French Miscellany

Sense of Timing

An English farmer will plough, sow or harvest when he’s good and ready. He won’t be able to predict precisely when as so much depends on climatic conditions, good fortune and such imponderables as the appearance of the crop and the football or cricket fixture lists. The same fairly offhand approach to forward planning applies to the movements of his animals.

French farmers on the other hand seem to work to a precise calendar. Our local village farmer can tell you the exact date next spring that he will move his Charolais herd to pasture in the field next to our house (probably the Tuesday after Easter, but I haven’t yet asked). The vineyard owner where we buy our Fleurie was no less emphatic when consulted about this year’s grape harvest. It will commence on the 20th September. Not a day sooner. Not a day later.


Hello and Goodbye to Friends and Family

Sipping an afternoon beer on a cafe terrace in a small French town, we watch two school buses draw up and the first lets out a handful of children, their studies over for the day. Boys in the second bus pull faces at those who have disembarked in the manner of children the world over. The children scamper off in different directions while, for a brief moment, two boys aged around seven years stand and talk. Then, very formally, they shake hands before going their various ways.

There seems to be an increase in the numbers of kisses French men and women exchange with family, friends and work colleagues. On this trip we have spotted many examples of “quad” kissing – two on each cheek – and, once or twice, “sextuples” which become a little tedious. I must remember this next time I visit Le Saladin restaurant in Le Touquet where the Madame expects her customers (even English) to greet her formally – something the daughter’s boyfriend seems to do with alacrity, even if he won’t openly extend such formal greetings to the daughter, her mother or (thank heavens) her father.

Accidental Sheep

My first ever blog (Moths, Rust and Thieves) drew attention to the arrival of the two “accidental” lambs in our meadow. Very cheerful and both born black to a fairly dirty white ewe, these little August numbers hardly conform to the natural timetable of the Spring lambing season. Now yet another August lamb (this one white) has arrived in the field and the three youngsters happily graze away with their mothers who are safely apart from their ram.

Other recent “Nature Notes” report one dead goldfish, and a nocturnal near-miss when the daughter had to react quickly to prevent the car slamming into a large snowy owl who had underestimated our speed last night as he swooped into the road ahead of us.