The Mole

The cats have spent the last 3 days mesmerised by the soil underneath the hedge. They would sniff it, dig with two paws even get their shoulders deep into the soil. On a closer look we could sometimes see the earth moving – it had to be a mole!

At last yesterday, Mimi managed to extract it from the ground. It was quite a large mole. Bruno, not the gentleman, managed to snatch it from her. I don’t like seeing cats playing with their prey, so we thought we could catch it and transfer it to the field opposite.

By the time Richard had got a spade to pick it up and a bucket to put the mole in, it had begun to dig into the ground.

Richard tried to dig into the ground to stop it getting away but to no avail.

How can a mole, no bigger than the size of a hand, manage to burrow into the soil when it is too hard to get a spade in?

Incroyable!

The Black Madonna

On 29th September 2007, Notre-Dame-de-Marceille in Limoux near Carcassonne was broken into and the famous Black Madonna, made of hard black wood, was decapitated and the cloak that covered her was stolen.

Until recently, visitors who came to the church could only see a photograph of the 12th Century Madonna and Child. Realising that the statue could not be repaired, the Communauté des Sœurs Bethléem near Pézenas appointed a sculpture to make an identical copy.

It is now possible to see the statue in the church, though for security reasons, is behind a heavy grille. The new Black Madonna has been made out of chestnut. Possibly the statue will be dressed in a replacement cloak at a later time.