Look what I found!

Life goes on as always in Saint-Chinian, despite the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. People are still greeting one another in the street, albeit less often with kisses and/or handshakes.  I’m sure that people will pick up that tradition again before too long, once the worries have subsided.

To clear my head, I went for walk – nothing strenuous, just past the campsite and through the vineyards.  The weather was spring-like and I found lots to distract me!

My walk took me along a canal which is one of the remnants of an extensive irrigation system.  As I walked along the canal, I noticed a plain terracotta tile lying by the side of the water.

Here’s what I saw when I was peering over the wall and into the water:

Dozens and more tiles, all neatly laid out!!  I continued to walk along the canal, and took a few more pictures.

There were tiles the whole length of the canal!!  As I was walking along, I figured out why they were there – they are being cleaned!!  There’s someone in Saint-Chinian who sells reclaimed building materials, and this must be part of his operation!  The water gently scrubs the old cement and anything else off the tiles.  The tile I saw lying by the side of the canal must have been cleaned already!!  What an interesting discovery!!

Along the way there were also many wonderful flowers!  First came the buttercups:

A little farther was a field – yes literally a field – full of wild narcissus!  If my identification is correct, this is called a petticoat daffodil.

Here’s a picture of the field – unfortunately you can’t see the daffodils very well, but you should get an idea:

In the vineyard next to the daffodils, there were lots of white flowers: wild rocket!  The leaves have a lovely peppery taste!

Here is another harbinger of spring: a clump of violets:

Daisies flower in Saint-Chinian pretty much all through the winter.  Seeing one of these flowers always cheers me up!

Farther along the river was a viburnum bush, bursting into flower:

The sweet bay tree next to it was also in full flower!

The sound of splashing water drew me down to the water’s edge – across the river there was a little waterfall.  And look at the pale green leaves bursting out!

In the undergrowth, honesty was flowering.  Why is honesty so underrated??  And why is it so often overshadowed by other things??

Dandelions appeared along the path.  Some had been around for a little while:

Most of the vineyards had been pruned already:

A stone wall runs along the path back towards the village and it is home to many plants, some of which I would call weeds!! 🙂   The plant in the picture below would take over in my garden if I did not keep it in check:  fumaria muralis or common ramping-fumitory:

The grape hyacinths were very pretty:

I love the acid green of this euphorbia plant!

I saw this pretty pink flower in only a couple of places along my walk.  I didn’t remember having seen it before, and I was not able to identify it other than it probably belonged to the toadflax family.  The flower was only about the size of a small fingernail.

And then I was back across the river and I was back on the edge of the village.  One last glimpse of flowers: a peach or apricot tree in full flower!!  A promise of bounty in months to come!!

That walk really cheered me up no end and cleared my head.  What do you do when you want to change your frame of mind?

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