Routines.

The owls were out in force last night. Six of them held a lengthy and shouted out  conversation on The Rickety Old Farmhouses window ledges. 'The Font' slept through it but Angus and Sophie were aware of every nuance of owl speak concerning voles and shrews. Never believe that an out of the way French village is a quiet place.

Sophie peers out into the courtyard and observes that it is suddenly patterned with fallen leaves. Loic will be here on Friday to start the Sisyphean task of blowing them into piles. Sophie doesn't like the sound the leaf blower makes but loves leaping in, and out of, Loics assiduously collected leaf mountains.

Spiders webs everywhere today. All Souls Day now bringing visitors into the village. The parking spots in front of the church already full - even at this early hour. A car from Picardy, another from Yonne and a third from Lot. All families doing their annual duty of tidying up their ancestors graves and potting out a fresh chrysanthemum. By the end of the month 90% of the graves will have had a 'freshening up'.

Look carefully in the centre of this blurry ( and hastily taken ) photo below and you can see the male of the remaining Moorhen family heading off at high speed into the safety of the shrubs that line the village pond banks. His white feathers wave maniacally to let his partner know that there are 'intruders' in their neighbourhood. In a hectic world the routines of village life are a grounding of sanity.