Summer is coming, and what better other country to holiday in than France? The variety of it all. Normandy and Brittany, the latter for those of archaeological bent as well as its splendid coast. Then the long drive southward with beaches galore facing the Atlantic rollers. The Pyrenees, from Atlantic to the Mediterranean. And the Med means that holiday element which is not always with us in Ireland - sun and warmth. It is not all millionaires' yachts and casinos and grand villas. The western end is modest, with charms of its own and food of its own. You may not go for the cargolade - a grill of snails - but the variety of fish is notable and the anchovy a favourite. Not like the tinned variety we buy here, but fresh, salted maybe for a day or two, and fanned around a plate from the centre, each anchovy alternating with a slice of red pepper: the dish of the area for some people.
All of this leading to a letter from a friend urging a visit, on the next trip to France, to the Brenne National Park in the central region, some kilometres east of Poitiers. The title would lure you, or rather the subtitle, which is "The Park of a Thousand Ponds". Count them on the big map you get. Some of them we would call lakes, all nicely irregular in shape and bearing great numbers of birds. Many migratory birds from Africa come there: they reckon 150 species; and then there are all the purely local ones. Among the big surprises for our visitor were the water tortoises known as cistudes. The female comes out of the water, casually lays her eggs in the grass and then leaves it to the sun and heat to do the rest. No sitting brooding on the eggs. But how do they keep the grass from growing and depriving the eggs of warmth? Well, the agents for doing this are small Tarpan horses, defined in the dictionary as "the wild horses of Tartary". They keep the grass short to expose the eggs to the heat of the sun's rays and are sure-footed and perceptive enough not to stand on them.
They look very like the horses you see painted on the walls of caves many tens of thousands of years ago. Our visitor was perhaps most to be envied for having heard what those of us in Ireland may never hear again - a bittern booming. The guide compared the sound to someone blowing into an empty bottle. Too much to tell about this enormous park: birder's and angler's delight, a veritable zoo, and much more. Sad fact: our friend and her companions were in the area for three days and it rained all the time. Y