Today I found myself singing an oldie way back from 1957. Pat Boone was the crooner and the song When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano. Boy! Does that bring back memories and fill the heart with nostalgia. All because in Salies it is time for the cranes to fly over on their migration back north and fly they did!
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Salies de Béarn
SIBERIA IN SALIES
Today, the temperature finally rose above 0º C and stayed there. It even seemed warm after ten days not only below 0ºC, but sometimes as 
much as 11º below. That is the coldest I remember feeling in my whole life.
ONE YEAR
Dedicated, with much love and gratitude to EL MUSO.
On December 2nd at 5 o’clock in the afternoon I completed my first year in Salies. It was exactly 365 days before that I had 
arrived carrying my suitcases, my dog, quite a bit of excitement and not a few nerves. Continue reading
SALIES ON SATURDAY
Saturday is a slow day in Salies, slow in the good sense of relaxed, unhurried; a nothing-else-to-do day all for me. I love Saturday mornings, awaking and knowing I can laze in bed all I want. Salomé is curled up beside me; by her deep breaths I can tell she is asleep. Continue reading
CHANGING SEASONS
Autumn has come to Salies even though it is still unseasonably warm considering we are more than halfway through October. Since the beginning of September the nights have cooled, the mornings leave a thick coat of dew on the windshield, the corn began to lose its green and then to turn dry brown. Most of it has been harvested. Continue reading
THE WOODS
Today I went walking with Salomé. We took a usual route, around the corner and up the gravel road that ends atop the hill. We walked past the property that is occupied by a goat and two cats that belong to a friend. Continue reading
THE STORM
Friday rain had been predicted, but the skies over Salies remained sunny all day and the temperature climbed to 33ºC. It was a scorcher. I called Kiwi-san.
“Looks like the I-phone forecast was wrong. It hasn’t rained.” Continue reading
SALIES IS A GENTLE TOWN…
Salies is a gentle, peaceful town. It is generally quiet around here so it was no wonder that when the thermometer started hitting 30+ºC last Saturday, everything got quieter. There wasn’t a wisp of breeze; nothing seemed to be breathing. Continue reading
SIX MONTHS INTO SALIES
Goodness, the second of June! It has been six months since having moved to Salies. I hate to say “time has flown” it is such a cliché, but time has flown. Six months has become a brief forever which is the time that love exists in and I definitely am in love with my life here. Continue reading
A WALK IN THE WOODS
So I was on my way back from lunch when I saw the small path. I had gone to Sauveterre, a medieval town 8 kms. from Salies, for a Vide Grenier
(literally, Empty the Attic, the French version of a garage sale) which never
materialized and decided to stay there for lunch. Continue reading
Writing a life 