Travels

This will be my last post here for a while. We’re off on our travels again tomorrow, driving through France, visiting friends and relatives as we go, then to Spain to visit our daughter – our usual annual jaunt. Depending on where we are I may be able to pop in from time to time as I will have my laptop with me, but it will be spasmodic as we will be in our motorhome and not always where we can have wifi access. As always our son will be holding the fort at home – what would we do without him? We don’t expect to be back home until early to mid-November so apart from a possible few brief visits I look forward to seeing you again then.

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Sunflower Seeds

Squirrel on the fence

We sneaked a few days away last week for a little cycling break up on the North Norfolk coastal area – beautiful! While we were away our youngest son, who was keeping house for us, sent this photo of a squirrel eating the sunflower seeds from one of our dead sunflowers.

When I went to investigate on our return I found no evidence of the sunflower head at all, it had been completely bitten off. There was no sign of it on the ground nearby. I think he must have carried it off and possibly buried it. I’m now a little worried that next year I might have sunflowers popping up in all the most unlikely spots in the garden!

Holiday Elfje – Breathing

Twice
a day
river water comes,
goes, in…out; tide
breathing.

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As promised, over the next couple of weeks I shall share the short-form poetry that I wrote while I was away. With the exception of this Elfje they were inspired by events during that time so I will post them here in chronological order – apart from Monday’s Haiku, which records an event towards the end of my holiday.

Back Home

Well, I have been back now for just over a week and am still not fully back in writing mode! I have been away for two months and have had a blissful break away from all things computer – well not quite all.

I took my computer with me as well as plenty of notebooks and pens but I confess I wrote nothing, apart from my diary and a few postcards! I also took watercolour paints and painting pads but again didn’t touch them. The time wasn’t entirely computer free, as I say I had it with me and I did look in occasionally to check emails and visit Facebook as I dreaded returning home to find hundreds of emails and notifications in my inbox. Checking emails beside the pool – bliss!

Not that I have been idle. We took our tandem with us and managed to go out for a ride most days. No heroic distances; I think the longest ride we did was about 26 miles and some as few as 5 or 6, but it was out in the fresh air enjoying the scenery. We rode along sea-fronts, around towns and villages and along ‘Via Verde’ paths (greenways, disused railway lines). We visited friends and relatives and had fun trying to communicate beyond the language barriers. I speak a little of both French and Spanish and one memorable conversation was with a Frenchman who spoke little English. I was trying to talk to him in French when I came up with a Spanish word by mistake (brain just thinks ‘foreign’!) and apologised. It turned out he also spoke a little Spanish so we had an interesting conversation in three languages, inserting the words we couldn’t remember in one language for those of another and completely understood each other!

Since my return home I have been running around in small circles trying to catch up with myself – garden to tidy, washing to do, magazine to edit and Christmas just around the corner.

It took a few days to get around to downloading all my photos but here’s one I just have to share with you. I have never seen anything like this before – a bread-dispensing machine in France. You could buy either a one euro or a two euro loaf. We bought a one euro loaf from it and I have to say it was really delicious and fresh, as if the machine had only been filled that day. I just had to take a photo. It was a Sunday, shops are shut in France on Sundays and we really needed some bread so it was wonderful to come across this machine a short way away from the motorhome ‘Aires’ where we had parked up.

The weather was mostly warm and sunny, except driving back through France when it gradually became colder with some frosty mornings as well as rain, and we were thankful that we had taken winter woollies with us. We are still adjusting to the cold back home, but it is good to be back!

Time To Go

The leaves are turning;
time to go and find some sun,
holiday abroad!

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I seem to have got in a bit of a muddle with my posts this week, I’m having trouble keeping track of what day it is. This is mainly because we are off tomorrow (Saturday) for an extended trip through France to Spain and back. I shall therefore be taking a break from blogging until late November. I hope to catch up with you all then. Sadly I shall miss the progress of Autumn, which is a season I love. No doubt all the trees will be nearly bare by the time I return and life will be a mad rush to get ready for Christmas.

Life Cycle

Whenever you go away,
however brief your stay,
on your return you’re sure to find
the houseplants are dry,
the garden’s run wild,
it’s simply amazing
how the washing has piled
and dust has settled everywhere.
You rush around until you are tired
and there is no doubt in your mind
that what you need is a holiday,
but,
you know,
however brief your stay,
on your return you’re sure to find…

Cycling Quote 1

I shall be off-line next week – we are going, in company with our eldest son, daughter-in-law and grandson, for a ‘bucket and spade’ holiday in South Wales – so I thought I would amuse you with some quotations while I am away. Two more to follow, on Wednesday and Friday.

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“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Scientific American (1896)

Return

On the eve of our holiday
I wonder if, on our return,
all the Spring blossom
will have died away.

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I am going away today for a couple of weeks and will likely be off-line for much of that time due to no WIFI access. I have scheduled a review of “Dragonscale Leggings” by Freya Pickard to appear on Monday 16th May so please take a look. Normal service will resume around the beginning of June.

Over

Holiday
now over.
No more sun;
nothing but grim, grey,
rain.

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This Elfje also appears today on ‘Simply Elfje’. You can read it here.

Home Early

Back from holiday early
due to my husband’s dental emergency.
A swiftly arranged family meal yesterday
drove the blues away.

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We actually came home last Tuesday but I confess I have been catching up with other things (and enjoying the break from the computer!).