Running late.

The builder phones on Sunday afternoon. ' Alright if I start work on the pergola tomorrow morning ? We'll be there around eight'. Miracles do happen. Angus looks on the bright side rather than observe that the work is running ten months late.

In its seven am breakfast bulletin  French breakfast radio has a segment on how chaotic the American election has been. Angus wonders if another take on it might be that holding an election, mid-pandemic, with the highest turn out ever shows the system actually works . There again why let anything stand in the way of some good old start of the week Anglo-Saxon bashing ?

No Armistice ceremony in the village this year. The first time since 1944 it's been cancelled. Instead the old and new mayors each lay a pot of chrysanthemums on the war memorial steps. The old mayor chooses orange. The new mayor pink.  I'm walking Sophie as they lay their plants. I expect one or other to say something but they simply place the pots on the top step and then go their separate ways.

It is one of those days from heaven. Bright, dry and balmy. A day that belongs in June rather than November. The donkeys in the field by the storm drain are enjoying themselves.  They look up briefly as we pass but make no attempt to wander over to see us. Sophie finds a drainage ditch to drink from. She offers to give my ear a lick but I decline. So starts a Monday morning in a French village of 67 souls and a Polish Lowland Sheepdog.

Something very medieval about the simplicity of this :   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9LrH0AS5Hw

This would scare me away :https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201105/p2a/00m/0na/018000c