blue skies

I am looking out onto a two acres of grass, orchards, wood shed, sprinkler system, swooping swallows, a swimming pool shaped like a blue almond, crickets and cicada's are chirruping and LO! on either side of my line of vision are two gigantic mountains. One has a name which is Canigou where people ski and climb and do athletic things and it even had a sliver of snow on it right now as I type and the other is I don't know what but is quite high. Apparently there are bears and wolves and chamoix (thought that was something you cleaned a car with?) and just when Mol & Liz were eating their saussison a large eagle-like bird lazily flew over our heads kind of just y'know, soaring. Et Voila! In't France BRILLIANT?!
Ryan Air is not so brilliant but it was brilliant enough to get us from Stansted to Perpignan without us dying (although I was reduced to anxiety-attack-like-tears at the end of the flight when great gusts of happy Pyrenees wind blew us up and down like a goddamn paper airplane - this is it I thought, clutching onto Liz's little chubby hand for what I really thought would be the last time, as a conscious Human Being - mummy get off my hand she said to me, oooh, bumpy! - meanwhile I'm sitting there clutching my chair with my legs and bottom in a sort of 'if I hold on really tight to everything it won't happen' way, and my head in my other hand my heart in my mouth and snot streaming down my face, this is no exaggeration either, I really did have snot streaming down my face and nothing to wipe it with and Ryan Air, bless them, only have plastic wipe down seats so I couldn't even bury my nose in the back of the chair in front... Anyway. Lengthy divert... Here I am. Safe. Sound. Sane.)
And we had that gorgeous moment when you step out of a plane onto hot tarmac. Remember that feeling? Stifling air? The smell of petrol and rubber and heat? Oh, my jeans - WAY too hot! But right now I'm so happy to be on the ground alive I don't care how many gallons of sweat are dripping down my thighs. Honest! Mol! France! Brilliant! Heat! Awesome!
And then the grumpy French passport Garcon! Bonjour, je t'ador! And then the first supermarket shop! Ou est le bier et vin! Ou sont les fromages...?
So far we've had a lot of fantastique French sun. I've got through two bottles of rose. Husband has drunk his way through many petit biers and Mol and Liz are 1/2 a litre each into their preferred chocolate & vanilla flavoured icecream.
The sun has gone down now, and the garden is dark, the mountains are burning hot, but their pink tan has vanished. Its just the buzz of the cicada's, the squeal of a distant French scooter and thoughts of what tomorrow will bring, other than baguette, more cheese, another 50 laps of the pool and my dear brother who is flying over to spend some time in the Pyrenees with us. Joy.