Our reluctant spring

As I write this, it’s raining. Again. Still, I can see lots of blue sky through the skylight window above me. And that pretty much sums up this early spring in the Greater Daglan Area — sort of an on-again, off-again affair. Temperatures have moved comfortably into double digits, but we can’t seem to go for more than a day without some rain.

The good news is that, however reluctantly, spring has arrived, and not only are the plants and flowers responding, but so are the people. I mean the people who run cafés and restaurants, campgrounds and pizza places, tourist attractions and boat rides. This means that with Easter upon us, “the season” is close at hand. This is when the locals stop hibernating and the visitors start arriving.

Let’s take a quick photographic tour of the GDA this spring, starting with a flower that is traditionally one of the first to make an appearance each year. It’s the forsythia, and this is one of the forsythia shrubs we have in front of our house in Daglan.

One of our forsythia shrubs is now showing off.

A more dramatic display is this group of forsythia shrubs beside the road from Beynac to Castelnaud:

A grouping of forsythias beside the road.

Then there are the flowering trees that have been coming into bloom for several weeks now. One of my favourites is this quartet of trees beside the church in neighbouring Cénac:

Four flowering trees beside the old stone church in Cénac.

Residents are also doing their bit by putting out flower pots, like this arrangement on a window sill just across from the Mairie (the Mayor’s office) in Daglan:

All lined up on a stone window sill.

This final photograph shows not only a collection of some typical spring flowers — in this case, a planting of daffodils — but also some real-live human action: A few people on the patio of the bar/café in Castelnaud. I took this photo yesterday, but today my wife Jan and I returned to the scene and had coffees, after buying some Easter dessert treats at the bakery in Castelnaud (which is, by the way, one of the best in the GDA).

A planting of daffodils in front of the café in Castelnaud.

And yes, we had our coffees on the terrace. Of course, we were wearing jackets, but at least we were outdoors.

Finally, if you celebrate Easter, the staff here at Radio Free Daglan wishes you and yours a very Happy Easter — and a lovely spring.

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