There have been numerous hidden clues to Margaret Drabble's interest in jigsaws and puzzles in her fiction over the years. This, her latest book (published in 2009), assembles all her wisdom and deep research in one unique volume. Apparently, there will be no more novels and in The Pattern in the Carpet there is a feeling that the author can finally indulge her absorbing pastime while at the same time researching its history and having fun in doing so.

Woven like a shining thread through the story of dissected maps, illustrated playing cards, mosaics and board games is an account of Margaret Drabble's childhood playtimes with her Auntie Phyl. These were moments of pleasure and security in the troubled years of the war and afterwards. It was not an easy time for time for this intelligent child of stern parents and she was prone, even then, to depression.

It is, above all, an honest self-searching book; its final chapters deal movingly with old age and remembrance. She seems happier now.

***

I was very young when I first read A Summer Bird-Cage and, being fairly inexperienced, I accepted it for what it was: insightful, amusing and quite startling on the subject of marital fidelity and the difficulties young women faced in the 1960s. Sarah (the narrator) and Louise are educated and attractive, with entirely different approaches to life and the freedom which was suddenly theirs. Beautiful Louise unexpectedly marries a cold, unpleasant man; Sarah wanders London wondering when her own life will begin in earnest. Her unrewarding job, her casual acquaintances at pointless parties and her unfeeling family underline her loneliness and longing for real experience. When Louise's marriage reaches a crisis and she drops her cool, superior attitude, the sisters are able to find common ground.

It came to me, on re-reading A Summer Bird-Cage, what an amazing piece of writing this is, for someone so young. Margaret Drabble was 24, not long down from Oxford with her 'lovely, shiny degree', as her character Sarah puts it, and already a mother, married to an actor. Although I am not quite so dazzled any more by this particular novel (many wonderful books were to follow), fifty years on it remains a pretty impressive story.

The other day we visited our friend Martina, an accomplished basket-maker who lives only a few minutes drive from La Borne.

Martina's workshop is at the end of the farmhouse where she lives with her husband Robert. The door was open to let in the lovely spring sunshine.

In the garden there are amusing decorative figures wherever you look, reflecting the happy atmosphere of the Bärfuss household.

Martina was busy in the atelier, sitting at her special table. It has much shorter legs at the work end and the longer legs have casters so that she can move it around as she needs.

The room is filled with finished orders and materials. There are examples of her baskets on the walls made for all sorts of uses: carrying, storing and display.

Having made the base for an oval basket, Martina had just started on the construction of the sides.

Her tools are close at hand on a little side shelf attached to the bench. A magnetic strip keeps knives with curved blades safely in place.

An old 5-kilo weight prevents the basket slipping as she works. Sometimes she uses a tool to push through the base to anchor the piece to a hole in the table -  but Martina prefers the weight system.

We sat and talked about her work and the different coloured willow stems she uses. These are sourced in the Haute Marne and in the Touraine region (where there is a village of basket makers not unlike our village of potters). Conditions are good there for growing willow trees.

Martina's besom is propped ready to sweep up the willow cuttings.

On the opposite side of the courtyard we could hear sounds of Robert working in his own atelier. He is a very busy metal worker, renowned for his log-burning stoves which fit especially well into the houses in our area. They look just right in our pottery workshops, studios and farmhouses.

Robert used to be a full time cheese-maker in the Swiss mountains and he still spends time there in summer overseeing cows in the high pastures. Everyone knows his good cheeses and his lovely steady approach to life.

It must be very nice to listen to the special music of one another's occupation as they work.

Robert and Martina have a friendly collie (too busy with a bone to pose for me) and two cats. We sat in the garden to drink apple juice and enjoy the sudden good weather.

I am looking forward to seeing the finished basket with an open zigzag design next time.

I love the Martina basket which I have at home. It is beautifully made. I'm going to take a short course at the vannerie soon and I'll be posting more pictures from Les Girardins.

It has taken only two days for the countryside around the village to wake up and show how beautiful it can be. Suddenly the fields are the brightest green. There are wild flowers everywhere and the trees are 'in tiny leaf' as Browning described in his poem that always reminds me of home.

In the lanes this morning we saw banks of celandines. Their petals are so shiny that they look almost unreal. The name comes from the latin for a swallow, indicating that they bloom when the swallows come back to Europe. Quite right - we saw the first swallows this week.

Here's another early flower, one of my favourites. Before they open, the delicate pink undersides of their petals shows. The Greek legend says that Anemos, the Wind, gave the windflower its name. It's also known as the wood anemone.

We see a lot of these brilliantly coloured beetles in our garden. I had never seen a firebug before coming to France but they are a common insect of the family Pyrrhocoridae.

The forest and the fields are noisy with birdsong. We see fewer birds in our garden now that they can find their own natural food. This great tit was after spider's eggs hidden in the neck of an oil jar on the kitchen sill outside.

It's good to see chestnut 'sticky buds' opening. They were always part of our spring nature table when I was little at school. No one plays conkers here so the beautiful nuts are left to lie on the ground. We found the blackened remains of last year's crop.

Honey bees love the pussy willow's pollen. Bees are everywhere now: honey bees, wild bees with furry ginger backs which live alone, and fat bumble bees.

Primroses come in several shades from palest yellow to quite a dark pink. I'm not sure why this should be. Perhaps the colour comes from some sort of cross with primulas. These are true primroses though. They smell delicious when the sun warms them.

The lovely cowslip used to be picked in huge quantities to make into cowslip balls. In spite of this, they appear in their thousands every spring. The French name for them is the coucou since they come into flower when the cuckoo returns. Our neighbour's lawn is full of them.

Another friend's garden was a wonderful sight this morning. There were dandelions in a rich carpet all round his house. There is no point in mowing them as buds grow again the same day.

In an abandoned garden were pale narcissus flowers. We were tempted to pick a few but we left them to blow quietly in the breeze.