Max watches the alien in the pool

A walk in the woods today under a fearsome grey sky. The village below was covered in cloud but there was no rain. Max and I discovered a nest, or at least a huge family of millipedes – but hundreds of them in one area all squiggling and wriggling around. Later we went to the market in Paulhan. At the new traffic light junction when our light was green two men with traffic cones and a huge electric saw walked into the middle of the junction and plonked them down. The car in front wasn’t indicating so I thought it was going ahead but instead it went beyond and around the men turning to the left. I had already started to turn left before I reached the men as there was no oncoming traffic and you should have heard them bellow as I slowed to avoid hitting the other car. There was no danger, but the two men were pretty loud and luckily I didn’t understand the swear words!

After visiting the market we went to Lake Salagou to see if we could find the coypu again. The volcanic grit was a beautiful deep red after all the rain and the lake has risen quite considerably with lots of weed washed onto the shore by the winds and waves. We found the remains of crayfish, eaten by birds I imagined. They only eat the bodies so there were red, black, blue, yellow and orange claws lying around along with head shells, still with their eyes and feelers intact. I also found the skeleton of a fish about 3' long with large teeth do you know what it is? (I moved the teeth to be close to the body. The head is missing. ) There were three coypu on the rocks, two of which posed beautifully before sliding into the water and eating the water lily stalks. There were so many lily buds that will all be a picture there in a couple of week’s time. 3 coypu here

We returned via the junction at lunch time. No sign of the men but there were three traffic cones around a hole in the tarmac - perhaps a bollard will be going up!

After all the high winds and rain the pool needed a good clean - the alien does the bottom and some of the sides and I did lots more with a brush and net.