flags on yacht masts, ice cream van jingles, seagulls, wheezing summer swallows, the wind in pine trees, the kettle boiling, grandfather clocks, church bells, rustle of fruit being put into paper bags, the dawn chorus, waves on shingle and somewhere at the top of the list: goats and sheep (voices and bells.)

Here is a little film (sorry for dubious quality) I took a few days ago, of a mixed herd of goats and sheep being let onto new pasture somewhere in the hills above Alet-Les Bains, near Limoux.

Churches

Following on from the last post I suppose . . .
I've always been drawn to churches: not for a reason of being in need of prayer, of talking to him or whoever it is that resides up there - if they do, but just because they feel different to any other sort of building.
People don't eat within their walls, apart from the odd round piece of flat bread, no chatting, no reading, no relaxing with your feet up; some learning perhaps, if you happen to stumble across a particularly eloquent vicar. A building with no other purpose than to reflect on God, Jesus, Mary, etc. Or in my case, usually, the meaning of life. As soon as I step over the threshold of any church, it starts up - a quiet meandering of thoughts on what's it all about, nothing anxious: something about the smell, the patina of age, the fact that thousands of others have walked around the building in quiet thought.
My preferred edifices are the small, rarely visited ones, like the one illustrated here. I can't even remember where it was now. It was like so many others in this region, the pictures warped with age and damp, the blue paintwork faded and fissured, a few long-dead flowers.
Mark and I visited Notre Dame de Paris recently during morning mass - thousands of people either worshiping or ticking off the tourist trail, the air heavy with incense, a burst of sunlight illuminating the intricate stained glass intermittently. It was a memorable time but not as moving to me as the minutes spent in many small village churches.

One of my most vivid memories of such places was a tiny Cretan church in the mountains on a foggy cold April morning. Unremarkable, white and plain apart from the hundreds of sheep that were passing through it, each one being blessed by the priest.

Belcaire

Today Mark and I went for our annual walk.
When we came to live here we said we would go for a proper - meaning walking boots and maps sort of walk every week. Nope. Then it became every month and we failed at that. So, once a year or so . . This year it was 'Le Plateau de Sault' a stunning piece of the Aude, way way up into the mountains before the real Pyrenees. It was so wonderful: no mobile signal, no cars, no adverts, no shops, just birds of prey, a few cattle, sheep, and lots of vast open spaces. We followed a very out of date walking guide and got lost and it was great. Had a nice lunch despite the woman looking at Mark as if he had come to do a tax inspection her when he said he was vegetarian. The P de S is famous for potatoes and we hoped to do some spud tasting and possibly buy a sack but no one seemed around at the various farms with signs suggesting the purchase of said tubers. In fact there didn't seem to be anyone anywhere.

Went on to Belcaire which has a strange outcrop of rock behind the church with an exciting crop of antennae and no messing iron cross complete with Christmas star.

Night train window.

Painting from a two minute sketch during a journey from Poole to waterloo. In fact a very tedious journey that involved a bus in the middle, and standing in the drizzle with lots of sheep-like people (including me) saying: "Where are we? Is this the right bus? I need a sandwich."