Muddy Knees and Fresh Bread

Sunday was hot. Very hot. But also overcast and not too sunny to garden. So I spent the morning on my knees inching through a flower bed that I'm creating out of the lawn. Heavy thunder storms a few days ago have left our clay soil workable again and I'm pulling out couch grass and dandelions.

We had an invitation for the afternoon to walk from the town centre along the Garonne to an old village bread oven. We gathered - people and dogs - sun hats, shorts, water bottles, cover-up shirts ready for our stroll when Judy asked me what was wrong with my mud-caked gardener's knees. You can tell she's a mother of boys. She gave me a wet wipe so I could clean up before we started.

We gossiped and ambled through woodland with glimpses of the river, past old farms with chicken scratching at the roadside and between hot, airless fields of maize. We sat in the bake-house and listened to Gascogne songs and waited for the fresh crusty bread to emerge.

Later, we ate the bread with our supper and it smelt of wood smoke.