What is the lesson or insight …

Well, just a little over a year since we put a spade ‘ reluctantly’ into the field and felt the vibration of the baked hard soil shiver its way up my arm.

Number 1. Nothing that’s worth doing or perhaps you dream of, is going to be accomplished in an afternoon on your first day. Or even your second. In fact it’s been a year and there have been some false starts and failures.
Number 2. The false starts. We looked long and hard at poly tunnels and greenhouses and after looking at the priorities and all points west we bought a poly tunnel – hurrah. It was a terrible decision and its’ remains are now waiting for me to unscrew them – boo. It seems that while we were looking at all points west we should have been looking the other way and our research was to be brutal – crap.
Number 3. The Failures. This years Onions will not be a failure but it’s not looking good on the garlic front. Perhaps reading some of the extensive range of information available on growing these staples might have been better done earlier, ho hum.
Number 4. Not all that appears dead actually is. I’m also lumping into this one ‘ not everything that looks like a potato is a potato especially when you planted lots of different tomatoes’. It’s true that a lot of our plants look like dead sticks in the middle of winter even if you’re in the Gironde region. Spring and summer take time to work their magic and as we sit here now nearly all those sticks are doing nicely thankyou, and those that aren’t have been replaced, but wait for the fruits if you’re unsure about wether it really is a tomato in the tomato bead – dur!
Number 5. Do it right the first time. I and we and everybody should know this one by now. There is no point doing it badly. Last year we thought that a yew circle would be the very thing in the back of the garden and bought the plants – an excellent purchase that Deb found. Hoewever by the time we got round to planting it was blazing hot and the preparation was, how shall we say it – not perfect. Planting the once nearly killed me, planting them twice nearly killed us both.

Sometimes it’s easy to be negative about your achievements and it has to be said that I can be the glass half empty sort of chap, but it takes time to build a vegetable garden and even longer to do that and build another garden in which that will sit.
It takes a long time and life can come along and get in the way as well. Yes you can have a plan but perhaps you also have to listen to what the land is telling you and by doing that plans and ideas change for the better. Leaving room for those serendipitous occasions is always a good but remembering that plans can change rather than sticking to something that’s obviously wrong is the best policy for everyone.

‘Every now and again you can be forced to take strong measures. It was the case when Masters and I had our disagreement over the dogs and it could be much more the case when you consider some of the provocations that living a life can foist upon a body of any good temperament, such as my own.
Now, here’s the thing, don’t be tempted to jump straight to the fists and the delicate footwork it’ll all be waisted on the foolish anyway. Wait awhile. The irritation might go away of it’s own accord, I remember my schooldays and some bruisers and difficult temprements were there to be seen but after several years of waiting we all went our separate ways with no great harm done. True at least one joined the local constabulary which to my mind didn’t say much for there intake policies but in life bazaar and ridiculous things happen – let them pass you by.
It’s true that manya youngster finds the transition to a more stable platform a trial, and I would like to think of the lad doing the owl impression at two in the morning in the tree branches outside the house had found a more ‘constructive’ use of the talents of mimicary that were so evident, if a little misplaced.
The nicest of lads, even though a traveller in illicit substances, once offered his services to me in the strong measures department and I confess I was tempted, but no, I think on that occasion the measures might have been to strong for the patient.

Are you following the boats wake here? 
There’s manya a head been broken to no great account, and where a sore lip will only stop you playing the trumpet for a few weeks the broken head could well stop any potential for a harmonious tune in the future, best be sure of your thoughts on trumpet playing before any actions besides who’s to say your own guitar playing days might not be curtailed’.
I paused for a restorative pull on the ale. Do you know there were a few glazed over eyes about the table. Flynn at the bar stood with a stare and a rotating glass in one hand and cloth in the other as if lost in the thought of it. The Youngster sat with a glare into the depths of his pint and O’Shaunessy himself sat back with the brooding menace of one of those monoliths you can see up in the fields around these parts.
Now I’m not saying the quiet was deathly or even profound but the breaking of it did seem to be something of a trial. 
‘Aye’ says the monolith.
‘Well spoken indeed’ says he
‘Will you be passing the dominoes now?’
I passed the old box over to himself and he slid the top to the open 
‘We’ll be playing with six’s wild as is the case on a Tuesday’ 
‘It’s a fine game the doms, great for the easing of tensions’ says I
‘Aye, that and the pint is the he way of it’ says O’Shaunessy’
 Wise words I thought, play on.

Now it’s not for the want of the conversation that I found myself a prop at the bar. Indeed there were so many people in the house that I could have been a part of as many conversations as there are fingers and thumbs on these two hands of mine. As to why the hubbub at the house – its of no account, but I had to be away from it and when I saw a parting in the crush I grabbed my hat and made the escape out of the back kitchen door. A brisk walk in the clear air soon put me to rights and I entered ‘The Weary Plough’ with as near a smile on my face and a song in my heart as is possible to have – without actually having either you understand. ‘No man wants to be seen so loose as to be in such a mood as he enters the place, though when leaving such things can be condoned’ said O’Shaunessy to me some little time ago and I think he’s right. 

Better to look a little glum and in need of the pick-me-up than happy giving the assembly the appearance of mere wanteness when it comes to the ale, your fellows will appreciate your effort and be comfortable with your converse.

I’m just saying it as it is.

 ‘Now, that gardening is a wild and difficult sport’, I was holding forth to the assembly just the other night, there were nods as the beer was taken. ‘ I was watching the Spanish one on the box the other day and there he’ll be with the dogs for the collecting and the tools like you’ve not seen in your life and the gumboots and the protection of wool, on my mothers eyes it could set you to a gibbering wreck to do it. Five different forks he said and not including the one you’d eat with, it did fair turn me over with the multiplicity of it’. Sip, nods all around. ‘ it’s as if there were some fecund God of toolry out there creating all these bits and parts – I swear to God’. Sip more nods.’ saw a bloke yesterday going mad for the Orobanche alba’ pipes the youngster from the back of the crowd, ‘ I pick it out like a weed I says to him, can’t get rid of the stuff no matter how hard I try. He went almost white as I said it’. 

‘Aye the Spaniard don’t half ramble on from time to time, with his jewels of this and that. Saw him before waxing rhapsodic on the state of his Solanum lycopersicum, some nonsense he spoke’ pause, sip, nods.

 ‘Still it was a very fair looking jumper he had on’ said I and the room warmed to that and someone in the throng mentioned he was liking the return to the braces as a fashion statement, which gained a cool ascent and a general silence.

‘Every action has a reaction’ thus said some chap a while ago, or as O’Shaunessy put it to me the other night in the bar ‘you smack me in the chops I’ll take my fist to you’re ‘ed’.

Wise words from the both but I like my sayings earthy so it’s O’Shaunessy for me every time.
It was only the other day when the true meaning and consequence of such a thing came to me and that after a long day at the yard, but I could have been in the field or about any other buiseness the situation might have been the same.

Along comes a Masters, jaunty cap and well used jacket and says to me ‘what’ll you take for one of the dogs?’ Well as it happens we’ve recently been blessed with a litter from our Meg, the retriever, a very fine animal if ever you saw one and by Mullins champion dog no less.
‘They’re spoken for the lot of ’em’ I says, he comes up coy, ‘surely I can persuade you with some notes of the queens head’, a handsome package from that jacket appears but the litters for family and Mullins so there’s no debate to be had and I tells him. On hearing the news he cuts up nasty, and this is the thing:
‘And if I reported you for that piece of work the other day?’ Says he
‘And if I reported to the widow where her prize duck ended? Says I
‘And what about that salmon at the pub?’ comes back at me
‘There’d be a question over the bacon standard’ I fire back
We’re red in the face now and the bloods a stirred:
‘Let’s talk of yer brothers habits’ says the weasel
‘We’ll talk of you’re Uncle first and you’re nephew the organist’ I’d hit the nerve and the fists were out.
And that’s why I’m hear with this bruising around the eyes and the cracked nose and Masters is doing trade with Flint the dentist with the bandage around the ear.
It’s a funny thing that action and reaction, and that’s what I was saying to O’Shannessy, how a pup ends up with a trip to the dentist or a saw face, ‘there must be a better way’ I said
‘Laissez le mot en colère répondre seulement par un baise’ says he as the puts down the pint.
‘Tricky’ I said looking ascance at the fire in the grate.

We saw two hares boxing today

And Cedric scared one up the day before which ran off, the coal black tips of the ears the most noticeable point.

I love hares.  I’ve seen them too often hanging lifeless from a hunters’ sac.  A terrible shame but part of the culture here and destined to be gutted and ‘jugged ‘ in the local manner.

But hares, man!  Mystical creatures.  Listen to this from Valentine Warner

Apparently they are the same family as rabbits, but not the same species.   In my view they are a million million miles from rabbits.   Creatures of the dusk and dawn.  Crepusular.  Mystical. Beautiful 

When we decided to get married (a mere 16 weeks after we first met), we had a brief discussion about where (England or France) and agreed that if it were possible then we would much prefer that it took place in France.

So we pootled off to see Laurence down at the Mairie, just to see if it was possible to get married in the village.  ‘Bien sur’ she said “when do you want to do it?’

I leapt into the breach and suggested (gulp) ‘Juillet?’.

‘Bien sur’ she said again ‘when, in July?’.

‘Is it possible to do it on a Saturday?’, I asked, wondering if she might say ‘non’ or ‘arrete’!’.

But – ‘Bien sur’ again – which Saturday?

The 26th appears to be the latest Saturday available in July so let’s go for that.

“Bien sur”. And it is written in ink into the diary.

We returned home with a list of documents and evidence that we would need to provide in the coming months, and retreated to our own solitary places in the house to contemplate what we had done.   If there had been cartoons drawn of us, the caption above our heads would have read ‘WTF??’.

And on we went.   Told everyone that was the weekend we were plannin’ on marryin’ and asked them to book local chambres d’hôtes.

I booked in my bridesmaids – best friend Andrew and his best mate David.    You will hear more about them.

Ok then – we’re off.    Now to assemble ‘le dossier’.

When you finally get married, the official Napoleonic code requires that the first words uttered by M le Maire at the ceremony are ‘we have assembled all the necessary documents…’.  Not veryromantic but entirely reflective of the hours and sodding hours you have spent on the undertaking, for both of you you need proof of residence, existence, birth, heritage, children, parentage plus similar for your witnesses.   I was eventually reduced to tears by the EDF English speaking line.  EDF is France’s main bureaucratic means of proving you exist, so the jobsworths on the line wield their power like Nazis.   Expect no mercy or understanding.  In the end I took my pre wedding hysterical face off to Laurence at the Mairie who kindly rang them herself and sorted out what we needed.

So, the great day approaches.  Naturally the dress I had ordered off the internet was a totally disastrous non fitting monstrosity, so I had two weeks to order a new one which arrived in the uk when I was in France and then despite best efforts of saintly Ruth in Angleterre did not get delivered to France,  resulting in a hysterical phone message being left (ok, by me) at La Poste regarding mon robe de mariage.   I had to wear my third best dress, from Debenhams.   It looked ok I suppose but not what I wanted.  Girls – get your act together on the dress – it’s important.

The actual wedding was performed by M le Maire, Jean-Claude and assisted by Laurence.  We also had the Chief Bridesmaid, Andrew, translating it all, including an unscripted speech by Jean Claude saying how welcome we were – truly wonderful

After it was all over, we went back to our house for a glass of champagne before our wedding lunch.   

It was the start of a perfect day.