Birds and stars (and bugs)

Mike is doorman for the bugs, mice and slugs that enter our house.  He is very fond of them.    I have heard him having kindly conversations with hard backed beetles as he gently ushers them out.   This morning I noticed a very large grasshopper lying on the bedroom floor and requested its eviction.  Mike came upstairs, stared at it briefly and then accusingly at me.  “It’s injured,” he said, “What have you done to it?  You must have trodden on it.”   (I didn’t).  He carried it lovingly to the window.   As he is kinder to bugs than he is to human visitors, perhaps I should suggest that my friends dress in green and wear antennae (or wings).

Summer view from the bedroom window

One of the reasons that our bedroom has good bug access is that there is a large tree outside the back window.  When we first bought the house, we had a perfect view of the night sky but now this is obscured by ever lengthening branches.   I can only glimpse the odd summer star by bending almost in half and contorting my neck.  And, as I like opening the windows in fine weather, it’s just a hop and a skip for little bugs to come visiting.   We are undecided about branch lopping as this could lose us the birds that gather on the tree to visit our window bird feeder.  Birds or stars, birds or stars – there’s a quandary.

Winter bedroom window view

I did an afternoon in the charity shop in St Yrieix on Tuesday.  I keep meaning to give it up, but it’s good for me.  It’s one of the few places I have to speak French.  Tuesday was very hot and we had a heavy influx of wounded people, not well enough to go swimming at the lake or walking in the countryside.  We were handed a large clothes donation, including packets of free socks that are handed out on aeroplane journeys, by a man in a neck brace.  Then we had a nice man who had had a stroke, followed by a very small woman wearing trousers with a waistline about 6 inches too big for her.  “I’ve lost weight,” she said, “I’ve been ill” and told tales of abandonment, cruelty and betrayal.   She did find some trousers that would fit and also a belt to hold up the ones that won’t so I hope life is improving for her. 

The strangest customer, though, was a woman who spoke little but had very staring eyes and kept opening and shutting her mouth like a goldfish.   Maybe it’s the heat.



Down river


 The best thing about the weather is that Mike and I have been able to launch our canoe.  This was a new purchase earlier this year but the river has been too rain filled to attempt a jaunt.  We did try it out once but were unable to get past a sort of mill race that thunders by us when the river is full.  Mike screamed instructions a lot and we waved oars and bickered.  So this week’s canoe ride was wonderful.  There is nothing, really nothing, as nice as gently paddling down a Dordogne river surrounded by birds and trees and reflected light.