There is a particularly beautiful time of day where we live. It is when the sun peers over the horizon as she rises to start the day.
Sat in Cafe du Canard, the suns rays come straight into it, warming the air and lessening the mornings chill. A golden glow lights up the trees in the duck enclosure, creating low long shadows. The ducks are bathed in it and look like very large chickens in shadow form on the ground beyond.
It’s early enough now, as the days lengthen, to smell the baking bread and cinnamon of the village boulangerie (bakery) nearby. It adds a lovely flavour as I savour my morning coffee.
Sunday is a day that starts slowly. Enjoying the peace and watching the meanderings of the ducks. A book to hand or maybe a letter to write. Eventually there are some chores to be done. Weekends are all about doing something, interspersed with doing nothing.
Our hedge is in desperate need of a haircut. It hasn’t had one in years. It’s long, linear and we are making slow progress down it. I chop off the side branches, whilst Mr P tops it. The cutting has to be done by hand as the branches are to thick for normal hedge clippers. It makes for a peaceful chore, as we can hear the birds about us.
We can see how high the hedge used to be, before its hair grew long. There are these forks in the branches, all at the same height. A delineation of hair cuts before.
Although hard work, it’s an enjoyable process. A strangely beautiful time of togetherness as we undertake the quiet cutting . Something about a many hands making lighter work? Well, not really. We are only four hands, and this sort of work will never be light. At least not this year. But once done, hopefully the successive years will require just a trim.
The ducks have been foraging, enjoying the diversity of a wander in the neighbours garden as we cut the hedge on the other side. Time for a break, and they are shooed back into our garden.
The sun shines warmly now in to the enclosure and eyes begin to droop into sleepiness. Nap time for our feathered flock whilst we enjoy a sit down.
Mornings are such a beautiful time of day. Early mornings create a sense of timelessness. Or a sense that the day stretches away for a long time. Like there is all the time in the world.