E
ven on a grey winter day, the
Normandy landscape draws
you into its repose. Villages
huddle around their church-
es in misty folds of damp pasture, smoke
idling from the chimneys of timber cot-
tages. Ghostly poplars taper into a low,
vaporous sky. Sometimes this thins out
sufficiently for a cold silver disc to peer
down on the orchards, before fading away
again as though to preserve the warmth it
will need to coax them back into the gaudy
blossom of spring. To everything its sea-
son. For it is not just the cider, fermenting
quietly in its casks, that is renewing the
timeless, patient cycles of local husband-
ry. In the swollen barrels of thoroughbred
mares, on stud farms throughout Norman-
dy, another furtive mystery is unfolding
– one of no less certain yield, daily accru-
By CHRIS MCGRATH
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