This week has been more exciting than normal.
“Blimey” I said to my husband Mark as we sat working in our little office, the former pigsty which we have renovated and is now wall to wall with books and our two desks squashed into the middle. “I’ve been invited to a do at the British Ambassador’s house in Paris…”
As I was thinking I’d have to dig out something to wear, I can’t possibly go in my usual cheap jeans, sweatshirt and rubber boots, I was interrupted by an almighty bang, crash, wallop and the sound of things breaking. I am not a nosey neighbour – ok I am a nosey neighbour, and I would normally go and look, but I was busy dreaming about swanning around the British Ambassador’s house.
About 5 minutes later, the doorbell rang. Thierry the farmer stood there looking wild-eyed. He shook his head, said not a word, and grabbed Mark’s arm and pulled him out through the gate. He beckoned me to follow.
I stepped into our little road, where one of Madame Jupiler’s chickens was standing outside looking past us up the hill. Ever since her nephew stayed to look after her animals and let the chickens out to have some freedom (above), they have been taking turns to escape.
Thierry had still not spoken but I could see why the chicken was staring up the hill. Thierry had crashed his tractor with a trailer load of cow manure into the 20ft tall telephone pole outside our house which had fallen through the roof of the woodshed. The breaking sound I’d heard was tiles smashing into the road. The telephone pole had snapped in half and was swinging free of its moorings. There was dung flung up the walls and all over the road.
Thierry was in a terrible tizzy because of the mashed up roof which we only rebuilt a year ago. News travels fast here. The Mayor arrived within minutes, he got out of his car and blinked rapidly then declared the situation “a serious incident” and alerted the authorities.
“Thierry, you are an idiot” he said.
At last Thierry spoke. “I am considered the best tractor driver in the village” he stopped as the Mayor glared at him, and concluded sadly, “alas, from the sublime to the ridiculous, there is but one step.”
Bisous from a still miraculously on the internet little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, northern France. Join me on Instagram for more daily fun!
Janine
Editor
Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream and My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France (April 2022) all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online.
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