One Year On! ~ Missive 15

22 Feb 2010

Dear All

Hopefully you will find Missive 15 attached, winging its way to you from snowy York, where we are house sitting for Linda’s sister and family who are soaking up the sun (temperature the other day 41°!!) whilst in South Africa! Also, Linda is looking after her niece’s two children whilst she mans the pet shop, with some help (or possibly hindrance) from me. Strange feeling being back “at work!”

Well, we’re back to France at the beginning of March, and hopefully to warmer weather. Not intending to return on holiday to the UK until the end of September, so as to be around when the garden needs us and to welcome any visitors who decide to call. The first visitors of the year have been and gone and thankfully stayed warm enough and not too wet as the winter in France has certainly been very very wet, with a couple of very cold spells.

Hope to see lots of you over the summer, to help eat the garden produce, particularly courgettes if we have another glut, otherwise it will have to be a calendar next Christmas!! Only the select few will understand the last part of that sentence, but visit us over the summer and all will be revealed – so to speak!!!! “Book” early to avoid disappointment!!

Love

Roger

La Loge
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

One Year On! ~ Missive 15

To be precise it’s actually nearer fourteen months since I hung up the chalk and rode off, with a string of onions around my neck, into the sunset! Surely, that’s the wrong way round taking onions to the French!! But, on 8th February 2009 we did set sail, “home” towed behind the car, very much into the unknown and actually with some French wine and stronger making a return journey!! There’s been a lot of water through the channel since then, and by amazing coincidence our latest trip back over this somewhat murky water was exactly a year on – to the day!!

Ici, la et partout!

Our area of the Vendée is absolutely fantastic for walking, in fact at the end of our drive is part of St Laurent’s 23 kilometre way marked route, crudely but effectively marked with small blue wooden arrows nailed to trees, fence posts or small pegs, or simply blue painted arrows on any suitable surface. Following the path, except perhaps in the height of summer when luxurious growth has obscured some of the way marks, is very straightforward and take a wrong turning and you are abruptly informed by a large blue X painted on tree, telegraph post or the like! The only real confusion might and does appear to be that in places the same colour blue paint is used, just down the road to mark the route of the Vendée branch of the Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim route that using several routes through France, converges to cross the Pyrenees en route to this famous Northern Spanish city. Known also at La Route St Jacques, referring to the scallop shell motif used to mark the route, at least in our neck of the woods blue wooden arrows with often very faded “St Jacque” scrawled on them seem to supersede the clearer yellow plastic discs containing a blue scallop shell, the fatter, hinged part of the shell pointing the way to go and ultimately to Santiago. Indeed, the confusing nature of the way marking was apparent when I was away and Linda was visited by a swarthy Spaniard asking if this was the way the Santiago! He was walking all the way, a distance of something like 1000+ km or 600 miles and after a long day walking had just spent over an hour walking around in circles and was back at St Laurent, a place he had left a good hour and a half before!! He was so tired that until Linda got the map and showed him, he didn’t believe that we lived in St Laurent and had wasted both time and energy whilst heading towards the next hot bath, meal and rest before setting off on the next stage the following day. Hopefully, by now that fateful day is forgotten and he has triumphantly reached his goal and returned to the day job!

My walking, largely due to some remaining twinges on the knees is limited to a maximum of about 20 kilometres or 12 miles, but as the muscles rebuild it’s getting easier, just a shame that Max who turns 100 in human years, as I write this, is getting too old to accompany me, but does still manage a daily walk around the big chateau lake, and occasionally further. For us both the glucosamine seems to be working well! Much of my walking has been from the house spreading out in a series of circular routes, a little reminiscent of the petals on a flower if drawn on the map, but just occasionally for a change I drive somewhere different, or get Linda to drop me off to extend my range a little. At the moment a favourite spot in a very large area of woodland, some in the process of being cut and replanted, some previously coppiced and much of it appearing to be a communal woodland for a nearby canton town and criss-crossed by not only numerous footpaths, but also rich in animal tracks and homes. Badgers are obviously common, although we have only seen one since we moved, unfortunately dead in the middle of the road, and on a happier note, on more than one occasion, I have been fortunate to encounter deer, a couple of which were kind enough recently to run across a misty sun-streaked woodland glade, just as the camera shutter clicked!! The hunters (see below) tell me there are sanglier, or wild boar, in “them there woods,” but I think fortunately I haven’t yet come across one of these large and potentially very dangerous beasts, other than as you heard in the last missive, from the relative safety of our speeding car – might have been less safe had we hit it, they’re big heavy creatures!!

Another area that I have yet to explore fully is a large area of National Forest, about 10 kilometres or 6 miles away. This area of deeply incised valleys is centred on a large branching reservoir formed by the damming of two rivers The Vendée and The Mère, and has a huge number of well way marked walks and rides just waiting to be explored – time, weather and hunting permitting, as during the season walkers, riders and hunters share the woodland!! A case again for wearing life saving brightly coloured cagoules and making lots of definitely human noise – to drive away any lurking wild animals to draw the hunters away with them, and to let the hunters know you’re not fair game!!

For each of the walks from home, I plot it roughly on the map I have had specially printed, which is centred on La Loge and bears the title Chez ‘Iggs in recognition of the lack of the letter H (hash) in French pronunciation! Then it’s off I go hoping on the way to see some interesting sights, during the summer find some wayside food and maybe meet people on the way. Invariably, if I manage to engage one of the locals in conversation, they want to know where I am going and how far. The distance is easier to respond to than the route, and I’m not sure if “après moi nez” would translate to following my nose, and if it does whether it means the same in French as in English! But as “le monde es moi huitre” (the world is my oyster!), hopefully they will understand when I say “Ici, la et partout” with a suitable Gallic wave of the arm – here there and everywhere!

Cattle Herding

In France the woman seem to stay at home getting the supper ready, cleaning the house, looking after the children and generally knowing their place, like in the good old days in England!!!! I tried hard to avoid that line but the fingers got carried away!! Mind you it’s great to think of what comments it might have stirred up amongst my readership, which after that might become a dwindling readership!! (I did think of censoring this! – Linda).

But, there are exceptions to this rule, the women are allowed to bring the midday meal out of the house to the hunting lodges that abound around us, sometimes staying to enjoy this with the menfolk or at least be around to clear up and take the debris away!!! (See below) They also come into their own when the cattle need herding, and I shall at this point have to tread very carefully!!

When the cattle are moved from one place to another it is a very noisy, fairly social and family affair. Everyone seems to be involved including the children, but it is only social to an extent, as there is a degree of segregation involved, the women leading the men following at the rear of the herd – again I exercise extreme caution here and read nothing into this. However, male and female alike take on a completely different persona and the “cattle train” (indeed resembling something from the Wild West!) can be heard from some distance as the cattle drivers take on the role of cowboys and cowgirls, yee hahing to the extent that you can’t help but feel that they have watched too many spaghetti westerns or simply don’t get out enough!! The only things missing are the horses, lassoes and ten gallon hats!! Quite a shock really to see the normally quiet and retiring farmers and their families hollering like wild banshees!!

But maybe there are other explanations; maybe the cows are deaf, the farmers are enjoying an excuse to throw reserve to the wind or they may simply be trying to impress their women, perhaps that’s why they are invited along – an ancient sort of mating ritual!?!

The hunt is Up!

Hunting, during the season, something like October to February, is a real passion in France, not you understand the red coated hoorah Henry’s who used to, and may once again should things go awry later in the year, take great delight in watching small furry creatures being hunted down by packs of hounds, which then rip them apart to the amusement of the onlookers. Without making this into a party political broadcast, surely sufficient in itself to make casting the right vote easier!!

No, hunting in France is largely a social occasion and whereas previously it has had a bad press, with the French accused of blasting anything that flew by, however small and / or endangered, out of the air, all in the name of sport. But, it seems now that instead of thousands of random pot shots, or indeed the open warfare of Britain’s grouse moors, a day of hunting can go past with only a few selective shots and the resulting “catch” being firmly destined for the pot of the ordinary country folk.

That said, it is certainly not any less passionate and it would appear practiced by many, if not most, self respecting country folk young and old who every Sunday and often other days during the season dress in their best hunting greens, take their carefully cleaned and maintained rifles down from the wall (one fleeting glance whilst driving through a nearby village at night showed a simple wooden gun rack, holding four gleaming rifles, none of which appeared to be locked to the rack although were high on the wall!!), and sling their highly polished huge brass hunting horns “powered” not by the hunter’s breath but by large black rubber “ball” like the horn of a vintage car. Then it’s to the meeting place, the local hunting lodge that seems to range from an old shipping container, through purpose build albeit sometimes fairly primitive wooden shelters, to more elaborate wooden chalets or in the case of our local lodge, a converted part of the stone build traditional large pantiled barns that proliferate in the area, complete with functioning hearth and chimney.

But as to what’s inside and indeed what goes on inside much will have to be speculation, although I have been practising some of the old traditional hunting songs that I heard in the folk clubs years ago, might just be useful for an invite into the hunting den!! Having met at the barn, anything up to a dozen vehicles, predominately the ubiquitous white van favoured by the locals or cars pulling small dog trailers, as the dogs outnumber the people quite considerably; Michel our local farmer alone has eight! On one memorable Sunday morning, I was grazing in our garden, probably cutting yet more courgettes (for information we did continue to harvest them well into November!!) when Michel arrived in his white van, opened the back doors to let his pack out, who in true hunting fashion scented the prey over the hedge and before I knew it the whole lot had surged through the open garden gate and I was surrounded by a swarming mass of braying hounds!! Fortunately, they had met me before and seemed to recognise me and were quickly called off by a surprised and not a little amused owner, who with a holler and a blast on his horn retrieved his hounds and wished me a friendly “Bonjour.” On another occasion, whilst out with my camera taking some shots of my own, I was able to complement him on his dogs and hunting outfit and finally managed to get the shot I had been hoping to get “Monsieur le grand chasseur avec les chien de la chasse!” (The big hunter with his hunting dogs) He was obviously delighted to be asked, as having been walking by my side he spun around to face me, shouldered his rifle and adopted a proud pose whilst calling his dogs to heel! The resulting shot for me epitomises the importance of hunting in France for the common man, a traditional activity that is taken very seriously.

Having let the dogs have a quick run around they are then returned to the vans and trailers whilst the hunters; repair to the lodge, stoke up the fire, discuss something in a typically loud animated manner that often used to make me think that a heated argument was taking place, rather than perhaps a discussion about the weather (although always a topic associated with the British, also the first topic of conversation with Vendéan farmers, or maybe they are just trying to make me feel at home!!) or maybe about the quality of the wine or other proofed liquid, that I am sure must be being imbibed during this time. Then out they pour, guns at the ready, dogs once more released and set off which much merriment into the hunting ground. Once there, they spread out making a tremendous noise with shouting, horns tooting loudly and with the dogs not wanting to be left out, yelping loudly and that’s before the prey is sighted when the volume goes up a notch and there may follow a shot or two, before after a short lull in the noise, the whole process starts again and continues until exactly 12 noon when it’s time to stop for lunch. Should anyone arrive late and during a lull in the noise, if a bit of hollering doesn’t work, modern technology comes in handy with a quick mobile phone call to say “Where are you!!” Hopefully, the recipient of the call isn’t at that moment silently stalking the next prey or the phone is on silent!

Lunch doesn’t consist of any prey that has been bagged, perhaps hedging their bets in case the hunter’s pockets are empty, but it is delivered by the women in a car ready cooked either in large lidded pots or tin foil encased metal trays. Everyone then disappears into the hunting lodge for the next couple of hours to eat, surely to drink as they seem to make regular trips to relieve themselves in the farmyard outside and have loud animated conversations, before returning to the hunt for the afternoon. This means that walking in the woods and park on hunt days is certainly not a good idea particularly in the afternoon and walking anywhere it is prudent to wear a brightly coloured coat and hat!!

Such is the popularity of hunting that recently I walked passed a hunter, complete with hunting clothes and dog, just as he was packing up for the day and struggling out of his wheelchair and into his car, then folding the chair and lifting that in behind him, before driving off back home for supper. Such true grit must have deserved a partridge or two for the pot and had to be admired. Disability certainly wasn’t going to get in the way of this gentleman’s hunting.

All this said, when on one particularly busy Sunday, I went for a careful walk erring on the cautious and sticking to the roads and wearing my red hat!! When I spotted a deer in a nearby field, well away from the action and heading away to relative safety, I couldn’t help but raise an imaginary cheer for the one that got away! However, I was tempted on another occasion when spotting three deer grazing peacefully whilst the hunters were off in the other direction to tip them off, in return for a haunch of venison – well the freezer was a little empty! But Linda wouldn’t let me so I had to make do with shooting them myself, with my camera of course!! I’ll just have to keep singing the songs and hoping for an invite into the hunting lodge, to sample the wine and maybe pass judgement on the venison casserole!!

“Clever Words”

• Martin Luther King: “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

• Chinese proverb: “A book is a garden carried in the pocket.”

• Outside Stroud Sainsbury’s back in 2008, I was stopped by an Irishman wanting directions to Minchinhampton. His opening line was “Sorry to take your time!”

• Graffiti that I saw scrawled on the outside of a wartime bunker between Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton: “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.”

• From the lyrics of the song Rosie, sung by Fairport Convention: “The more I learn, the less I seem to know!”

• She might only be small but she packs a mean statement! Dolly Parton: “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

My original “thought!”

To slightly pinch and tweak someone else’s quote: “I need a hat to get ahead!” One of my blog followers tells me that I’m her Terry Pratchett substitute, hence the need for a hat! She also tells me she likes to curl up with me and her cocoa, so I think I might have a fan, and possibly also need an electric fan to cool down! “Move over Terry Pratchett!!”

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max

(Off on that long journey to dear old blighty again. Staying with “Grandparents” whilst the folks help out with the pet shop in York – A quick plug: Acomb Pets and Aquatics, in believe it or not Acomb!! – Can’t help but feel that Roger’s better with dogs than spiders and snakes!! I’d love to be a fly on the wall, but on second thoughts don’t Bearded Dragons eat flies!!)
As I said before, these missives are only going to a select few!!, do please pass them on to anyone who might be interested, and similarly, if you would like to be deleted (I promise not to be offended!) or added to the mailing list let me know!!!

And maybe to come next time? “Sliding, slithering and other creepy crawlies! or Joining the Pet Shop Boys!” and “French Mysteries”