stories and lentils

It's May already. Almost one year since we first arrived here, hot and dusty with a van crammed full of tools, bedding, clothes and ourselves. Spring here has taken on more familiar hues of cloud filled skies and blue light just before rain. Everywhere is washed clean and tracks are filled with puddles. Late frosts have burnt off new fig leaves, peach blossom and entire vineyards have lost the possibility of this years vendanges . Trees have been left patchy, half their leaves crisp and broken. Our garden was not unscathed but I'm hoping for a long indian summer season for plants sown now to catch up and bear fruit before the end of the season. All was not lost, we picked all our frost damaged roses and made rose syrup with the petals. There is so much to forage at this time of year: Wild garlic flowers for salads and risottoes, the smell deceptively floral but their taste pure garlic. Nettles for fertiliser for the garden and some pesto and soups. Little L was...

The hillside woodlands are still mostly bare of leaves. Patches of blossom betray the abundance of wild cherry, damson, hawthorns and blackthorns. Along the river the allotments are bursting with pastels; apple, cherry, plum, pear. Pathways are lined with the bright yellow of gorse, buttercups and dandelions. Wild orchids and cowslips grow on the edges of fields.     A dear friend from England visited for a few days and we showed off the slow life and she bore gracefully our sparse and makeshift home. We cycled, wandered and soaked in natural hot springs, warm water that flows miraculously from somewhere inside the earth and springs from a serrendipitous crack in the rocks. We sat on the steps of the hilltop chapel that overlooks the village and watched the view, framed by the stone porch. Butterflies danced in pairs and a kite hovered. The burst of hot sun has accelerated the melt of snow on the mountains and the brightness of the blue sky seems too b...

SUGARED VIOLETS At the moment we are lucky enough to have banks of violets creating seas of purple along footpaths. I've had a childlike delight at finding them and breathing in their scent. It's a perfume that takes me straight to Parma Violet sweets, I cannot quite believe that these delicate little flowers smell so potent. The girls have enthusiastically joined in spotting them, sniffing them like rooting pigs, the way small children do, and then begging to pick them. So we've become Victorian and have learnt how to preserve them by sugaring them, and inevitably it's the sugar bit that is the most inspiring for the children.     We chose some violet flowers in perfect condition and picked about twenty which left enough for the bees and were few enough for them to be real treasures.   Once home they need to be washed very carefully so as not to damage them.   Each flower needs to be coated either in egg white or a cooled ...

Spring has really arrived here. There is not the lushness of green that I am used to, but instead a brilliant blue sky and warm afternoons. Banks are covered in a haze of violets and blossom is spreading amongst the hedgerows. We're out in the garden or spotting wild flowers in the woods and back to paddling in streams again (although the freezing water takes our breathes away).   At the end of last month Little L turned four years old. For the days either side of her Birthday I felt very emotional. Her birth and babyhood suddenly felt so long ago and infront of me is this little girl who surprises me each day with her own ideas and such a force of independence and strong will. On her Birthday the weather shone bright and warm, not something I ever expected for a February babe. We had a little gathering with friends by the lake with coffee and cake and the children played at throwing rocks and sticks into the stream. Then we...