… couple of hours on the laptop I went off to Rosemary’s for the afternoon.
On the way there thought I had a couple of interesting encounters, firstly with the German guy – Heidi’s husband or partner or something – who lives over the back here, and then with Francois Carriat who lives at Barrot.
Francois was full of energy as usual – “on your way back, drop in. I could do with a hand”.
On my way around to Rosemary’s, I came across this memorial. I can’t think why I hadn’t noticed it before, because I’ve been up and down this road quite a bit.
Many people criticise what the perceive as the lack of resilience of the French population to the Germans in World War II.
Leaving aside the question that I don’t recall the British civilians of the Channel Island doing too much to resist the German occupying forces – even down to the extent of sitting on their hands in starvation conditions for 9 months after the war had passed them by, the real fact is that there was quite a considerable amount of French resistance!
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the numerous plaques that we have seen scattered around the countryside honouring people who were fusilés – shot – or decapité – decapitated – by the Germans, and we’ve seen the cemeteries at Ixelles and Evere in Belgium.
I wonder how these critics would cope if they were running the risk of being shot or decapitated every day.
Round at Rosemary’s we made some space in her barn, put my door in there and loaded up Caliburn with the rubbish, as well as a few bits and pieces that she knew that I would like.
Then we had a coffee and a chat to put the world to rights as we usually do.
I brought the rubbish back here because I have some stuff here that needs throwing away …{thud] …[thud] and I can heave that into the back of Caliburn and make just one trip down to the dechetterie at Pionsat.
Francois certainly did need a hand too. He’s had a rotavator in his small field and turned it into some kind of market garden, and a friend offered him “some” tomato plants. This “some” turned out to be about 150 and they were about 10 inches high with flowers on them.
Anyway, to cut a long story short …”hooray” – ed … Francois did the planting and I followed on behind with the watering cans and we managed to plant most of them before it went dark.
For my trouble Francois gave me a dozen for which I am grateful, and also a chili plant.
Not only that, he fed and watered me too, and we had a good chat about all kinds of things. Including the fact that tomorrow there are four groups of musicians who will be roaming the Streets of Saint Gervais d’Auvergne playing in all of the bars.
Now that sounds like a fun evening and so I might just as well go out and see what’s going on.
