SURROUNDED BY BUTTERCUPS

I am lying in the meadow surrounded by buttercups, In my supine position underneath the walnut tree they are now taller than I am. The strong sunshine of late May filters through its young leaves, dappling the grass and the wild flowers. I have taken my top off and chew idly on a long stem of grass, enjoying the sweetness. The sunlight warms my back just as the grass scratches my front. Close by I hear the Mill stream which babbles and tumbles beneath the deep green branches of a medlar tree, now covered with spring blossoms, each like a Tudor Rose.

It’s ready for cutting this field: to make hay for the winter. I say field but it’s more the size of a small paddock - or even a great lawn. Tear-shaped, it is hemmed in on two sides by the curve of the busy stream and on the other by the tree-lined track along which the mules, the only animals strong enough for these hills, used to plod with their cargoes of flour and walnuts for grinding in the Mill. No doubt the animals would enjoy a momentary rest in this paddock before the return journey, munching the same grass as I am munching now.



I am reminded of revising for my ‘A’ levels in just such dappled sunlight, lying semi-naked under a weeping ash. I am no longer revising for my exams, of course, though I am still trying to commit words to memory. Before me lies the play text of ‘Art,’ and I am learning my part. But my memory, once sharp, is now dull. Over and over I go, but to little effect.

Idly I count the wildflower species. I make it ten - that is ten that are actually flowering with something that is recognisably a flower. Biggest are the penny moon daisies, but then come the campion, coltsfoot, dead nettle, white and purple clover, dandelion, ladies mantle and of course the buttercups. Deep in the grass the little speedwell nestles, flecking the green tangle with a fairy dust of blue.

The fauna is there as well. No sooner am I settled but a spider crawls across my page - going where I want to ask him? A bee, of some indistinct family, buzzes around the buttercups, followed at a safe distance by an equally indeterminate species of fly. Is the fly cleaning up, I wonder, after the bee? Above me, I note a hover fly in hover mode. It appears to be watching me, but when it sees me looking it zigs away, backwards. Forwards, backwards - if you are a hover fly I don’t suppose it makes much difference.

Now, here comes a butterfly. It is of medium size, orange with many brown spots, almost too perfect to be anything but a man-made Chinese creation. It flutters about elegantly from flower to flower, slowly and without effort. Some species of fritillary, I suppose. If it has noted my presence in its field it has not shown any sign.

The crickets hunt me too. Across the field their endless rhythmic chirping creates a comforting ambiance. One can never feel lonely in a field of crickets. But they do have a habit of edging closer and as I persist with my futile line learning I can hear one somewhere near my feet, or so I judge. It sounds horribly loud and like a lawnmower.

I glare angrily, for he is disturbing my concentration. He quietens, but starts again as soon as I turn back to my book. He must be watching me, this cricket. No doubt there are birds watching him, or trying to. But if so I don’t see any. In this forested country, we hear a constant distant twitter of birdsong, but they are wary creatures. Too many guns, I suppose. Only the big flecked buzzards show themselves clearly as they wheel in the high sky, riding on the thermals that rise up the sun-warmed rocks.

All afternoon I have been collecting wood with the tractor. It’s a heavy task, sawing down the young shallow-rooted oaks killed by the heat wave of three years ago and bringing them back to the Mill’s great barn for firewood. Besides oak we pull chestnut, hazel and alder trees out of the river or from where the winter’s floods have left them high on the river bank. We fill the tractor’s box - it must hold about a ton - and then drive home again the tractor lurching and rolling on the uneven ground.

It’s a muscle-aching task and perhaps that’s why I want only to lie somnolent on this grass with the late afternoon sun warming my back and the cuckoo calling gently in the woods, dreaming of the herby pastis I took this elevenses instead of coffee, or the glass of chilled rosé from the slopes of Provence that I shall have shortly on the terrace, when the sun goes in.

These days there's no trouble at t'Mill!

CAERPHILLY AND THE SLEEPING HABITS OF THE FRENCH

Stung out of my blogging laziness by Jane who is blogging on roller-coasters somewhere in the exotic Florida never-never land even as I speak, I can only tell you that I have boringly spent a deprived day in that mecca of the wilderness otherwise known as Llandrindod Wells: you know where you have to exit the hotel to find a two bar mobile phone signal and where, some years ago, I was reliably informed, by no lesser authority than the Mayor, that tourists flocked because nothing ever happened there after 7pm and therefore that they could go early to bed safe in the comforting knowledge that they would not be disturbed.

It was, yet again, the machinations of UNESCO that drew me to those parts: we have members in North Wales and South Wales and therefore Llandrindod - Parish of the Trinity in English - represents approximately equal misery for all. The ‘Wells’ part of the name seems to be a kind of Victorian fiction to which towns in these parts (Llanwrtyd is another) are much given to adding to their titles as a extra species of embellishment for those for whom 7pm is a watershed behind which lurks the devil and alcohol.

Even more misery for me, in fact, as I had to divert in the rush hour traffic to Caerphilly to collect an otherwise immobile member. Do try to visit Caerphilly, once in a lifetime, for it is indeed a surreal experience. The closest thing I can find to describe it is that painting by Magritte of a businessman with an apple for a face who ends life being played by Piers Brosnan in the Thomas Crown Affair.

Well, Caerphilly is just an ordinary town, a very ordinary town in fact in the best tradition of urban Welsh ugliness, but there - in its not so muffled middle, by the pump and the town clock and the welfare hall in widows weeds, almost frisking with discomfort as if it had sat unexpectedly on a thistle, sits Caerphilly Castle, the second largest moated castle in Europe (after Windsor seeing you ask). Golly it’s huge when set among the pharmacies and pound stores and the Harold Wilson Industrial Estate

This morning with the sun shining down out of a grey and damp sky, Caephilly castle looked exactly as if must have done 460 years ago when Oliver Cromwell blew it up - well not all of it, that would have taken a minor weapon of mass destruction, but at least one of its towers, which remains cracked and leaning to this day.

So there we are, Caerphilly, and I am asking myself how can I possibly make the retreat to what I wanted to write about which was the sleeping habits of the French. I am like an actor who knows they have gone wrong on stage and is desperately trying to ad lib with lines approximately appropriate to the plot and resisting the temptation to invent something totally bewildering such as ‘Yes, darling, but have you actually read the story of the Plantagenet Parakeet?’

I fear that there is no easy way back, so like a car racing towards a crevasse just please close your eyes and grit you teeth and....... there we are - the French spend more time sleeping and eating than most people and also live longer, according to a fresh study by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

With an average of almost nine hours per day, "the French spend more time sleeping than anyone else in OECD countries," the survey unveiled last Monday (4 May) shows.

The French are followed by the Americans and the Spanish, with both nations sleeping around eight and a half hours per day.

At the other end of the scale, with an hour less than the French, Japanese and Korean people sleep the least among the 30 member countries of the OECD, at around seven hours and 50 minutes a day.

The French, who are known worldwide for their culinary skills, also "devote more time to eating than anyone else and nearly double that of Americans, Canadians or Mexicans," the OECD, says.

They spend more than two hours a day eating, followed by the New Zealanders and Japanese, who also spend close to two hours daily at the table.

In Italy, which is another country with a worldwide culinary reputation, and Belgium, people spend around one hour and 50 minutes a day eating.

Spaniards, Germans, Poles and Swedes also spend more than an hour and a half a day eating, while Finns, Norwegians and Britons spend the least time at the table (around one hour and 20 minutes).

Their way of life seems to have an impact on French people's life expectancy, since they are among the top three nations living the longest, together with the Japanese and Spaniards.

An average Japanese woman lives to almost 86 years, while a man lives to 79. French and Spanish women live up to 84.4 years, and men 77.3 and 77.7 years respectively.

Hungarians are the European OECD nation to live the shortest lives, with women's life expectancy at 77.4 years and men's at 69.

The survey, called "Society at a Glance," also looked into leisure time in 18 of the 30 countries where data was available.

It found Norwegians spend the most time on leisure – around 27 percent of their time, followed by Finns, Germans and Belgians who all spend around a quarter of their time on their favourite activities.

There were gaps between men and women's leisure time however, notably in some countries.

In Italy, men have around 80 minutes more a day of leisure time than women. By contrast, Norway appears to be the most equal society in that respect, with men and women having practically the same amount of leisure time.

Most of that time people spend watching TV, listening to the radio or on "other leisure activities," while attending events and practicing sports remain rather unpopular, taking not more than six to seven percent of people's time.

Visiting or entertaining friends is also a popular free time activity, especially in certain countries.

Turks spend around 34 percent of their time "entertaining friends," making them the most "sociable nation," followed by New Zealanders (24%), Canadians (21%), Americans (16%) and Koreans (16%).

Europeans come out as much less generous in that respect, with people in Germany and Spain spending not more than four percent of their time "entertaining" or visiting their friends, the OECD says.

All of which (after the Caerphilly bit!) I have taken word for word, with only the occasional comma inserted, from the pages of EUobserver, so let it not be said that I am not doing my bit for greater integration, especially if means that we end up like the French - sleeping for nine hours a day and eating for two. And that is exactly what I shall be doing, all being well very shortly - and in the Auverne too.

I knew there was a reason for the 35 hour week if really you looked for it.