Postcards from abroad - Trisha's Meanderings
Bonjour from la belle France where I really am meandering - along French lanes strewn with wild flowers on my bicycle - coming back laden with foraged blooms to bring the house alive - am in heaven.
Apart from swooning over the fragrance of lilac and mock orange blooms, what really strikes me is the way the French know how to do less is more - instead of every colour in the rainbow iris they have huge drifts of the same colour and it looks so absolutely stunning - I see this again and again and again and again and it really is so much more beautiful (in my eyes) than having one of each variety or colour. Perhaps it is the slow speed on a bicycle rather than wizzing past in a car - and the fact that you have quietude and time to think while cycling - whatever it is, I am really struck by this really understated but perfect planting every day…
Not only the beauty of the countryside and the wildflowers everywhere, but the skies and trees are alive with birds and the sweet sound of bird calls add to the joy of being alive and in such another beautiful part of this wonderful Mother Earth.
Yesterday we waved goodbye to our beautiful ancient Presbytere in the village of Villebazy in the Aude in southern France - the most wonderfully authentic little French village tucked away between the vineyards and the oak woods where the resistance hid out during the Second World War. Hillsides of meticulously cared for rows of vines between each little village of shuttered stone buildings and healthy flowing rivers and old stone ponts.
So here we are in the Ariege in ‘the most beautiful village in France’ (or so the webpage tells us!!) in Camon - a dear little village on the Hers river with an old Abbey/Chateau and beautiful old buildings dating back centuries. The past Mayor of this village had the foresight to give each residence a climbing rose and so the village is now alive with the most amazing display of richly scented roses clambering over shutters and doorways. The Camon Festival of Roses is on the 18th may when the village comes even more alive with visitors from afar, live music, plant stalls and the streets full of people wandering around enjoying such beauty.
Our Maison is the only one without a rose as it had previously died so I have asked for the same rose I planted in the courtyard at Bobundara on the old stone kitchen building of Toad Hall - Mme Alfred Carriere, which is virtually thornless and flowers continuously from early spring until late autumn with pale fragrant blooms which are so beautiful for picking and looking at! I chose that one years ago when moving to Bobundara as had read that Vita Sackville-West had planted that rose to grow up the tower at Sissinghurst where she wrote from.
So here I am in Camon tapping away on my computer on the top floor of our old bakery building and hopefully in a year or two there will be the fragrance of blooms wafting in the open windows…..to remind me of my beloved Bobundara where my office looks out onto the courtyard where Mme Alfred Carriere blooms so prolifically and happily….
…until June, a bientot,
Trisha xx
