Dead squirrels

It looked like rain this morning, so John got out again to try to clear the brambles down the road-side of our hedge. We've had the house 7 years and never yet cleared the pathway down there, so it's no wonder that there's a mess. The picture here is what it used to look like when Steve & Ruby first bought the house. We had the equivalent of the Irish navvies who are 'just in the area' offering not to tarmac the drive (we used that when we lived in south London, and it lasted for a couple of years before beginning to break up, so not bad really). No, in France they offer to chop down trees.

Now, if you've seen our house, there are trees up on the cliff behind us, but they paled at the thought of clearing those - which is a shame because they are so large now they shade the garden until the sun moves round to the east. But there had been about half a dozen saplings self plant in front of the hedge which they got rid of for us, so we could get at all the blackberry and cotoneaster.

Anyway, John went out this morning to continue hacking through the jungle, and found a dead red squirrel in the hedge. Such a shame. Don't know whether it was killed by a car, or just ran out of breath, but it looked so cute. Yes, we have red squirrels here. See if you can find one in the picture above. There is one, I promise! Why they have been overrun by the grey squirrels just 100 miles north, but not here I don't know. You'd have thought they had made their way across La Manche on boats or through the tunnel by now.

Time for me to start work - yet more washing, ironing, gardening - oh, what a hard life we lead!!

Aurelien's Wedding

Where do they get all the jambons from?

They love their festivals here in France, or any other reason for a get together - but where do they get all the jambons from? Back in June we had the 'mechoui' at a local farm. According to the dictionary, it is 'North Africal style barbecue, lamb roast or spit roast' and about 100+ of us ate a set meal (including copious amounts of wine, of course) in an open barn on the farm. There was also a tombola, 1st prize a 5.6kg smoked ham - and we won it! Then there was another for the orange tickets, and another for the red tickets. . .

The same happened last Sunday - Le Bourg Dun has a Repas Champetre, a rustic meal under tents on the green just behind the bar. It was here last year that I realised I really DIDN'T like andouillettes. It's a barbecue - sausage frites, ham frites, frites frites - and again they had a tombola, with jambon as first prize for the yellow tickets, another for the organge tickets, another for the blue! They just seemed to keep coming out of the refrigerated van - I wonder if the inside of the van was like the Tardis?

Anyway, a good time was had by all, and John and I returned to watch the grand prix (actually, doze through most of it - wine at lunchtime is a killer), decide not to do any work in the garden and basically laze the Sunday away.

Until, that is, I had the absolutely brilliant idea to go for a walk. There is a little path that runs from the back of the Mesnil campsite (where Carole & Martial have their restaurant) down to the sea, and we've been meaning to walk it for years now. So we did it. Very pleasant little constitutional of about 1/2 mile walk each way that took us about 30 mins and we felt very pleased with ourselves for the exercise, until that is we were watching the European Championship Athletics later that evening, in particular the women's 1500m (about 1 mile) which they did in 4 minutes! Still, they didn't stop to pick pea pods, or talk to the cows en route. Why is it that the flies absolutely adore cows? These were Cherolets, the big white cows raised for their meat and very prevalent around here. But on each one you could see the massive black stripe down (I suppose) their warmer stomach, which was the flies. It's understandable that we should get an influx of flies each night when the cows come back to the farm opposite.

Ah well, that's enough blue sky thinking for now.