From Winter To Spring

From Winter To Spring
Daniel's dalliance with Patricia has proved short-lived and she has returned to La Reunion. It seems she was too feisty for him. So he has set about finding himself another partner and appears to have found a promising one, Marie, via a small advertisement in the local paper. She seems very nice, low-key and suited to Daniel but quite firmly rooted in her house in a village south of Valence in the north of the Drôme. So Daniel is splitting his time between there and Mollans. Anyway, he seems happy again.

An unfortunate consequence of Daniel's split with Patricia is that I have probably lost a book I treasured. I loaned Patricia my copy of Summerhill, which was given to me by Neill and signed by him. Patricia was using it for a study of educational methods she was engaged in. She says she left it at Daniel's house but he can't find it. She was fascinated by the book, as people sometimes are if they haven't come across similar ideas before, constantly plundering it for ideas and taking notes. So I find it difficult to believe that she really doesn't know where the book is. Daniel's search of his house may not have been very thorough but I can't really search Daniel's house myself and don't know whether to believe Patricia or not. In the past, I've lost copies of Eric Berne's Games People Play and Eric Fromm's Fear Of Freedom that way. Maybe one day I'll learn not to lend valued books.

Friend Jo's mother died ten days ago so she and Steve have gone back to England and I have care of their dog, Crevette, a wire-haired terrier. It's not a breed I'm familiar with but I'm gradually learning her behaviour patterns. It seems strange that she is very docile with people, even children, but totally aggressive to everything else that moves: cats, obviously, but also other dogs, no matter how much bigger than her they are, and bikes, motor cycles, cars vans and lorries. The dust-cart's clanking sends her into paroxysms of rage. She's a bitch so it's not a surfeit of testosterone that's doing it; it must be in her genes. I wonder if any researcher has tried to identify an aggressive gene. If so, I have the perfect subject for study.

Several days of temperatures up into the low 30s in the sun have sparked me into removing the winter debris from the back garden. This year the debris includes several plants that would normally be hardy: colsicums, clematis and a campanula. The false jasmines have taken a hit and even my oleanders will probably have to be cut down to base in the hope that they will sprout from there. I haven't seen the ubiquitous oleanders in the village so badly affected before. The really wintry weather lasted only about three weeks but the intensity of the cold during that period seems to have done a lot of damage. Anyway, my narcissi are starting into bloom so spring must be here.

The winter of discontent seems to be over for Chelsea too (maybe!).