We ought to know better, but we so often exclaim at the differences in climate and its effect on vegetation from area to area. A tree in County Dublin may be cropping well in a year when fifty miles away one of the same species may be almost barren. It's a question of miniclimates, of soil, of wind cover and, above all, perhaps of frost. We, being on the Atlantic, may think our climate more variable, but quirks are found elsewhere.
For example, in a wide and fertile valley in south west France, the small oaks, in late September, were still wearing their male spring flowers, and a hundred yards away a blackburn bush was in full flower. About five months late by our reckoning.
Just two miles further on, on rising ground, the same oaks were laden with almost ripe, mature acorns. The spraying of grapes in the lower reaches may be - perhaps - the cause of the delay there. Maybe not. And fifty miles away - and this heats all for anyone from this - trees, crouched down to the ground, already leafless, on a bare, sunny but windy hillside, were purple with sloes. And yet so different: they were sweet to the taste. Sweet. Have you ever had a sweet sloe in this country? A few were brought back for the incredulous. Maybe they are a variation, but could not be other, basically, than prunus spinosa. Average to slightly smaller in size, the fruit, the stones are being kept and maybe a cutting will take.
Another surprise. On the edge, of what had been a busy vine planting stood a small tree with a carpet of fruit around it.
Peaches. Small, but peaches. A learned one in the party said that the peche a vigne was well known. Peach trees planted in vineyards to attract bees to pollinate the grapes. And the same windy slope was an apple tree of many branches, with several flower buds here, some open flowers there, and at the other end, a few more or less ripe apples. There used to be a newspaper syndicated item: "Believe It Or Not."