This phrase occurred to me yesterday–there’s a post, I thought and fully justified.
We are fed up with February and with good reason this year.
We’ve both had heavy lingering colds, the roof is leaking, it snowed on Sunday and has been wretched all week.
The fields are sodden, the firewood’s damp, the chickens complain loudly and the cats stay in all day.
Every mile is two in winter–poet George Herbert got it right.
Then today happened…
a Spring-like day in the Tarn!
New Yorkers have the perfect phrase–
“Whaddya gonna do about it!”
Robin Ellis 
LOL, Robin…. Here it’s called ‘Michigan Weather!” Enjoy it while you can!
I can relate, Robin. I, too, have had it with winter gloom. It’s really getting me down this year.
It’s been like spring in No. Calif for weeks… 70deg weather… hardly any rain since Dec. We still need some winter!
Today in Corsica we had the rain.
I’m so happy to have found your blog and Poldark on Netflix!! I just watched both seasons.
Where you live in France looks so similar to my little “farm” in the wine country of California. We are in the process of redoing it from crawlspace to chicken coop.
I love hearing about your animals and guests.
I am so happy to have found your blog and Poldark on Netflix. I just finished watching both seasons. It really has stood the test of time. Still as excellent as when I watched it in my 20s!
I am enjoying your posts, especially about your critters. Your place in France looks so similar as the one we are renovating from crawl space to chicken coop in the wine country of California. But we are warmer here, thank God!
Thanks–I’m glad you think Poldark holds up after all these years. I’m doing my best to do the same!
I agree about Poldark – I finally saw it in a BBC catalog last year and bought the DVD collection. I was young and poor when it played in the USA and used to go over and watch it with my mom so I could see it in color. (Now I’m old and poor, but have a good TV, haha!) Anyway, it was an excellent series and was glad too to find this blog. Let me ask you all: doesn’t it make you want to go live in France?!
It makes ME want to go. I love France. I’m hoping to travel there in April to do research in Rouen for the novel I am writing about the very first gargoyle.
Wow Such fascinating people who love “all things Poldark!” @ Sonomacider: I have always been facinated by gargoyles! I own a big ugly one I call “Zed.” He is part bulldog and monster. He sits near my back Patio!
Your book sounds quite interesting!
We have had very mild weather in Cornwall – no snow and just a couple of frosts. Fields of daffodils are glowing in the sunshine and lambs are cavorting. Be assured, Spring is just on the doorstep.
You should have remained at Nampara, Capt.!!
You’ve got green grass in February!!!!. Here in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA we’ve got lots of similar views like your own since we are a small college – agricultural – business area one hour from Wyoming. Nice blue unpolluted sky like our area as well!!!!!! Since we live in a subdivision and have a large lot, I’m posting my Japanese-inspired garden pictures. Not like real Japan since it takes quite shady wet area for the beautiful moss. You probably take nice nature walks when you can. Here in Colorado in the winter we do get quite a few sunny days and brisk 40+ weather, with snow from time-to-time. Still abosolutely love POLDARK!!!!!!!
So glad to see a let up in the weather there. We’ve heard horrendous stories of the winter throughout Europe. You deserve a lovely spring! Hope you’re both feeling better as the days lengthen, and the sun warms the land.
Greetings from Denver, lavernejdewilde! Poldark is one of my all-time favorite TV series.
Here in Washington it’s changing from warm to cold every few days. Many are ill. I always think that February, the shortest month, feels like the longest. It never seems to end.
Take care, and I hope you have more beautiful days like today!
Well try to be patient for spring should be a month away, a good time to start some garden seeds. With regard to your lingering cold, etc., I read Julie Andrews bio some months ago, and she told of having a very bad cold as a teenager, her aunt suggest boiling a chopped up onion and drinking the juice. She claims it really worked, so I will remember to try this should a cold come to give me misery. Sounds to easy to be true, but as you stated earlier, let food be your medicine.
Mother Nature is one schizophrenic !
Couldn’t believe how GREEN it is already, over there! WOW! We still have a good 2 feet of snow–although this afternoon, temps got close to 50 F…But a bit more snow is promised for tomorrow!
PS: Happy belated Valentine’s Day! Did Meredith bring that w/her to the UK & France? 😉
I think my daughters oregon cat (not used to snow at all) got a shock outside in Ohio when we had a sudden snowfall today and he was meowing forcefully near the door, like LET ME IN NOW MEE OWWWWWWW! Glad you got a wee bit of a taste of spring 🙂
We were quite French today. We drove into an adjacent county to a small but lovely town to do some specialist grocery shopping today. An old-fashioned bakery, and three different butcher shops, gathering their particular specialties at each one. My husband had a knee replacement in October, and today was the first time that the weather and his knee cooperated since then.
There was still snow on all of the fields; this is an agricultural area, with dairy farms and crops, mostly vegetables and corn (maize) in season. But there was open and running water in both creeks and small rivers, and the Canadian geese and various ducks were happily resting and feeding on their voyage north. It was beautiful, if not as as spring-like as your lovely picture above.
Get well soon I’ll be thinking of you’re dear family!
hi,
Take a listen to Josh Grobens ‘February Song’……….maybe that will help.
Spring will be here before you know it!
It’s almost ‘spring-like’, comparatively, here in East Anglia too, definitely a much needed spirit-booster! I maybe find November and December, with the ever-shortening days, the worst winter months… Then in January the snowdrops start flowering and lots of little green shoots from other bulbs start emerging too – that helps me, somehow, and now as February progresses the days are getting noticeably longer too, what a relief !! Heavy colds and grim weather must have made early February pretty awful though – hope everyone out there, menagerie included, will be feeling lots better soon.
Dear Robin and Meredith,
Don’t blame February. ….when winter will end soon, Valentine is there and my birthday and snow…look, how beautiful, and suddenly…..sun and happy cats and you both feeling better. Did I cheer you up?
Love Caroline
Dear Robin,
I am giving you and Meredith this link because I know that you both love animals and are interested in nature.
http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp
This pair of bald eagles have established a nest in the Alcoa works in Iowa and somehow or other they have managed to put a webcam in just the right place to watch them. It is just amazing to see and you can often hear her as she calls to other eagles from the nest. There are two eggs now, and the babies should be born sometime next month.
If you are not interested then just please discard it, and no harm done. If you want to share it with others, please do.
I enjoy reading your blog, and my husband is interested too as we loved Poldark as did so many others in the original run – I ended up buying the PAL DVDs as soon as we got a DVD-player so that we would get the full original show. Your character as, I think, Danny Brown, in Fawlty Towers was quite different from Poldark, but I think the man playing the thief had been the judge in Poldark which was amusing.
No one could have imagined in those days that someday you would have a blog on the internet and we could read it in Wisconsin and be able to participate in a world-wide conversation.
Yours,
Barbara Bernstein
Thanks for the link Barbara–I look forward to watching it.