The week just gone has been all about the colour red for me, starting with cherries. We are very fortunate to have a cherry tree in our garden that was in full bloom on our arrival to France. Those blooms have now turned into delicious fruits and at present there is a ladder in permanent residence at the bottom of the tree.
We don’t know how much longer the local farm shop will be selling these delicious fresh strawberries, but long may it continue! They do however remind me of the hours I spent painting and embroidering strawberries for the the Tess of The D’Urbervilles bookbinding I did in 2012.
We have been keeping up with the cycling and did our longest voyage yet to St-Remy-De-Provence for a spot of sightseeing and lunch. At the moment there are many wild poppies around, however on our journey we came across a whole huge field of them. They were absolutely glorious!
I have also been going dotty over some new endpapers I am working on for a client. A fair few hours this week have been spent working on a lattice of dots for an idea I have in mind…more will be featured on this later in the summer.
On the downside, we have also been seeing red over the past week. The printer we had ordered arrived without a vital part so wouldn’t work. Through many emails backwards and forwards between the seller, the sales website and ourselves is was agreed that we should send it back, no mean feat given the size of it! It was certainly an interesting method of getting to know the staff at our local La Poste, and to discover how many forms needed to be filled in to make a registered return.
Our French is improving somewhat, however, this all seems to go out of the window when having to speak over the phone, as we do not have the power of sign language at hand. George thinks that the replacement printer we have ordered is due this week, but then it is quite possible that the phone call we got about the delivery was saying something completely different! I will keep an ear open for a knock on the door over the next few days…
Another thing that has made us see red this week is the snails eating our crops of sunflowers and marigolds. We planted a load of seeds in the germinator a few weeks ago and last week they had grown enough to be transferred into their own pots, and also some into the flowers beds. Each morning however we are coming out to find another one has completely disappeared! Snails are clearly the culprits due to the slimy trail of incriminating evidence. We think that they are using the irrigation tubes as a tightrope into each pot, so the pots are now gradually being relocated to much more tricky locations. It’s amazing how much these slow and docile creatures can achieve by night!