Lavender and the Bee

Backblipped on 6 July

Spent most of the day travelling. Flew from Leeds/Bradford to Montpellier (south coast of France), where we picked up a hire car and drove up to the house near Agen (not my house sadly but a relatives). It was in the middle of the countryside with a farm on one side and goats in the fields.

The sun was shining and the first thing that caught my eye in the garden were the lavenders around the swimming pool full of bees, which you could get close to without fear as they were more intent on the pollen, busy moving from one stem to the next.

Lavender is so iconic of France and whilst I wasn't in the main lavender growing region, which would be worth a visit sometime, there was a lot of it in the gardens and the various planting displays on roundabouts and road sides in the many villages and towns.

There was no Internet connection and overseas data roaming on phones was still quite a lot (although new reduced prices and connection charges came in on 1 July), so I had 10 days of no communication with the world other than the odd text message when out and about as there was also no mobile phone reception at the house.

Having been off-line for a while I've come back to lots of wonderful comments to the strawberry and well wishes. Thank you so much :)

I will be catching up with you and my blips over the next few days, especially as I will be stuck indoors due to the wet weather forecast, but it will enable me to hang on to the holiday and sunshine a bit longer.