Once off the work wheel does one just replace it with a different wheel? I am in France, in a small village in the Eastern Pyrenees. Today I have been for a walk around the cemetry and marvelled at the long lives most here have lived. This afternoon I finished my book and whilst all slept I tried to sketch but was too unrestful. So I walked back to the river to watch birds, those I had not seen, for want of my binoculars, that morning. But there were virtually none. It was a very hot afternoon out in the sun for anyone. I lent over the brige to see the Castellean flowing beneath.On the terraced gardens to the side someone was weeding their vegetable plot. Two others sat under a tree, enjoying the shade, one sewing a tapestry. How simple the life here seemed and communal, now fast disappearing.I recalled that my aunt was a tapestry maker. Yet though she must have gotten much pleasure from doing them it was never really matched by those she gave them to. But did that matter? It was maybe the making and giving that counted, not the piece of woven fabric. What happened when she had finished it? Satisfaction for a while. Then a void. Then another one? When that person died would the tapestry, so lovingly undertaken beneath the tree, just be turned out, destroyed, along with many other personal possessions, suddenly unwanted? Are the longer lives here attributable to the exercise and quality that comes from growing their own food. Yet it looks back-breaking too. However, why do it? Why do any of it? Sometimes I conclude that as we do not know why we are here we may as well make the best of the time we have. That is fine if one never asks what is the point of that, of reading a book, spotting a bird, growing your radishes, strimming the lawn.There are things which give me pleasure, love, a laugh with friends, a smile received and given, a walk in early evening Springtime.But when I stand back and observe the context, wonder this question and the cemetery it is hard to see ultimately the purpose in it all and yet at the same time, how dearly I hold on to life and wish the longevity of us all.Do others never wonder?