Wednesday 1 June 2011

A 'quiet' Sunday lunch

Today the skies are blue again but it is pretty blowy after two days with patchy showers. Not that they have amounted to much. We'll still be watering the orchard and our neighbour's roses this evening. 

all set for lunch
 Last Sunday it was another one of those seemlingly endless very warm high summer days that May was full of. We lazed as one does on a Sunday and then bestirred ourselves enough to get the BBQ going and rustle up some salad to go with the turkey kebabs. It was quiet, even soporific and the cats had dozed off somewhere in the shady undergrowth.



kebabs just going on the BBQ
We had just managed to remember to take a picture of the table set for lunch when an almighty screetching, chittering and scrabbling broke out.

The nieghbours who live in Paris --the house is their maison secondaire-- have fouine (Beech Martens) in their attic. If you have never seen a fouine think red squirrel on steroids/weazel. 


rocks 'thrown' by the fouine

They are noisy and very sociable critters who like to play. Obviously there was yet another disagreement over fair play--this has happened before--and the result was yet another small rock of calcaire thudded down from the eaves of the nighbour's house. The back wall of their house is the boundary so we find these stones on the drive.

4 comments:

The Broad said...

What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Craig said...

The only way to spend a long, lazy, hot Sunday. Nice bottle of white on the table just to top things off perfectly!

GaynorB said...

Hi Antoinette,

I had to 'google' a beech marten, but now know what they look like - and they don't look like birds!!

OK I'm an ignoramus, but do we get them in the UK?

Niall & Antoinette said...

@The Broad--you bet :-)

@Craig--from the Touraine of course!

@Gaynor-- do you know I have no idea if you can see fouine in the UK. I would have thought so but Susan should know--she's the naturalist