Misty Breton mornings

The high pressure system sitting over us for the last week or so has given us very misty mornings that have become beautiful sunny afternoons - as the song says:
"Theres many a dark and a cloudy morning
Turns out to be a bright sun-shiny day"

The trees at Plouguernével, (the psychiatric hospital where I work) have recently been pollarded in typical French municipal style, and they looked very strange the other morning, looming out of the mist as I walked from one unit to another around the hospital.

Most of the pollards are plane trees, which surround a big grassy area filled with apple trees. There are also lots of big oaks all over the hospital grounds - you can see all three on the picture below.

The bigger trees (below) are limes, that were pollarded a year ago.  They make very eery shapes!

 And here is part of the main building and some of the formal gardens. It really couldn't be anywhere but France, could it?  The mist covers a multitude of sins, and makes it all look quite romantic....

By the time I finish at midday, the sun has cleared away the mist, and I have had some lovely bike rides home in the spring sunshine. (Pete drops me off, and I only cycle home - one dose of 16 kilometers per day is enough at the moment!)

This is the old railway line that I use for the first 8K - not a bad commuting route really, and great to have no cars to worry about, just the occasional dog being walked. This year I have seen deer, rabbits, a red squirrel, buzzards and loads of other birds I usually can't identify.  Last Tuesday, when these pictures were taken, I heard a woodpecker hammering and a skylark singing at the same time. The surface was re-done a couple of years ago throughout its length, from near Rennes to beyond Carhaix. My commuting bit is between kilometer-posts 101 and 109.

Nearer to home are the eoliens, or wind turbines. There are eight in our commune and six in the next-door commune. In the dark, their red lights can be seen from miles around, providing a superb homing reference, if one were needed. They don't affect us much at all - we can just see the tops of two of them from upstairs in our house. Some of our friends, however, are much more disturbed by the noise they make, and the disastrous effect it has on television reception!
Brittany is aiming to produce 20% of its own electricity using renewables by 2020, so these eoliens are a now common sight all over the countryside. Just one of these beasties produces more than enough power for our commune of about 800 souls, but it sure don't get any cheaper.
Not the prettiest of things, but they have a certain presence, and I definitely prefer them to nuclear! They also make handy weather-vanes...