" And since to look at things in bloom...

... Fifty springs are little room "

( Ragged robin, buttercup and gunnera.)

In Celtic terms at least, it no longer is spring, Beltane is past ( I haven't been jumping over any bonfires or any such pagan naughtiness ), and indeed, their is such abundance of green and gold and bloom that, sadly, one feels glutted, sated, the sharpness of delight in it has abated. It was ever thus. There will be more flowers ( and I daresay a few hearts), but they'll be summer ones, which seem more like a luxurious froth on things than wonderful, great irridiscent bubbles breaking, as the first things did.

We're shortly off to Morbihan, to the southern seaside, for a few days for our wedding anniversary, to look at dolmens and menhirs and cromlechs and perhaps some bronze age rock art (which Marja-Leena might like!). On the other hand, if the weather is awful we may just laze about and go for smaller trips and eat lots of seafood and drink lots of wine in the hotel restaurant. We're staying in an appartment adjacent to said hotel which looks highly comfy and where they charged the princely sum of three euros for Molly to be able to join us, which we thought very reasonable.

We'll have the camera, (which is actually shared property in the marital estate, though poor Tom doesn't get much of a look in, entre nous, this is because when he gets his eye in he takes better pictures than I do, which is a mite disgruntling), but will be off-line. The appartments have wi-fi but we won't avail ourselves of it; a break will do no harm.

I read somewhere that one shouldn't give away on a blog when one is going out of town, so to any potential burglars who may have been able to pinpoint with accuracy our location from the information given here, congratulations, that's more than most of our invited guests can do the first couple of times with a map and instructions, and thank you for reading Box Elder with such close attention, I hope it has been an uplifting experience for you, and may encourage you to turn away from a life of crime, blogging beats burgling, though is doubtless less profitable. But I would discourage you from trying to break in; 4-year-old Sarah and 84-year-old Marie, as well as Gilbert the nosy postman, will have the place under tight surveillance, and the gendarmes will be after you before you can say canif.

For the rest of you, bye for now, see you when I get back.