Blossom
With a breathtaking suddenness, spring has arrived in the lovely Quercy. Willows drip slender green leaves, almonds turn their pale pink faces to the new sunlight and the hedgerows are lit with blackthorn. In the valleys all the rivers and streams are swollen with rain and melt-water, the Lot is in flood, lakes and ponds are brimming and we’re braced and ready for the droughts of summer.
Meanwhile, down in the markets, the jonquille sellers have arrived, little old ladies, their faces creased by the years, their hunched shoulders huddled deep into shawls.
“Deux euros,” they cry, holding out a bunch of tiny wild daffodils, “trois pour cinq.”
I try to edge past, their flowers are fully out and I know full well they’ll be dead in two days, they always are.
But elderly though these ladies may be, their minds are as sharp as ever. She grabs my arm as I sidle past, and her opal-black eyes dart to the damp newspaper. Within twenty seconds she’s wrapped three bunches and pressed them into my free hand.
“Cinq euros Madame!” Ah well, I needed some flowers for the kitchen table anyway… I put them cheerfully in the side of my basket and wander on.
On the vegetable stalls new young produce is beginning to appear. Herbs have arrived, damp bunches of acid green sorrel and oniony spires of ciboulette, iron-rich spring greens, sweet young carrots and the first of the baby feves. I also spotted the first of the new aillet, exquisitely flavoured young garlic. They look like bunches of pink-streaked spring onions, but appearances can be deceptive, finely sliced and scattered, they’re just the thing to help dress the new season’s salads – unless it’s a first date of course!
Cowslips
At the charcuterie van I queue for a dozen paper-thin slices of Bayonne ham and an outrageously thick slice of his delectable paté maison, then I nip over to the olive stall for a good handful of huge, shiny, violet olives – and a few preserved garlic cloves. I’m in full swing now; the egg-man greets me with a characteristic slight bow and a brush of the cheek. We’re beyond handshakes, but not quite into full-scale kissing.
“Eh bien, Madame? Une poule pour dimanche?” He asks. He presses my egg-box into the basket between the sorrel and the squishy bag of olives – the eggs are so large the lid doesn’t close properly – while I ruminate over the Sunday lunch menu. We could have a chicken, it would be an old bird, but doubtless with a flavour to wake the dead and I could turn it into a delicious Poule au Pot Farcie. Why not? My egg-man was grunting and raking about in the back of the van, and the answer to my unasked question flew out with a cacophonous squawk.
“Ah. Well, thank you so much, but actually I think we’ll have a roti de porc.”
As I leave the little market town behind and drive past serried ranks of vines and back up into the hills, I notice scratches of lemon yellow in the thin new grass. Cowslips. Within a fortnight they’ll be a tapestry of colour, bringing the sunlight down to earth. Round the next hairpin and I’m faced with a hazy carpet of purple, the famed violets of the region, flower of Toulouse.
I have all the windows down by this time, the air is soft and the hills full of birdsong, and above me the buzzards cry as they wheel in the rising thermals.
Yes, spring has definitely arrived, and at this time of year the Quercy is a beautiful place to be.
© Amanda Lawrence 2007
Sunny Springtime in the Quercy from French Vie
Tags: Cowslips, The Quercy
