Kites and a hazelnut

I was going to write that Corsica never really feels wintry, even when it's cold. There are always some fruit or flowers on the trees and to me, used to English winters, colourless except for holly berries, that doesn't feel like winter. Here, there are clementines, oranges, grapefruits and arbouses, the 'Chinese strawberries' that take a year to ripen and hang on the branches until the new flowers have blossomed and fallen. There are also a few persimmon trees, with their orange fruits which ripen in winter once the leaves fall. In January, the almond trees blossom before the leaves have grown so that the tree is a cloud of pink or white, like candyfloss. I don't like the colour of the mimosa trees, violent yellow like laburnum bushes back home, but they do brighten up the hillsides. So there is always colour in the landscape.

That said, this past week was miserable: driving rain and wind, grey for days at a time, and freezing. We were lucky here by the sea though: in the mountains they had a foot of snow, and according to the news, 10,000 homes were left without power. The sun came out yesterday and me and Lija ventured out along the railway track to the sea urchin beach for some air. The railway is still out of action, and they had parked a train in the gorge, but we scrambled past it and got down to the sea. The strange aloe vera plants that look like bloodied fingers were glowing in the sunlight, and meltwater was running down the paths and had made a river cutting through the beach with miniature sand cliffs, striped in sedimentary lines. That is one of the great things about staying in a place for a while with nothing much to do as the seasons change - you have time to notice the little shifts each day. Lija realised that it was the first time it had been sunny enough to draw the scent out of the maquis herbs for months. We found tracks in the sand that looked like deer, and were disappointed that it wasn't wild boar. A picket fence, half buried in the white sand, made lovely shadows, and it was warm enough to sit by the sea with the red kites flying overhead. I found a hazelnut bleached by the sun and sea - the base looked like an iris or a pressed daisy.