I can’t express how happy I am to be back in my little weird world. I love this house, this village and the people who I have come to know as part of it. My garden is like an ever changing puzzle that I get to work at it. The bread, the butter, and good lord, the cheese! It is all really good.

So what’s missing? My husband is in California, my children are all over the place and my puppy is being taken care of my brother in Brunswick. I have to work really hard to time a call with my sister-cousin Anne and I don’t have anyone to share all this with. Now for a short time, that’s fine. It is frankly Sophie’s absence that feels the strangest to me at this point. I have never been to France alone without my four-legged side kick. It feels strange to take my beautiful walk without her running behind me. There is no one begging as I eat my English muffin in the morning and no one to cozy up with at bedtime. The house feels a bit lonely without her tiny footsteps. The garden has no holes where she has rooted her nose around smelling something nefarious. I can’t abide by France without my Sophie.

Yesterday I took a beautiful walk and checked all the paths and places that are so familiar to me. The air was sweet with lilacs and lily of the valley. Everywhere I looked, there was something colorful growing. I was disappointed to see that the community garden had been removed but I suppose that happened because there was no one willing to maintain it. I said hello to the donkeys, and the ponies in the fields but they seemed disinterested in me without Sophie.

I collected a bouquet of wild flowers and made a centerpiece for my table. I planted my window boxes and worked really hard to cut back my garden and restore order. I pulled out ivy and wild chives, and trimmed back trees and shrubs to allow sun to once again find my veggie plot. I even went to my favorite home and garden store and picked up some tools, fertilizer and maybe a couple of plants. It was really hard for me to stop gardening as the weather was perfect and I kept finding more and more that needed to be done. I soaked in the tub with sore muscles until it was a reasonable time to go to bed. What a perfect day!