Amazing how the weather really does play such a large part in the gardening year and this year has not been a typical one by any means! Usually July/August is much quieter on the gardening front leaving me ample time to share things on my blog; with the rest of the time taken up with watering a very thirsty garden... This was not the case this year however, and by the end of August the grass here was growing more prolifically than during the month of May! After persevering with both the grass and weeds in many of my clients' gardens not to forget our own place, we did manage to get away for a break - the first in two years!
Somehow we managed to pick the stormiest week we could have done and it even managed to rain pretty much every morning we were there :-( No lovely lazy days on the beach with a book or swimming in the sea as I'd envisaged, but we did get some good beach walks in and enjoyed many of the sea birds which were happily feeding along the shore line. It's a beautiful stretch of coastline near to the Pointe de Trevignon (lying between Concarneau and Pont Aven on the south Brittany coast) with deserted white sandy beaches at this time of year incase you're tempted!
So out came the bird book ... amongst the birds we saw were the little Sanderlings who were extremely entertaining to watch as they scurried along the sand at incredible rates - any wonder the poor little birds didn't get cramp in their legs! Others we saw were Turnstones also smallish in size with much darker plumage than the Sanderlings.
There were plenty of gulls around too - here a pair of Black Headed Gulls!
And not to forget the Cormorants who seemed to fair well being battered by waves on the rocks out to sea!
Having been down to this area before we decided to explore a new section of coast line going towards Concarneau one day - equally beautiful and more deserted white sandy beaches...
Out to sea, we spotted Oyster Catchers as well as little Plovers - you'll need to click on this photo to see them properly!
More Sanderlings!
A lone Herring Gull...
From the Birds to the local flora and fauna... of which there is an amazing variety - and lots of late flowering wildflowers were a welcome sight - the colours of some of the lichens quite amazing too.
Spot the lizard basking the sunshine... a rare thing that week!
Chestnuts ripening...
More Armeria and stormy seas
And finally our last evening the weather was starting to improve!
So we decided to go into Pont Aven to have that traditional French dish... Pizza on our last night! After finishing our meal we left the restaurant we met one of the local residents who clearly knew where he was going!!
He finally headed off into the sunset and we did the same...If you like the look of this area and are interested the place we rented - La Maison Rose was fabulous - a 5 minute cycle to the coast, 5 mins cycle to the local boulangerie and yet in total seclusion and peace and quiet - take a look!
Since returning back home there has been masses to catch up on in all the gardens I look after not to mention here and with the abundance of fruit around this year I've been very busy making fruit Jellies - it's the first time I've done this and love the results... will do a further posting on this in the next day or so - watch this space!
2 comments:
Wonderful series of photos, Miranda. The sea birds remind me of walks along the shore in Orkney.
Thanks Janet - glad you liked them - it also reminded me of Scotland too - I spent quite a bit of time up around the Isle of Skye and also in a very remote spot - Glenelg where Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water was set. It was SO stormy & windy for the few days around when I took these shots I think there were quite a few more species of birds there than normal - all blown in!
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