It was never a reason for living here - why would it be - but having found this place I’m just so grateful it is under their flight path. I love that they are the harbingers of our changing seasons.
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Our magnolia tree is full of buds that are just bursting - so of course we’re having frosts for the next few nights. In the 10 years we’ve had the tree, only twice have the flowers not been brown. I’d hoped this might have been the third year. But not to be. 
I’ve just been given an enormous bunch of mimosa… absolutely wonderful. This lovely old gentleman is doing a tour of the village, swapping mimosa for a friendly hug… 
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First pair of shorts in Leclerc’s car park.
Bright yellow butterflies … and more cranes overhead.
Daffodils are out, as are early tulips, camellia are bursting into flower. And its
still officially winter?
Low late afternoon sunlight shows how filthy our windows are. 
Spring cleaning anyone???
Walking nonchalantly in the garden yesterday, I saw a letter of complaint from a neighbour whose garden abuts our own. It was pinned to a post and fluttering in the cooling dusk of early spring, like the handful of jonquils in bloom.
The first billet doux of spring? Probably the first since I was about eight, and that was just in my birthday card.
In a neat traditionally orthographic hand, and in French, Mme ‘X’ forbad me from entering her garden or hen-house as “mes œufs disparaissent”.
“You were perhaps not alone in doing so, as your next door neighbour (M ‘Y’) is often in your garden”, the note continued accusingly.
It ended with a scriptural flourish: “Ne pas faire à autre ce que on ne voudriez pas qu’il serait fait à soi même.” (sic)
The note was unsigned.
I crossed the road to Mme’s house which is almost opposite our own. My wife is away at the moment. Had she been present I might have felt the rolling-pin around my noggin.
I tapped her window as she has no door at the front and her gate is always locked. She came to the gate, and I greeted her amiably and with a smile. I raised the note in my hand and told her I was sad to have received it. I assured her that I had not entered her premises or taken her eggs. I have lots of eggs in the fridge produced by our own hens, and I rarely consume eggs.
“Omelettes?” “Rarement, madame”.
In the last month, I vouchsafed, I have only used one beaten egg as a couche for some fillets of smoked herrings, which I had coated with breadcrumbs prior to frying them for lunch to eat with with tinned tomatoes and toast.
She suggested it might have been my next door neighbour’s plumber who took the egg, for it was indeed only one of two that was missing. She had spotted his van parked outside his door the previous day.
I admitted that I am not the most industrious of neighbours, and am a virtual newcomer. She told me in some detail of other neighbours and told me that, although she says bonjour to them and exchanges pleasantries, she is not their friend and values her privacy. She has her children, grandchildren and great grand-children nearby. Their company is enough.
She recounted a recent nocturnal incident when she had gone outside and had seen moving lights inside her house, as if someone was moving inside with a lantern. She lives alone. She has known my next door neighbour since 1963, she told me, and she is not on friendly terms because he is not as respectful as she expects of a man.
I asked Mme if she would sign the note. She smiled and said not at all. I suggested that doing so might not serve her interests in view of my denial, and she chuckled. We agreed it would remain a mystery. She smiled warmly.
She told me she would ask her son to cut off the branch of a tree in her garden that threatens to fall on my own fence and hen house. I thanked her and said it was not of immediate concern. These things happen, we said. We bade each other Bonne Nuit and left each other on what I think are acceptable terms to both of us.
It all feels very French.
Spring is in the air after all.
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Is he Italian?
Dandelions in bloom along the lane today, couldn’t believe it!
No, French … a sprightly 94+ year old… who still runs his small farm (sheep/chickens) on the outskirts of the village. he does the mimosa tour every year… fabulous.
That’s so sweet.
Did the good lady count her eggs without collecting them, then find one missing when she looked again? Or had she simply expect a certain number to be laid that day? In my experience, hens are not entirely predictable and can sometimes disappoint.
It’s a good question. I didn’t ask, to my chagrin. I do now think, having reflected on the matter and having discussed it with my wife, to whom these neighborly affairs reveal their depth and historicity more clearly, we think there is more to the matter than just eggs.
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The gorse is coming into bloom. I drove from Finistere to Morbihan today and saw the gorse just beginning. I also saw a Magnolia with buds ready to burst, and a confused Camelia with raggedy blooms. Plenty of Daffodils, some sort of Spirea in bloom, and plenty of Primroses and Heather as well.
I am not saying I miss the Channel Islands, but gorse or heather in bloom reminds me of Sark, which is amazing when the heather or gorse are in flower.
The hen could have been sitting on the eggs to hatch, although stealing them then might not be a clerver idea.
I have given this a great deal of thought and have concluded that it is most likely a Sign of a (Broken) Spring 2020. Or maybe a loose nut. There’s a lot of it about. . . . . . . .
Every year at this time we get a little patch of wild daffs nearby. Unlike the cultivated garden varieties, they are fragile things and don’t last long, but they do flutter and dance as observed by Wordsworth. Wish the bloody things would keep still while I take a photo!
They are 80% uncooperative or camera-shy. 20% ready to stick your camera where the sun don’t shine 
!
Sounds like the voice of experience!
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