Sunday, April 23, 2006

The First Picnic of the Season

The day was such that staying inside would have been a crime. Flowers were in abundance, their colours translucent int he sun. My girlfriend and I decided the only thing to do was to go on a picnic. Having stocked up on pâté, cheese, olive bread, artichoke-olive-sun-dried-tomato-celery-salad and grapes we headed off to find the for the perfect spot.

A small river runs through two small villages on the French/Geneva border and we walked the trail along the banks until we found a place for feast and blanket. The river was filled with melted snow and it sang to us as it foamed and rushed over rocks.

The sun, filtering through the trees, warmed us.

My friend will be in a play and we went over her lines. She is a good actress. Every now and then hikers would come by and a couple in hip boots and with fishing poles tried their luck in the river.

Water in rivers has a certain smell that cleans the mind as well as the nostrils.

This spring, maybe because it arrived both late and suddenly, seems worth some pagan celebration. I suppose we could have danced naked along the river bank, but we didn't. The image is better without bare feet stumbling on sticks and stones.

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