Toussaint

It's a tradition in France to decorate loved ones' graves with chrysanthemums on All Saints' Day. Cemeteries are spruced up in advance, the entrances of supermarket and garden centres are clogged with tubs of chrysanthemums, and graveyards are a riot of colour. Our village cemetery is no exception; when I passed by, a group of people were having a picnic -- not actually in the cemetery, as they might have in Mexico, but on the grassy area next to it. The sound of children playing and adults chatting and laughing seemed a nice way to celebrate someone's life.

I can't say I particularly like chrysanthemums, but the masses of brightly coloured flowers made the unvisited tombs look even more neglected and sad. They made me think of Kendall's blip.

Other than that, I spent a large part of the day reading Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper, a long, escapist read that kept me absorbed for hours at a time..