Patterns

There is something to be said about riding pillion.   Conversation is not possible and so it becomes unnecessary.  There is just the sound of the engine and the wind and the stir of gear change. Smells change as we head towards the coast.  From our lovely vernacular; dried plane and oak leaves, through the sent of pine and box wood and finally olive, fennel and the sea. And always leather. 
Unable to see ahead, you watch from side to side and see details otherwise unnoticed; the way fire wood is stacked between two trees, the slope of a field, a cleft in the rocky cliffs.  Riding pillion above all gives you time to think.  If thoughts veer off course I bring them back to heel and concentrate on the cragged walls of the Fénouièdes, or the skitterings of the babyish Aude.