Miscellaneous photos 3/more snippets 2

I know this photo doesn't do it justice [nothing short of "smellyvision" is capable of that], but I couldn't resist posting this pic of Marcelle's honey.

Well, it's my honey now!

She gave me this tub, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It's not filtered or centrifuged or pasteurised, or anything of the other things producers do to honey to stop it tasting/handling how it used to in my childhood.

I was starting to believed that it was another of those "summer was always warm and sunny" childhood mis-memories, but seeing, tasting, and spreading this stuff restored my faith in bees!

Ooh, did I mention tasting?

I can remember why I used to eat honey sandwiches now!

In my mind this photo is entitled "clown socks".

I have many pairs of socks that are entertaining to me, [I have a pair that were surely designed for trolls, or possibly size 7 ducks, so wide is the toe area], but I think what I like about this pic is not so much the socks, but the sock/slipper combo.

I love the slippers, but sadly they are supermarket cheapies; I wore them in the house for about three days when the soles fell apart.

:-(

This is an opium poppy field as seen from the motorway.

We love the agriculture in the Aube: blue fields of flax; yellow sunflowers following the sun; hemp that has drivers stopping their cars for a second take; opium poppies that have us reversing back to check we haven't gone potty!

In case you are worried, the hemp plants grown do not contain the "active" ingredient, and all hemp/opium poppy growers are licenced and thoroughly checked.

The opium poppy crop is moved under similar conditions that money transfers to banks have [I can't remember if they use armed guards, but it sounded pretty scary].

Other snippets:

• We saw cranes, lots of cranes - presumably flying to or from the lakes. What I always forget is just how much of a racket they make!
•  Having a long bathroom window that we can walk out of, and the French windows in the bedroom, brings our total door-count to five...  Is that too many for what is (essentially) a two-bedroom bungalow?
• Having a "spare" room, and a spare table, I indulged in my old Christmas passion of snowy-scene jigsaws.  It's great now to be able to do as long as my back can stand, and then just leave it - without it being in the way, or bits getting lost as I move it off the table so we can eat.  OK, I know we could do like more 'modern' families do, and eat off trays on our laps, but neither of us like that very much and it's not great for the digestion...  So a huge hurrah for having space for hobbies!