Life round here is never dull (life in Worcester was generally dull), but the last few days have been rather too exciting.
On Thursday we became the proud owners of a trailer - essential for all those trips to the dumpwhen you are taking down someone's leylandii hedge.
On Friday we narrowly missed being serenaded by a Brazilian blues guitarist at our local pub.
On Saturday, we did our usual marathon stint as volunteers at the village "journee champetre" - the local version of the village fete except it starts at 2pm with a petanque competition that gets very serious as the day goes on and beer gets drunk. Of course to get to that stage, the local chaps have been working since 6:30am collecting pig carcases and setting up marquees. From 1pm, people drift past the pig roasting area to check that the spits are turning, that the pigs are good quality and that they have enough garlic, herbs and harissa lathered all over them. Usually at 7pm people startto turn up in search of kir and gossip - this year the rain started at 5:30pm and didn't give up until about 7:30pm, at which point people started to arrive. There is then food, and once people are too full to object, the local brass band (the Cadets de Baugois - once heard, never forgotten - take that as you will) and drum majorettes put on their annual show. Finally there are fireworks and a dance that goes on to the early hours, at which point the men of the village dismantle it all, so you don't know anything has happened by morning.
This year, we made the front page of the Courrier de l'Ouest as a lady choked on a piece of pig and died at about 9pm in the evening - so everything else was cancelled as a mark of respect. Not the nicest evening therefore.
So on Sunday we went over to visit a horse we are keeping an eye on while its owners are away, and we saw a hoopoe, which was a nice surprise.
Then during the evening our neighbour (feckless Joel) tapped on the door and gave us a huge bowl of perch that he had caught that day and couldn't deal with the full catch. So as Harry Potter started on the TV, I started gutting 30 perch.
Today was relatively normal - we were cutting down trees in the blazing sunshine.
Life is certainly not dull here.
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