Blogtacular

I’m writing this while sitting in my new Corsican flat on a revolting silver fake-leather beanbag with my feet hanging out of the window to get the last of the wintry sunshine. There are two little trees outside which screen my windows from the square – I’m not good on tree names, but one has big leaves like laurels, starting to turn yellow, and little white cones of flowers at the tip of each branch, starting to turn brown. The other tree is evergreen, maybe a fir. Its leaves look like those plastic trees you get on model railways: flat, improbably lurid green and seaweed-like. The flowery tree is covered in bees, the fir in cobwebs lit up by the sun.

I’m going on and on about trees because Ile Rousse is really not an eventful place in winter, or at least I haven’t yet managed to infiltrate whatever social scene there is – all that is visible on the surface is endless geriatric pétanque games in Place Paoli. Things are tricky without a car, because the public transport is patchy, slow and infrequent (the whole south of the island has no railways, for example), I don’t have internet access very often, and I really need something to do – so…I’m starting this blog (groan) in case any of you (my several lovely friends!) were wondering what I’m doing wandering off to Corsica for seven months. I’m enjoying it so far, despite that little whine – thankfully it’s not as if nightlife is my thing. I’m just going to rehash/poncify some emails to get up to date so far.