Pezilla de Conflent

I'm home from the hills ... though home does actually seem to be in those hills. A busy week saw me head to France without the necessary attachment to get online, but with just about everything else. Furniture was moved in from England, I hauled things about and sat and shivered, and finished my Haldane biography (more of which anon).

The village, in the Pyrenees Orientales, goes quiet in winter. The dog of the last posting, now old, was clearly shagged out from his season of hunting. And climate change had hit with a vengeance. One joy of walks in the village is looking out to the sacred peak of Mont Canigou. Astonishingly for mid-winter, it is bare of snow. You can walk across the big river in the district, the Agly, it is so dry. No rain has fallen in the region since I was last there at the end of October. What little snow lasted an hour on cars but never settled on the land.

One worries ... but it was also wonderfully cleasning to be back amidst the landscape.