Jen Black's Blog, page 49

Discoveries

Thursday 13thJulyTuesday we finally made that trip into Vergt, primarily to make an appointment with the vet for Tim’s exit examination. It has to be within 72 hours of getting back to England, so we prefer to book ahead rather than risk the vert being out on a house call or something other animal emergency. Though I suppose if it were an emergency, he’d still go and we’d have to wait!)

We walked around, discovered there’s a circus in town and spent a good half hour over a drink in the café in the square.  It is decorated and there is a large banner proclaiming Fete du gras et truffe (if I have correctly remembered the French!)
When we set off for home, we took a new route through Fouleix, and discovered a huge hole in the ground being dug. As big as an Olympic swimming pool, if not bigger. It is the same shape as the “irrigation ponds” we see in the fields, but a whole lot bigger. It deserved to be called a reservoir and it seemed as if the men of the commune were doing it themselves. The odd thing is the position of it – not in a valley as you might expect, but on the top of a hill. The region is famous for the strawberry, and over the years we have been coming, the strawberry fields have expanded enormously. Perhaps their demand for water has necessitated the construction of the new water reservoir. It’s a theory, but I can’t substantiate it!

Bones in the field

Wednesday 12th July No editing for a couple of days. Not a deliberate decision, but it just did not happen. Other things have got in the way, that’s all. On Sunday we noticed that Tim kept disappearing into the hedge that borders the field side of the mill stream at every opportunity, and when I say disappeared, I really mean it. The “hedge” is taller than me and who knows how wide? To follow the small tunnels made by foxes and the like, I’d need a machete to slash through the bramble spikes and thorn bushes, and a plastic suit to prevent the poison ivy stings. Then there’s the stream in the middle – how deep? Deeper than wellies? Or just mud and sludge where the reeds have taken over?
A day or two before this I walked Tim around the wilderness corner of the garden near the bonfire. It is the other side of the hedge I have just described, and because two streams meet there it is often too wet and muddy to risk bogging the tractor down when the rest of the grass gets cut. So he stood there in the long grass like a pointer, staring into the far corner where the streams meet. Then he barked. Long and hard. He wouldn’t go near, so being me, discretion took over and we retreated.
So to Monday afternoon and our walk around the lake. Coming back to the house, Tim suddenly races off and does a right turn into the farmer’s field which is greening up nicely after the hay has been cut. Races alongside the hedge and then turns sharp left and out into the middle of the field,  flops down and all I can see is his head and the line of his back. I whistled. I called, he ignored me. Was he hurt, injured? Had a snake bitten him? (There are snakes. Tim disturbed one in a ditch once and it lashed out and bit Bill in the calf, but with no dire results.) Thinking an adder might have bitten him, or he’d broken his leg in a mouse hole, I set off across the field in my wellies.
Two hundred yards later, when I was within ten yards of him, he looked up, a bone dangling from his jaws. Then he leapt up and danced away from me, flopped down again. I followed him. Same thing repeated. Again and again, he ran ten yards and went back to eating. 
Furious calls of "Tim!" brought Bill, who approached from the other side but with the same result. What looked like the leg of a bird – duck, chicken, heron? – had evidently been killed, possibly inside the hedge and now foxes were carrying the bones onto the field to eat them. Tim was scooping up the still bloody left overs. We couldn’t catch him, and there's nothing more annoying than a normally obedient dog who comes when you call than a dog who wilfully disobeys you; we got so annoyed and frustrated we abandoned him and went back to the house. Within two minutes of our disappearing from view, I heard the tinkle tinkle of his name tags as he raced back across the field towards home.

We kept him on the lead for the rest of the day, because he has figured out that he can escape from the enclosed garden by going up the steps, along the garden strip above the pool and down and out through the gap at the other end. Then he’s free to explore all of France if he fancies it.

Strange creatures

Saturday 8th July Quite busy editing – a good chunk done, and an emotional one, not easy to do in case the whole thing is ruined. But I think it is tighter now and better for it. I’ve deleted upwards of 40k words, so if I feel the story needs a little more exposition or internal dialogue, I add that. We’re hovering at 103k words now for the whole thing, which is about where I want to be.
It’s been a cloudy morning, and I walked Tim on the road, on a lead, up the hill towards Monsieur Lambert’s farm. The farmers have suddenly sprung into life around us and they’re nipping about with small tractors spiking a couple of hay bales from the field and chugging off down the road with  the bales held before them. When the sun is out and its over 34 degrees, the whole valley is silent and still.

I’ve been curious about something that wanders about the area. Animal, since it moves. Strong enough to dig a hole about the size of a tin of Heinz baked beans in the hay field and then crap in it. Perfect aim. Dark coloured, with lots of cherry stones. I recognise deer poo when I see it, but deer don’t dig holes and anyway it’s a different shape and consistency. I found another hole, near the little stone bridge, as I walked up to the farm this morning, Fresher, with no cherry stones. 
So I came home and googled for info, not really expecting anything to come up in answer to “animal that digs holes to defecate” but right away the answer came back: a badger. I’m relieved. I had been worried it might be wild boar and I didn’t want Tim (or me) to suddenly come face to face with one of them. Surrounded as we are by miles of woodland, they are bound to be nearby, but I’ve never seen one. The hunters go out after them in the autumn/winter season. There are tales galore about more hunters being wounded by gunshot than boar being killed, but I don’t know how true they are.

Ants and prize money

Wednesday 5th July
You should never complain about the weather. Today was uncomfortably hot and tomorrow promises to be the same. 35 degrees is forecast. I don’t know why, but we don’t stand the heat as well as we used to. Perhaps being down here in the valley, where we rarely get a breeze, has something to do with it. On the coast or the hills there’s usually a wind, but not here. Tim lolls about like the proverbial loppy dog. (Not that he is loppy, naturally.)
Last evening we came indoors because there was a plague of flying ants dive bombing the pool and surrounding area. Today watching Wimbledon, what do I see but flying ants? Sam Smith commented that when the queen leaves the nest they all go walkabout, but I don’t know how true that is. Is it possible they’re all in tune with one another? They’re here on Monday evening but by Wednesday those that didn't drown in our pool are causing havoc at Wimbledon.

So happy to see Rafa through to the third round, but not pleased with these people – 8 of them – who went into their matches knowing they carried an injury and would not complete the match. Klizan has had the same injury for 2 months, and one woman played while four and a half months pregnant. She didn’t tell anyone until the match was over. They must be doing it to get the £35,000 prize money, which they may very well need, but the people who have queued for hours and paid for their ticket are being cheated. Centre Court hosted two of the biggest names, Djokovic and Federer, and both of them faced players who quit early. How can they deserve the prize money?

Wildlife

Monday 3rd July
At last, a day with no rain. Just as well, since Bill ran out of socks this morning and I had no more clean tee shirts. So I hung out a wash load and kept my fingers crossed. All was well. The skies may have been grey, but it was warm and there was a breeze which sweeps through just where the washing line is strung between the house and the tree. Things dried easily enough so we can dress decently once more.  As an aside, the insecticide I bought and did not know what to do with worked wonders when I sprayed the washing line with it. Ants, nimble as acrobats, marched along from the tree to the house and then up the vertical wall and into the roof. What they do in there is anybody's guess, but then they march down again and cross the washing line - all thirty feet of it - back to the tree. I didn't like the idea of my washing having ants all over it. Within hours the march of the ants stopped. One or two still go up the wall, but they go by a different route now.
The drive is now cleared back by a couple of yards. It looks better, and the only downside is the size of the bonfire by the stream where all the cleared out shrubbery is rotting down.
The Tour de France is going by not too far away on the 11th, but I don’t think we’ll be there in support. We did wait for ages one year and in less than a minute the riders had gone by and disappeared. Like many sports, a better view is obtained by watching on television. Wimbledon begins tomorrow. I may go into Vergt tomorrow with Bill. While he does a grocery shop, I shall walk Tim around the town. It is bigger than I first thought, and full of interesting buildings and odd little sidestreets.

http://www.vergt-perigord.fr/fr/information/64908/etymologie-vergtThere is some history of the town on this website, and it will test your knowledge of French!

Dark clouds

Those dark clouds have been sailing up and down the valley constantly for the past few days but luckily we've had no more crashes of thunder. We are all going stir crazy because every time we nip outside in a sunny intervals, down comes the rain again! The fields are soggy in places, the stream is roaring through and the calves that are being born in the next field are getting a damp start in life. There is at least one fledgling bird scuttling about the hedgerow – out of its nest somehow, maybe in the strong gusts of wind that thrash the trees about just before the rain comes.

I’ve been thinking about Lee Child’s advice with the book I’m editing in mind. Happily there are questions – of course the biggest question of all is will Finlay win the crown of Alba? But there are smaller questions littered throughout on more personal questions of love and loyalty. 

As I'm writing a faint ray of sunshine has found me through the window. Immediately my spirits lift. The birds are singing outside and it strikes me that they've been silent for a while. Bill is off to do some work. Tim is determined to go with him. 

Thunderstorms

More cloudy days. Today (28th June) the rain and sunshine alternate. The dark clouds that went west down the valley yesterday are now travelling east again and we’ve just had some crashes of thunder. Luckily Bill did a hedge-hacking stint early this morning and I did one after lunch. So the work progresses in spite of the weather.
No sign of the farmers today. But Bill did find the tomato plant – with one single tomato - that our friend planted in the garden way back in March! I took a photo of it. Unfortunately we have no idea what a courgette plant looks like, so we haven’t found it yet.

I got three chapters edited this morning. Sometimes I wonder if they are too short, but hey – what is the optimum length for a chapter? I think it all depends on the content and when the moment comes to pose the question so the reader wonders what happens next. 
Lee Child has an interesting note at the end of Night School on How to Create Suspense. My copy doesn’t have it, but the copy here does. He thinks it’s a misleading question, as if one were to bake a cake and success depends on the best ingredients. Authors then set about creating interesting characters with dangers and peril etc whereas he thinks the author should try and make the reader hungry and then make them wait hours for dinner. ie Novelists should ask a question at the beginning of the story and then not answer it. Page to page, line to line, imply a question and then answer it later. That way, people get to the end of the book because they want to know the answer.

Changes

More cloudy days. Yesterday (27th June) we did what I call the monastery circuit. We walked up the hill to the Gite Rural, along the top road towards the monastery and then down the hill to meet the road to Laurent de Batons. We met two other dog walkers, one Dutch, one English and Tom whizzed by in his van. By the time we walked along the bottom road it was ten past nine and starting to get really warm. Tim has been quiet all day after that walk but it totalled on 7,200 steps on my pedometer.
Early evening the thunder storm began just as we were sitting down on the bolly to eat our lapincasserôle. Tim was frightened, but then became so interested in the rabbit stew that he ignored the thunder crashes. Later still the rain started, but it wasn’t the full on rainstorm we’ve seen here in other years.
 I’ve intended to try cooking rabbit for a ong, and finally did so. I followed a recipe in the Slow Cooker recipe book and marinated the meat in fruity red wine. It turned purple in colour and looked truly revolting, but frying it improved the colour to a dark brown – nothing like the photo in the recipe book! How they got it to be golden brown after a red wine marinade, I have no idea. After four hours in the slow cooker on the bolly it smelled delicious. We found it very tasty. Not unlike a meaty chicken, but not as dry.

Farmers were rushing about collecting hay bales while the thunder crashed. It has rained through the night and today the pool is rather full and the fields are greening up almost as we watch. I doubt we’ll go far today, but I should get lots of editing done.

Exploring

We had a cloudy day yesterday (25th June). The temperature dropped to a mere 28. Inside the mill, it dropped to 24.5 which was really comfortable. So we did some work – sweeping, dusting, tidying up for me and working on the hedge for Bill.
The water in the pool was still silky warm, but today it felt a good deal cooler. Refreshing and still a lovely treat. I took Tim across the stream this morning and had a plod around the field where the farmer was bashing the hedge to bits. He has been back and baled his hay, so I felt he wouldn’t mind. We don’t trample around hay fields, but wait until they’re cut and baled. I Googled  laws of trespass in France last year and couldn't find any. As long as we don’t do damage, it seems we can wander. On the practical side, I would never wander where there is livestock, because the local cattle are big beasts and don’t look friendly.

Sad to say, the newly cut field beyond the stream was uninteresting. Tim loved it, lots of new smells to explore. It proved to be almost two fields in the shape of a letter B. Imagine the I is the stream, and the bottom curve is the partly open segment from which the sparse road traffic can be seen whizzing along. The hidden segment must have been wonderful for the local deer and foxes – a perfect hideaway surrounded by trees. It will be again when the grasses grow. Although it has not rained for days, the stream is higher than it was, a good inch or two higher. I suppose the water must come up via springs. The springs in the field beside the house have never stopped running no matter how hot it was.

Lalinde

After my sad attempt at shopping in French supermarkets we decided to return home via Lalinde, which is a lovely little town on the Dordogne. It was 39 degrees at 11am and the heat hit us when we got out of the car. It was market day and the main car park was full of market stalls selling everything from strawberries to vintage dresses, but we found a spot by the lake.
We soon discovered the streets were too full of people and dogs to walk comfortably through with Tim, so we dived down a side-street. We stayed in the shade where we could as we made our way down to the pharmacie on the corner of the main square. DH and Tim stayed in the shade while I bought my Insect Ecran Familles. I asked for what I wanted in a mixture of French and charades, but the girl understood me! The Marie Rose cream they did not stock.
Across the road from pharmaciewas the boulanger so I rushed in and bought some bread for lunch. Once I found Tim and DH again, lurking in the shade, we decided that the peace and quiet of home was very appealing. We drove to St Foy with the road to ourselves, and then on to St Felix and only met one other vehicle – naturally, in the most narrow part of the road.
Swimming this afternoon was amazing. The water was almost warm so I slid in without my usual hovering on the steps while I nerve myself for the cold shock of hitting the water. Delightful experience. How wonderful to have a pool of one’s own, even if it is for only a few weeks of the year.
As we cooked our beef burgers on the barbie (before you scoff, let me say that French burgers are so much better than the usual English fare. Here, they are made of beef and nothing else), we heard a tractor and a dreadful crashing noise. Sounded as if the tractor was in the field at the back the house, and when we looked across the lower patio, it almost was. The tractor was cruising the far side of the stream and bashing down the undergrowth, so now there is a view across into the fields beyond the stream. Since the stream itself is barely an inch deep though still running fast and clear, I could be tempted to get my wellies and explore next time Tim and I walk around the lake.
Our early morning walk was concluding about half six or so when we stepped onto the road between the fields and stopped in amazement. A deer bounded into view only ten or twelve yards away. Fortunately I had Tim on the lead just in case some white van drove along (they all drive like maniacs here). So we stood absolutely still, even Tim, and the deer stared back at us for a few seconds and then trotted off and bounded back into the woodland. I think it was a small Munckjack (?) certainly not a roe or red deer, but a lovely thing to see.