A Mother's Walk

Today's little session doesn't really qualify as training.  A quick 5km sandwiched between Small Son's tea and his bedtime.  I needed to be back for stories about whether it's his robot or not, and cuddly diggers with soft and squashy tyres.  Yes, we're fans of Usborne books.  As I pounded along the road, I tried to work out what to say to the mother I've asked to see tomorrow in relation to some difficulties Tall Son has been having at school.  I know that it's sometimes necessary to be seen to be taking action on behalf of your children(even teenageers)  - I just hope this is one of those occasions.  A case of treading carefully and not pounding. 

I'm lucky to live in a very beautiful and unspoilt part of France (ok, fairly isolated, too), and doing so much walking means I get to watch everything more closely.  Seasons acquire a whole new meaning.  The hawthorn's coming into flower - just in time for the Beltaine festival tomorrow night.  The only reason I can identify it is because my entry for the St.Antonin decorated egg competition was on the theme of Beltaine and I included (a rather crude representation of) hawthorn, which is one of its symbols.

 

Along with the Green Man, Man and Woman, fire, sun etc.   It marks the arrival of summer and the rebirth of nature and  I liked the symbolism so much I named our house after it.  Edinburgh is the place to be, apparently, for the Fires of Beltaine. 

I spotted another flower which I hadn't really noticed before. It looked like a strawberry dipped in sugar and could have been a clover. 

The cows were their usual enigmatic selves, and seemed unperturbed by my pink outfit .  We're not far from 'La Route du Lait', which is, I suppose, a sort of milky way.  Unfortunately, it doesn't only provide industrial quantities of milk, it also provides the regional speciality of veal. Not that I've tried it.  Or intend to.