After shutting down the house and giving Christian the keys we set off around 13:30, but don’t get far. Ali walks to the bins with some rubbish while Nick drives down behind but Ali remembers she hasn’t closed the drive gates so walk back. The duck pond, so hard a few weeks ago is now full of clear water reflecting the autumn trees and sky. We don’t get far again, seeing Ash and Malc in their drive we stop for a chat before heading to Lathus for a bite to eat and fill with water.
It’s 18C as we drive to Montmorillon and on to Lussac, all looking green and pretty. We turn off towards Gencay just in time to catch up with a strange 3-wheeled tractor carrying a load of tarmac. The road has been gravelled recently and we follow it in a cloud of dust, past fields of sheep or dead sunflowers. A few miles after crawling through Verneres it turns off and we have a clear view again. We come into Gencay the same way as earlier this month and easily find the lakeside parking.
The lake is looking beautiful, smooth water reflecting autumnal trees and silver birch beneath a blue sky streaked with little white clouds. Walkers, some led by dogs, do circuits of the bank and a family is having a picnic. Ducks fly above the lake, often in threes, like fighter squadrons scrambling, woodpeckers laugh noisily in the trees behind, barnacle geese strut as they patrol the picnic area and a heron stands motionless. In the shallows a pair of coypu slip through the water causing a tiny ripple on the glassy surface.
With all this beauty right before us it’s easy, just for a moment, to forget the unseen enemy, the havoc and disruption, the scares and the restrictions that coronavirus is heaping on this beautiful world.
The sun sets with a pink glow and no doubt will rise again tomorrow.
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