2.
The Bothy.Daylight creeping through the bars of the tiny east side window of my bothy amazes me. It is all so new and incredibly quiet!
My bothy! Of course it isn’t mine but it belongs to me for now as it belonged to generations of shepherds in the Auvergne. I am told they used to build these huts with their own hands with blocks of limestone and thatch made of reeds collected from the shores of the lakes lying down in the valley, their waters quite still, as beautiful as they are treacherous, swampy, unapproachable. They surround themselves with sludge and quicksand where snakes and mosquitoes hatch among the reeds.
The birds in the giant poplars which tower above my hut are beginning to sing. Theirs are the only perches to be found in the barren volcanic moonscape of this part of t
