Glorious.

After the freezing fog of the last week it's a delight to head off for our morning walk in glorious conditions.

Sophie is in her 'punk' mode.

Bob is never changing Bob.

We ordered some standard roses from England for the war memorial. A deep pink bordering on crimson. They were delivered to the mayor last week. Today he and his grand daughter are planting them. A man from the commune digs the holes. It is clear that the mayor enjoys the company of his twenty something grand daughter. As I wander over the two of them are joking and laughing away.  He looks years younger. The mayors dog is sitting, guarding, in the back of his owners little white van. It gets down and wanders over to make sure I'm not a threat.

I tell the mayor the roses look 'correcte' . He tells me they look like pallbearers at a catafalque. Not a word you hear every day. 37 of the villagers were killed in the 'Great' War. '' What nobody talks about is the 70 others who were injured " he muses. '' It changed things forever ". Only three of the 109 boys who left returned 'complete'.  After the end of hostilities there was no one to run the farms. Immigrants from Poland and Italy were brought in by the government in the 1920's to help work the fields. By the ruined windmill there is still a gentle old Italian farmer who arrived from Udine as a child in 1924.  He sits outside in the sun and nothing makes his day like a visit from Sophie. We speak Italian. His carers say this makes him happy. A kind of full circle happiness.

In the forenoon a van and a truck draw up outside The Rickety Old Farmhouse.

What they are doing is any ones guess. The PONs monitor them closely. As the church bells chime twelve the PONs wander in for lunch. Dogs are wild things who really thrive on family routine.

France Musique played this today. A sound I'd never heard before. Music for Thanksgiving :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TVS3nhDj2o