As well as being Síle’s anniversaire today in France is Le Jour du Muguet, the Day of the Lily-of-the-Valley so there are several people selling little bunches in the place de marie

Of course there had to be some on Síle’s birthday card.

The tiny bunch we bought has a starring role on the side-board next to some Alstromera.

And , inspired by motto on the Golden Syrup tin*, I gave the lion on the terrace a nosegay for behind his ear.

*Out of the strong came forth sweetness

Happy Birthday Síle.

In a book of old Provencal post cards, which I bought in l’Isle sur Sorge years ago, there is a picture of this “Comique Militaire” from the 1870’s.

What a face.

A remarkable door, in the back streets of St Pons, photographed by the bro-in-law Martin, flanked by two sentries, yours sincerely with Martin’s wife Una.

The terrace, from the dining room, last autumn.

The Terrace Yesterday

I don’t know that the concept of a terrace, as used in France, has ever reached us in Ireland.
The word itself has been appropriated in Ireland to mean a group of attached houses.
As a consequence we didn’t have one on our short list of essentials for the dream home in France when we started shopping.
Fortunately we bought a home that had one.

Our terrace, which faces due south, opens directly from the dining room and is about five metres wide at one side (about three at the other, the people who originally designed it, many hundreds of years ago, were not intimidated by right angles) and is about ten metres along its length.
It happily holds our large dining table and chairs, tens of pot plants, my étagère of herbs and the wood pile.
It has two doors leading on to it from the house and a Jasmine covered stone stairs which lead down to the garden.

It was certainly love at first sight for me.

From the moment Charles, the estate agent, flung open the doors to the terrace saying ; “You didn’t ask for a view but…” I was smitten.

About six months later, the house now ours but still full of old nuns’ stuff, and after a fraught journey with a sick friend through France (whom I had left in the tender care of a doctor in Beziers Hospital) I unloaded the van we had travelled in, removed a chilled bottle of Picpoul from the fridge, sat with it on the terrace and fell in love.

As our village is a circulade, a spiral , built on a little hill crowned with either a church or a castle (in our case a church) we are –as the old Presbytery -sitting pretty well on top of the village.

The thing about sitting on the terrace is that there is always something to watch so that, even though you remain totally supine you have the illusion that life is not passing you by.

Take yesterday for instance.

Sitting on the terrace you are immediately facing into our tree, a Melia Azedarach or Lilas d’Inde or Persian Lilac.
Just at the moment it is working hard to entertain us.
Having just had its winter pruning it is working especially on its greenery and tufts of leaves are visibly growing as we watch it.
It also is producing its blossom, purple scented bunches which will be in full flower in about two weeks time.
But more it is also providing a big top for the acrobatics of a crowd of adolescent swallows who seem determined to provide us with a constant display of brinkmanship.
Screaming with joy they dive bomb into the tree in a group, they just avoid the branches before flying around in a large circle to repeat the exercise.
As my brother-in-law Martin said yesterday ; “I defy anyone to tell me that they are not enjoying that”

Yesterday was actually a bit of a humdinger for the terrace anyway.
Yesterday it also provided us with a view of the Pyrenees.
Not admittedly a constant or perfectly clear view but a rather nice elusive and occasional glimpse of their majesties all of one hundred and fifty kilometres away.
They are still covered with snow, just as well really because the temperature on the terrace yesterday was in the early thirties, so when the south wind, the tramontane, blew up from the Pyrenees its occasional cooling freshness was most welcome.

La première journée éco-citoyenne du 22 avril dernier, organisée par la municipalité dans le cadre de la journée mondiale de la terre, a été une réussite.
Un groupe d’une cinquantaine de bénévoles, composé d’adultes mais également d’adolescents et d’enfants du centre de loisirs des plus de 6 ans, encadrés par des élus et du personnel communal, a sillonné les abords du village pour un nettoyage de printemps.

And we got into today’s Midi Libre. (Look carefully and you will find us !)

Last week Síle noticed that the village was looking for a posse of volunteers to spend a day cleaning up the village, we had the time and the inclination so we applied and so arrived at the Mediatheque at 9.am yesterday morning.

There were about 26 of us, of all ages and stations and we were furnished with yellow jackets, protective gloves and long tweezers to pick up the rubbish, and black sacks to put it in.

It was a tough days work, and some of it fairly disgusting (France has fly-tippers too) but it had its rewards.
One was we got to meet a whole heap of new people, all local and all delighted to welcome us in.
In the middle of the day we were given lunch, and it was a very good one, aperitifs, terrine, cous cous, grilled sausages and cheese-and coffee.
Plenty of wine was drunk by all, including the Mayor who joined us for lunch.
Without doubt the best part of the day for the Dwyers was when the Mayor addressed us directly and said “Well, do you think you made the right decision to move to Thezan ?”

Síle made the perfect reply; “We are delighted, we love it here ”
This was greeted with huge beams from everyone (including the Mayor) and a surprising round of applause.
As moments of integration go, this one was a definite winner.

Photos by Eileen

Burkhard Bilger, in an article about spiders in a New Yorker from 2007 I am presently re-reading, says;

“One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about one tenth of a gram of meat a day.
Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.”