Saturday 10 August 2013

DEAD FROGGY, DEAD BLOGGY

So look, I told him, didn't I? I warned him well. He was not a suitable suitor.
"You can't live with me", I said, "you'll die. You are a FROG, and I am a LADY." (well, lady-ish...)
But he wouldn't listen, he kept coming back, trying to get into my house and who knows, my bed.
And just as I feared, he is now one very very dead  Hyla Meridionalis.
Squashed.
It was my friend Patricia who found his small green corpse, flattened against the door frame where the door, at some point had slammed shut and  ended his pretty little life. "Well, he didn't suffer," said Patricia, brightly. But she would not allow me to take his photograph, even knowing how I like to record events here.
"Morbid," she said.
So he's gone, and so will I be now... although not in such a dramatic fashion, only for a few weeks or months.
The thing is, there have been some technical difficulties loading material on my BLOGSPOT blog that have been annoying and neither I nor my local computer-magicians, Jean-Michel and Jimmy, can find a solution. That's one reason to give the blog a rest... and another is the fact that there are no more bookings available for this autumn at the Mas Blanc Writer's Retreat.  I will fire up this blog again in the new year, either on blogspot or another carrier, we'll see how it goes...
The next rental period begins at the end of March, 2014, and continues until the end of June. So if you are interested in coming to the Mas Blanc Writer's Retreat -- be you writer, artist, or anyone else seeking a quiet place to work for a week or two -- you can get all the information you need from the website .....www.isabelhuggan.com

One of my delights in doing the blog these past months has been sharing photographs of life here in my little corner of Languedoc, and so I will leave you with three shots from the river, the  daily source of enormous pleasure not only for me but, dare I say... for frogs. It is a strange, quaint truth that the land on which Mas Blanc sits has, for centuries been called LA GRENOUILLE -- the French word for Frog. In fact, in the telephone book here, that is part of my address but I've eliminated it in my correspondence as it is simply too difficult to pronounce properly (unless you happen to be French).

So maybe that sweetly persistent amphibian was simply claiming his territorial rights? who knows....

The old bridge over the Ourne on the way to Mas Blanc

River-walking in the shallows, early morning/

Water is endlessly asking to have its picture taken...
So I'll say bye-bye for now.... And hope that you've enjoyed sharing my life this last little while.