buds and buddies

Sometimes buds can be real buddies 🙂 what a pleasure to look more closely at nature these days ! Buds are coming out  from a long and cold Winter, holding on to each other to bloom into a new Season. Small promises of more to come, foliage,  flowers,  fruits.

Looking out of my  kitchen window I also see other buddies… I hear them before  seeing them though ! Talking, laughing, sometimes they stop and wave at me. Three young neighbours are coming back home from school apparently neither  very hungry nor in a hurry.  They took the long way across the fields. So much more interesting ! The playground is on the way, no cars around,  no cows in the field, all is theirs to linger and observe. Sometimes, when time gets real close to lunch, they pick a few wild flowers for their moms. The type of flowers that brings a smile on anyone’s face, especially mothers 🙂

“Hello Kevin, Mathias, Lori ! I saw you ;)”

Easter holiday

Hello 🙂

I have been away from the computer for a while,

Enjoying a timid Spring awakening in the Alps,

Sunny walks along mountain tracks,

Exuberant birds’ songs at all hours.

Quiet reading and sewing,

Happy meals with family and friends,

A pause at Easter, a time to reflect

While wondering at Nature’s revival

And new inner paths.

Eggs, you find them everywhere around Easter time  ! Mostly chocolate eggs over here 😉   Not all though; those are carved in various  semiprecious stones from  Madagascar. I got them as I lived in this great island and visited   market places, craftsmen’ workshops.

You may be interested in reading a few lines about eggs and their symbolism

http://crystal-cure.com/easter-eggs.html

Almost every day during Easter time, I walked along a narrow irrigation canal (the local name is “bisse”). Sometimes on wooden paths or bridges, but mostly on mountain tracks barely freed from snow. The very first flowers were blooming on the dry slopes. Delightful !

Sewing and reading, two of my favorite hobbies. The “grandmother flowers’ garden” is still growing and blooming… since it is sewed by hand, I like to bring it along wherever I travel and I added quite a few hexagonal flowers. Spring mood and also the wish to see this quilt finished at last. A low table has been waiting to be covered for… quite a while.

In my favourite second-hand bookstore I found a wonderful book by Alice Munro (Ontario, Canada): “Open Secrets”. Shorts stories about women that take place over several generations from  1850s to the present, from Canada to Australia, the Balkans and France. Unconventional women who never wanted to be contained. I so enjoyed each story!  Alice  Munr0’s writing is simply superb. Her characters  never leave you.  I already know that I will read more of her.

“In the mountains, in Maltsia e madhe, she must have tried to tell them her name, and “Lottar” was what they made of it. She had a wound in her leg, from a fall on sharp rocks when her guide was shot. She had a fever. How long did it took them to carry her through the mountains, bound up in a rug and strapped to a horse’s back, she had no idea”…

(First lines of “The Albanian Virgin”, a short story by A. Munro – just to make you feel like knowing more…)

How about you, what are you reading right now ?

poisson d’avril !

No, it was not a “poisson d’avril”, April Fool’s Day in English ! But  real snow that had fallen all night long. Yesterday, 1st of April, I could not believe my eyes as I opened the shutters : all white again, silent and very cold. Why do we call it a “poisson d’avril” (litterally translated “April’s fish”) ? On that particular days kids love to play tricks to one another or to adults too ; one that is well known is to hang – very discreetly – a paper fish on someone’s back. It creates lots of laughter, of course 🙂

Looking down from the roof window, I could see someone not a bit worried about the weather… hiding under a snow blanket  and probably waiting for me to find him !

This is the view I have at all Seasons when I open the window. I love it all year round. This is also the start of my daily walks in the woods. A place where people meet to play tennis or soccer or pétanque (French lawn bowling)

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