Yes, I wasn’t feeling anything like it today. But then again thats what usually happens so I have to make the most of it.
I started again on cutting the wood but not as quickly as yesterday. And I was interrupted for an hour or so by Claude who came round to visit, with two important pieces of news.
Firstly Beethoven has died. And that’s devastating news. He was an Old English Sheepdog and had reached the age of 16 with all his faculties more-or-less intact although he did have to burrow under the fence to escape after the young lady dogs of the area rather than leap over it as he used to in his youth. He had bags of character and was the only dog I ever took to. However this last few weeks he had developed an ulcer on his nether regions that turned out to be a cancer. The vet had given him antibiotics but it seemed that they failed to work.
The second piece of news is much more exciting. Claude hasn’t sold all his land here – he’s still kept the plot down in the forest with the ruined barn. And he tells me that yesterday when he was up here doing something or other at his old property he heard a chainsaw in the forest. So off he wandered – and caught the Parisian in flagrante delicto cutting down one of Claude’s trees. And who should be strolling down the lane right at that moment but one of the mayor’s assistants. Claude and the Parisian hate each other with a passion that goes off the Richter Scale – and I have to say that I find the Parisian gratuitously disagreeable, and catching him red-handed with an impeccable witness in attendance is an answer to Claude’s dreams. From here on in, the matter is sub judice, as you might say.
I went round to see my new neighbours as well to bid them welcome and to offer them a bottle of wine as a housewarming present.There’s no harm whatever in laying the good foundations of friendship. They are Dutch and have moved here permanently so I told them about the Anglo-French group and the activities of the Reseau Rural – even though I don’t get on with the organisers of the Reseau as regular readers will know, I still support the aims of the organisation and give it all the encouragement I can.
In other news, the first buds are coming out on the trees.
