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Hello,
The village was relieved of a big crisis just over a week ago when the Mayor, M. de Hauteclocq, announced that the water was drinkable again.
The announcement came in the form of a closely typed note about the rules and regulations for these things. But to make the point and to simplify it all M. de Hauteclocq, or one of the functionaries in his Mairie, had hand written the words 鈥淟鈥檈au est potable!鈥 in pen in the top corner (which was something my schoolteachers had always told me was simply not ever the case in France and I have believed them without question, even though it was nearly forty years ago and things have changed a lot since then).
In any event it meant that the crisis of the faecal matter in the Planquette at Wambercourt was now behind us and that the daily deliveries of four litres of bottled spring water from the Auvergne was no longer needed (though industrial quantities of chlorine were).
The Planquette is the next valley over from here and apparently the water for the house comes from there, even though another river (the Crequoise) flows past the front door. But it is just as well that we do not take water from it since - the presence of faecal matter aside - it has been reduced to a sluggish trickle by the drought and the kayaks will not come out this year.
The end of that crisis meant that the canicule 鈥 a word of uniquely Gallic etymology which - could be occupied by other dramas and the biggest has been that of the cows. And bulls.
The house is bordered on three sides by a medium sized pasture and on the fourth by the river 鈥 or sluggish trickle - and the valley road. The pasture is about five acres and not really big enough for the four dozen or so Charolais that have been there for July and August (though the farmer who raises them for beef has been rotating them about his other pastures, not all of which are at quite the angle to the horizontal that the one behind the house is - it being on a valley side and all that).
There are four generations of Charolais, three of them in the pasture. And if you think about it, living beef cattle post-BSE comes in only three generations; baby calf, veal calf and nursing mother/rutting father. The fourth generation is pot au feu or the basics for a tournedos Rossini or a barbecue and it is felt to be unkind to mention that in these precincts, though that has happened, and it is hard not to wonder what a hundred pounds of tumbling, gambolling, big-eared, grass-chewing chops makes of the charcoal reddening on the bricks on the other side of the fence, a distant relative neatly sliced on a plate alongside. Or indeed whether it makes anything of it at all.
Cows and bulls are not stupid, but they are not very clever either and two things mainly motivate them. Eating grass and doing things together. Usually these are in harmony and they eat grass together, but sometimes they come into conflict and a young bull on his way to do something together will spot a particularly munchy knot of grass and in the act of stopping to scoff it will forget completely what he was about to do - and anyway, all the others will have changed their mind by now and be stampeding pointlessly left instead of pointlessly right.
Perhaps it is to do with the slight overcrowding or perhaps Charolais are like this anyway, but their behaviour has much in common with that of British humans under 30 on holiday (or what British humans under 30 on holiday are reported to be like). They wander around rather pointlessly, posturing (bulls) and roaring bovine obscenities at each other and strangers (cows) and are surrounded by all that their limited appetites can comprehend (grass) and are 鈥 and not many people know this 鈥 drunk all the time because of the fermentation of the grass in the fourth of their stomachs.
Perhaps because of that (or perhaps it is because they are like this anyway) no bull is capable of passing a cow without trying to mount it. Though because the pasture is on the side of the valley, it almost always ends in a clumsy downhill wheelbarrow race and a grunt of frustration. So in the end, it is like Faliraki but without knives.
The most exciting thing to happen was the accidental introduction of three black and white Friesians. Charolais 鈥 or at least those in the pasture behind the house 鈥 are uniformly white, muscular and have a bit of a boneheaded look to them. The Friesians 鈥 as well as being mostly black with small patches of white 鈥 are more delicate and artistic.
The Charolais鈥 first response was to bellow at them (cows) and to try to mount them (bulls 鈥 but see above). The second was to chase them into a corner and generally push them around and then try to mount them. One or two of the very small calves charged at them while their mothers bellowed and their fathers clambered onto their backs.
The cows crowded around each of the Friesians, which was good news for the bulls who could circulate around the outside of the onlooker from rear-end to rear-end, listlessly sniffing and bovinely groping whosoever. Though every once in a while one of them would see a nice bit of grass and lose interest in the whole sex thing for a while.
But the Friesians are gone now and so is the heat wave. Apparently we have been in a stream of air from the tropics, which is why it has been so hot - but is also why it is now so wet.
There are two very good things about being on holiday. One is to be able to listen to Radio 4 from six in the morning to midnight. The other is not having to worry about presenters; has Jim got a clean hankie? Did someone buy the 鈥楩airy Liquid鈥 for Sarah? New Hoover bags for Carolyn? Who鈥檚 got John鈥檚 bail money? And has Mowbrays delivered the saintly Ed鈥檚 myrrh?
Ed鈥檚 efforts on the Alp Horn will go down in history though. , but skipped out the tragedy bit and moved straight on to farce.
Fortunately, our listeners are not ignorant of Today鈥檚 history and one reminded us that we had had an Alp Horn on before and it had gone at least as well then as it did this week.
penned the next chapter in our African fruit novel.
But, most importantly of all, we marked (partly) what I confidently predict will turn out to be the most important day of the modern era. Do not ask why at this juncture, but just mark Wednesday 11 August 2004 in your diaries. And remember that you read it here first that the three big things that will shape your foreseeable future were set out on that day.
Friday, it is Spain and the fairs of the weekend of the Assumption, out of reach of Today even on Long Wave.
. Heretical? Read your emails.
in our studio, after a warrant is issued for his arrest.
. The latest in Nick Danziger's Anglo-French relationship series.
By Kevin Marsh (on holiday).
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