Le gendarmerie.

part 3 - dealing with an impatient gendarme, searching for plant pots and curly cock meets the ladies…

Oh glorious day…

MONDAY : I wake early, the habit of rising before dawn is an annoyingly hard one to lose after so many years. The harder I try to roll over into sweet sleep again, the less likely it becomes - so I give up.

Miraculously ‘stove’ still has glowing, hot embers glinting in its black depths, I almost shout my joy out loud! I riddle the ashes and pile on a few sticks of kindling, open the dampers and drop a log on top, close the iron lid as quietly as possible and pop the kettle on the hob to boil; in minutes and for the first time in a week, I have a hot cup of coffee before beginning my day.

Again lines of misty strata float across the hill, a sight that lightens my mood. Despite my elation of having hot coffee before braving the cold, I am not looking forward to my morning.

Across the valley, on a neighbouring hill, is the holiday home of some dear friends. I am key holder and care taker of pretty much everything that needs taking care of during the months that they are not there, amounting to well… pretty much the whole year really. The property is isolated from view almost entirely and over the years there have been several attempts to break into either the house or the numerous outbuildings. This was indeed the case when I was there last week.

Two doors to the cellars in the main barn had been tampered with, one split open completely and the other left with a damaged lock presumably due lack of the right implements to force it. A third door, to a hangar just beyond the barn, had also been tampered with, the lock, distorted from the robbers efforts was left useless, although fortunately entry was not gained. Ironically, had the thieves twisted the lock just one more time it would have fallen away in their hands as it did when hubby replaced it but their patience, fuelled by fear of discovery perhaps, was insufficient and they fled with empty hands.

I informed the local gendarmerie in the sleepy town below in the valley who tell me they are too busy to drive the 2 kilometres to the house (it was siesta time) and ask me to verify that nothing had been stolen and take photographs of the damage and call them back. Since nothing at all was missing and the robbers had left no trail, there was little they could do but advise me to make a formal statement. Hence, this morning I have an appointment at 10h00 at the Commissariat in the local town to make said statement for insurance purposes. The last time I had to undertake this task it took four hours! My lack of enthusiasm is hard to disguise.

I arrive 5 minutes early and wait an infuriating further 35 in an empty waiting room - what was the point of booking an appointment exactly? Eventually I am led into the back of the building by a very young and handsome gendarme.

His good looks belie his attitude however…

Evidently taking boring statements from an ageing English woman is not his idea of practicing good law enforcement, or maybe its the horrible accent? Whichever, he is brusque and impatient but, unsmilingly, he very efficiently takes my statement between countless telephone interruptions; one from a woman demanding help with her drunken husband because she is unable to forcibly move him to attend a doctors appointment - I can hear every word of her stricken voice. The gendarme looks at me, eyes heavenward, I understand more clearly his impatience and feel a momentary pang of pity for all gendarmes.

In far less time than my anticipated four hours I leave - thank goodness for small mercies - the only smile he offers is as he closes the door behind me, I don’t smile back but give him what I hope he reads to be an understanding look. I have a feeling the moment was lost though, as the phone rings once again.

I spend my afternoon searching for plant pots in various unlikely places around the garden, cast aside last year after transplanting their contents to wherever their final resting place had been decided, I can’t stop thinking, as I often do when trying to organise the chaotic wilderness that is my garden - my father would never have been so disorganised!

An hour later I have about thirty small, very dirty, seed pots, more than enough for todays plantings. I carry a bucket of warm soapy water out to the potting table and wash the lot before beginning to fill them with a compost mixed with sand.

Most people quite enjoy this part of growing their own food but putting seeds in pots to bring on is possibly my least liked job. Not only does it always take an eternity for any of the seeds to sprout, it certainly feels that way but then one has to go through the rigmarole of pricking out hundreds of tiny plants in their respective growing quarters! I have an almost uncontrollable desire to just sprinkle the seeds willy nilly and let nature play her hand, it can’t possibly be worse than, the more often than not, depressing results of transplanting - at least half die within the first two days due too much sun, they are all drowned by torrential rain or they just disappear completely. I blame the weather, the soil, the quality of the seeds, bugs in the earth but of course, dear Papa would have never had this problem…

Once all the pots are planted and carted up through the house to the attic and placed in another receptacle large enough to catch an overspill while watering - a lesson learnt last year when I managed to soak the kitchen below and ruin hubby’s mobile phone - I shuffle the the whole lot under the roof light where it’s warm and sunny.

This serves as my greenhouse and last year it worked quite well, ignoring damages…

Delighted and relieved to have at least made a start, I label four different types of tomato, two of hot chilli, some butternut squash - I think, the seeds may have been from a vegetable spaghetti, I forgot to mark the jar - some cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and Cavelo Nero kale and I wander off to the chicken field to catch curly cock.

Curly cock with one of the beautiful Silkies slaughtered by a pine marten last year. I found seven bodies that sad morning…

Tonight he will join my five ex chicken convicts rescued from the chicken factory last April where they were about to be swapped for younger, more productive layers. Heaven knows why? They have all laid an egg almost every day since - one can grow to really despise eggs! Once caught and minus a few tail feathers, he was a devil to catch, curly cock happily joins them in the run, proudly strutting around each one, cock-a doodle-doing, as if to show off his irresistible charm.

The ex convicts ignore him completely, which is exactly what I wanted to see happen!