the abacus of the days

The autumn comes as a thief,
creeping in when our backs are turned.

An icy wind blows through the stillness. A gilded leaf,
clings to a silver birch; holding, hanging, hugging.
But then falling nevertheless,
spinning back to the cradle of the earth.

The autumn lingers, coming a little
further each morning.

Up on the hillside, grass
is dry, ferns tarnished, and berries sour.
A flock grazes an ever decreasing pasture; soon the shepherd
will come to bring them in for winter.

All the while, you are as the late afternoon sun;
though growing lower in the sky with the passing of each day,
Never do you falter nor let your fire grow cold.

The autumn withdraws.

Too soon, the sun slips beyond the distant hillside
and we are left in the shadow filled valley.
Yet even now, the warmth of your rays
lingers on our cheeks,
going with us into the night.

In early Autumn 2009, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer of the pancrease. Sadly two days before Christmas, she lost her short, but bravely fought battle with the disease. Tonight, as I write this entry, I still can't quite believe that already four years have past.

The final time I saw her was in September, on one of the last glorious burst of sunshine before the Summer lead us into Autumn and then towards Winter. The next day, I returned here to France to experience my first Pyrenean autumn. Everybody told me that the Pyrenees are at their most beautiful in the Autumn. And they were right. Every day, the beauty that the changing of the seasons brought to the mountains grew more and more breathtaking.

It seems so ironic now, when I think back to that period of my life. Living in a place where life is so deeply intertwined with the rhythm of the seasons, and all the while I was blissfully unaware of just how keenly I would later feel the abacus of the days...

dark skies

The Milky Way, seen from the Pic du Midi de Bigorre

One night in early September, N and I went stargazing. It was an exceptionally clear night, with neither moon nor wisps of cloud in sight. It had rained earlier in the day and there was a smell of damp earth rising from the ground as we walked out from the forest onto the little grassy knoll jutting out into the valley.

Shielded from the street lights of nearby Bagnères de Bigorre, the Milky Way was visible, a rich speckled band of million of stars. 

We stood on the hillside for what seemed hours, heads turned towards the heavens. 

We exchanged the names of stars, his Grande Ourse for my Big Dipper. Satellites traced a path between the constellations, and shooting stars fell towards the earth. We clung together, transfixed by the beauty of the night sky. 

The distance from the earth to the sky is always hard to comprehend, the fact that the light we can see now is so old that the star itself might actually be dead. 

Yet it is even harder to comprehend that we too are made of stardust, that almost every element on this earth was first formed at the heart of a star...

Stargazing at the Pic du Midi

Many thanks to Nicolas Bourgeois, leader of the Pic du Midi Dark Sky Project team, for the accompanying images of the night sky...they are stunning.

knitting by the fire

 

It was a week of infitite busyness with such a bumper crop of language lessons, my feet hardly touched the ground. By Thursday I was flagging and come Friday, I was in need of a few days of quiet hibernation. 

The week-end was then spent in a state of general lazing: knitting by the fire, playing card games with N, and lots and lots of herbal tea. I had long sleep-ins, plenty of siestas and in between, read and read and read. 

Now we are into a new week, and I am doing my very best to embrace the winter haze and just take things that little bit slower.

white peaks, blue skies, visits from friends

November has ended as it started: every Friday night we've gone to bed with barren trees and every Saturday morning we've awoken to a world that looks quite different. This weekend was no exception.

If the Winter is as long and as hard as last year, perhaps by the Spring, I'll be worn down by the weather. But for now, I am beguiled by the change of the season, enchanted by the transformative power of snow.

 

All the better then that a good friend from university has come to visit for a long week-end...and that there is fresh snow, sunshine and blue skies to enjoy together.

out before the lifts open

It’s been snowing heavily over the last fortnight out here in the Pyrenees. It's still only a few days until the ski stations open this coming weekend, but some people just can’t wait that long!

Last weekend we dusted off the ski touring equipment and went out for our first outing of the season up above the ski station at Luz Ardiden.

It was gloriously sunny lower down but as we climbed higher up the slope, the wind picked up and the sky gradually became overcast.

At the top of the ridge, we were greeted with a freezing wind as we hurried to get our skins off and ready for the descent, through half a metre of powder.

Whether we are out on snow shoes, skis or simply a sledge, the first time out in the snow is always magical.

Isard

 

Having been hunted for so long, isards on this side of the watershed are notoriously secretive and discreet creatures.

Which makes any encounter, no matter how brief, with one of these gracious animals even more magical.

Spotting an isard on our way up the col des mulets earlier in the month.

autumn falls, winter snows

Wake early. Throw back the shutters. Lying in bed watching the snowflakes softly tumble from the slate grey sky.  

Early morning snow on the Eglise des Templiers

No secret what it all means. I've heard the storks overhead in the night, flying south to sunnier climbs. I've felt the chill in the morning air. But with the appearance of the first snows on the mountain tops and down here in the valley this past week, it's made it all that bit more official.

Autumn leaves, snowy peaks

The clocks went back a month ago this weekend. Summer is a distant memory. Autumn came, but it appears Winter was not far behind. We are nearing the end of  November and the scale is already tipping. Darkness is starting to win out as night falls sooner and the sun lingers less and less.

Defiant oak leaves at the Napoléon monument

Winter has arrived earlier than expected, already got her feet under the table. Not that I'm complaining. Not yet, anyway...

Quick stroll before lunch to Solférino chapel

la braderie d'hiver, le pull d'automne

Ça se passe toujours beaucoup plus vite qu'on ne pense. En retrouvant la neige sur les cimes samedi matin, on se disait "Voilà l'automne, bientôt l'hiver."

J'aime l'automne, cette parenthèse avant l'hiver. J'aime novembre, sa variété. Dans la journée, de la brume le matin, suivi souvent de cieux bleus sur les feuilles jaunes. Le premier sur-poudrage de neige qui fait parler tout le monde. Les vrais nuits de gel.

Alors, il fallait un nouveau pull. Samedi matin, tout le village est venu fouiller parmi les fringues et les skis de la braderie d'hiver. Sur une table de pulls d'hommes, j'y ai trouvé mon bonheur: un magnifique pull en laine. Ample. Bien chaud. 

Vert, bleu, écru, orange. Porter sur moi l'automne: les potirons, les châtaignes, les sous-bois. Refléter la saison dans la douceur de laine. C'est bien, un nouveau pull...d'occasion.

altitude

Above 

me: only sun, 

clouds, the wide azure 

arc of the sky. Below me: snow, 

mountain, the Earth. All that needs knowing 

is that with every step, I am moving ever forward, 

ever upward. All that needs knowing is that the law of

 altitude dictates that which goes up, must surely come back down.

First back country ski of this Winter season

first snows

The first cold of the season blew in Thursday night. I couldn't sleep, so I snuggled up by the fire with my book, listening to the gentle flic-floc of sleet falling onto our chimney top and migrating storks fly due south overhead. 

The snow continued all the next day, making my drive down to work quite exhilarating. When I got back later in the evening, we ate steaming veggie curry by the fire, listening to the satisfying sound of snow sliding off the roofs.

This morning, we awoke to blue skies and white peaks: the first snows of autumn.

Our village, Luz-Saint-Sauveur, beneath the first snows of autumn

This will be my fifth Pyrenean winter. But I'm never quite ready for this, the abruptness of the seasons. What happened to balmy nights, sleeping with the doors and windows open? What happened to foraging for chestnuts and walnuts and mushrooms? What happened to our autumnal rambles in autumnal knitwear?

This being the Pyreneans of course, it only takes the wind to turn and we may well be eating lunches out on the balcony again by next week. That's the way our weather goes down here. But even if it warms up tomorrow, it's too late now. The cold has happened. A new pair of mittens has been cast on. The first fire has been lit.

And we've had our first ski of the season. More on that later...