My blogs have got a bit behind. The reason for this is very simple, my mother put her finger on it straight away - '”The fool is too old to keep falling about on this head - his memory is buggered”. Well done Mum - right on the button as always, and of course she is quite right. A great deal of my life has been spent thinking of new ways of falling on my head. As I said to a friend the other day: I have been very lucky - I have had a lot of falls and have never really hurt myself. The trouble is that falling off things is like building up a Debit balance in the bank - one day it gets called in. This is what has now happened to me - I cannot remember what day of the week it is, I have to ask Mrs Poole. She is very good about dates, but it is a bit of a bugger.
I remember when I returned from my last spell of hospitalisation; (that really is a ghastly word) – anyway, the doctors asked me “how my memoir was”. Now “Memoir” means much the same in French and English. Oh, I said - it's fine thank you, just fine; but it wasn't you know - and still isn't. If I do not write things in my note book, they get forgotten and that can be a bloody nuisance - rather like falling on your head.
It was a very beautiful Autumn morning somewhere about last November. I had set off on my tricycle to collect my monthly Euro pills from the doctor in the village. It was a very bright sunny morning and the sun was dazzling me. I imagine that it was also dazzling the driver of the white van that was following the trike and it must have dazzled him to the extent that he not only followed the trike and I - but caught us up and ran over us rather comprehensively. What happened next I cannot really say as I was out for the next 2/3 weeks. I have to get my memoir from Mrs Poole who was following me to the surgery - when she caught up with the twisted remains of the tricycle and her husband I had been joined by 2 doctors, two retired persons, two Gendarmes, who were persisting in trying to breathalyse me, my neighbour on his tractor - about the only person who was absent was the driver of the White van - he had skived off and has never knowingly been seen again
This was how I became introduced to the French Health Service. The assembled company insisted that I be taken to hospital and as I was out of things, I was not in a position to argue. I was lodged in three different hospitals, before I regained consciousness. I do not think that the French Medics like me very much. It seems that I was prone to wander at night. The hospitals did not like this - So they tied me to the bed, however, this is apparently not legal in France, so they started giving me injections. These gave me sleep but they also gave me the most horrific dreams, which stayed with me for a long time.
The other problem that has remained is a lack of balance, which is what brings me to fall in the snow drifts and is rather tiresome, which brings me back to rolling in a snowdrift at the back of the house. I had set out for a walk down the lane when my equilibre gave up on me and I folded gently into a snow wreath at the side of the road. There seemed little point in getting up as my balance might let me down again. I had my mobile and so could ring my wife who was shopping in the town. So I rang her up and laid my head in the snow and hoped for help. Our good neighbour, Gerrard, has the next farm down the lane and he might trundle down in his tractor. Then I heard the tractor, it was coming down the lane, but was turning for the last farm up the lane. I turned on my back and waved my cap in the air...it was Franc - the other neighbour - he was not going to see me - but he was - the tractor turned on the cross ads and - Hooray! - I kept waving my cap and Frank drove straight to me in my snow drift:
'Good Job you saw me”: I said
“I didn't” he said, “It was him”. I had not realised but all the time that I had been grovelling in the road, Pippy my little white terrier had been sitting beside me. Franc had seen a distant white terrier, sitting alone in the road and Franc had come to have a look and had found me sprawled in the snow, with Pippy sitting firmly by my side.
Mother really is quite right, you know; I am truly too old for rolling about on the ground - even with Pip to look after.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Jonathan Brock
Those of you who have struggled along with this blog {if indeed this is a blog} may remember the tale about Jonathan Brock and the W I - well, after that we kept Jonathan quiet for a bit. But the time came when military duties recalled me. The problem arose as to what to do with Jonathan. A 3 parts grown boar badger is a whole nest of problems, particularly if he has upset such an important section of the community as might be represented by the Womens’ Institute: it would not have been possible just to dump him with my family.
Dr Pip provided the answer. Dr Pip was our General Practitioner - a fine old fashioned sort of man, who was also a desperately keen naturalist. Apart from clearing up my spots, he and his young family had become devoted fans of Jonathan Brock. When the provisional wing of the WI had started talking about Jonathan's savagery, Dr Pip talked of nonsense and helped to quieten things down. Thus as the military drum began to beat for me, It was put to me that whilst I was away, Dr Pip and his family would billet Jonathan. My family could heave a sigh of relief and so it came to be.
Above Dr Pip's garage was an old loft, approached by a set of tone steps. Jonathan would climb the steps, pop through the cat flap in the door and retire to his spacious bed room. When the Army set me free from duties to return home, I would put Ginny the terrier in the van and we pop along to Dr Pip's - a couple of miles down the road. If the weather was fine, Jonathan Brock would be lying out in the sun at the top of his steps. The sound of the van would bring him lolloping down the steps to fling himself at me, chattering his welcome. He would then clamber up me still chattering. He would drape himself round my neck and nibble gently at an ear. He was always very gentle and well mannered.
So things continued and I told myself that Jonathan was settled in his new home and I saw no reason why things should not continue as they had started, which just went to show how young and stupid I had become. After all as far as I knew, Jonathan was well settled with the Doc, was doing no harm to anybody. But I had never considered the fact that Jonathan was a wild animal and as such his very existence in a ‘civilised’ village society was regarded by some as a sin and a hissing. It simply was not ‘fitty’ as the locals would say. ‘Not being fitty’ is a terrible social sin in a civilised rural society. The fact that Jonathan was living with local Doctor suggested to many that he had got ‘above his station’ and shouldn’t be allowed. None of this had been informed to me.
The first that I heard of a problem was a letter from my Mother, saying that Jonathan had been very ill and might well not live. On my first chance to get home, I went straight round to Doctor Pip’s to see Jonathan. He was very pleased to see me, but was obviously in a poor way. I asked Dr Pip for his opinion. He reckoned that someone had slipped Jonathan a dose of rat poison. Why would anyone do that to the poor badger? He scratched his head. Human beings can be very strange with things they don’t understand - he said. Jonathan is a tame Badger and how many others do you reckon there are round here?
There were no others that I knew of.
There you are then. He was something that did not fit in. In other words he should not have been about. So some well meaning person thought that Jonathan was not natural and needed levelling up. When I went to see Jonathan on my next visit home, he had been well and truly levelled up and I dug a hole in Dr Pip’s orchard and if I cried when I buried him, it was no one’s fault but mine. I had interfered with the natural rhythm of Jonathan’s life and he had paid the price.
This area of France is heavily wooded and mostly oak woods. These are just coming into their fine multi-coloured, Autumnal magnificence. Oak logs burn well (if they are dry). My friend Didier dumped a trailer load in my yard the other day - and the fire now goes well in the grate. Everywhere you go in rural France you are likely to encounter tractors towing trailer loads of nicely seasoned logs. It was because of this that France never experienced smoke pollution - there was no 'smog'. Even in the towns the traditional oak logs are still burned.
The other day I was out hunting and sitting in a woodland clearing. The trees were on the change and the colours were magnificent. There was a distant chatter of chain saws and a smeech of fragrant smoke from where the twigs were being burned. It was truly lovely day. Hounds were running in a desultory fashion in the wood below.
There was obviously very little scent, but as we have had very little rain for 6 weeks, this was not surprising. What was magnificent was the colours of the dying leaves. I was very content to sit on a log and just let it all sink in. I have always enjoyed just sitting quietly in the woods and watching its life go on around me. A flicker of movement caught my eye and through the oak coppice in front of me a fine Roe Buck moved out into a small clearing, where he stood, his ears twitching at the distant cry of hounds. It would have been a very fair 80 yard shot, but when I came to France I passed on my rifles to the Boy. I hope that he will get as much satisfaction from them, as I did, but that all seems long ago and far away.
Dr Pip provided the answer. Dr Pip was our General Practitioner - a fine old fashioned sort of man, who was also a desperately keen naturalist. Apart from clearing up my spots, he and his young family had become devoted fans of Jonathan Brock. When the provisional wing of the WI had started talking about Jonathan's savagery, Dr Pip talked of nonsense and helped to quieten things down. Thus as the military drum began to beat for me, It was put to me that whilst I was away, Dr Pip and his family would billet Jonathan. My family could heave a sigh of relief and so it came to be.
Above Dr Pip's garage was an old loft, approached by a set of tone steps. Jonathan would climb the steps, pop through the cat flap in the door and retire to his spacious bed room. When the Army set me free from duties to return home, I would put Ginny the terrier in the van and we pop along to Dr Pip's - a couple of miles down the road. If the weather was fine, Jonathan Brock would be lying out in the sun at the top of his steps. The sound of the van would bring him lolloping down the steps to fling himself at me, chattering his welcome. He would then clamber up me still chattering. He would drape himself round my neck and nibble gently at an ear. He was always very gentle and well mannered.
So things continued and I told myself that Jonathan was settled in his new home and I saw no reason why things should not continue as they had started, which just went to show how young and stupid I had become. After all as far as I knew, Jonathan was well settled with the Doc, was doing no harm to anybody. But I had never considered the fact that Jonathan was a wild animal and as such his very existence in a ‘civilised’ village society was regarded by some as a sin and a hissing. It simply was not ‘fitty’ as the locals would say. ‘Not being fitty’ is a terrible social sin in a civilised rural society. The fact that Jonathan was living with local Doctor suggested to many that he had got ‘above his station’ and shouldn’t be allowed. None of this had been informed to me.
The first that I heard of a problem was a letter from my Mother, saying that Jonathan had been very ill and might well not live. On my first chance to get home, I went straight round to Doctor Pip’s to see Jonathan. He was very pleased to see me, but was obviously in a poor way. I asked Dr Pip for his opinion. He reckoned that someone had slipped Jonathan a dose of rat poison. Why would anyone do that to the poor badger? He scratched his head. Human beings can be very strange with things they don’t understand - he said. Jonathan is a tame Badger and how many others do you reckon there are round here?
There were no others that I knew of.
There you are then. He was something that did not fit in. In other words he should not have been about. So some well meaning person thought that Jonathan was not natural and needed levelling up. When I went to see Jonathan on my next visit home, he had been well and truly levelled up and I dug a hole in Dr Pip’s orchard and if I cried when I buried him, it was no one’s fault but mine. I had interfered with the natural rhythm of Jonathan’s life and he had paid the price.
This area of France is heavily wooded and mostly oak woods. These are just coming into their fine multi-coloured, Autumnal magnificence. Oak logs burn well (if they are dry). My friend Didier dumped a trailer load in my yard the other day - and the fire now goes well in the grate. Everywhere you go in rural France you are likely to encounter tractors towing trailer loads of nicely seasoned logs. It was because of this that France never experienced smoke pollution - there was no 'smog'. Even in the towns the traditional oak logs are still burned.
The other day I was out hunting and sitting in a woodland clearing. The trees were on the change and the colours were magnificent. There was a distant chatter of chain saws and a smeech of fragrant smoke from where the twigs were being burned. It was truly lovely day. Hounds were running in a desultory fashion in the wood below.
There was obviously very little scent, but as we have had very little rain for 6 weeks, this was not surprising. What was magnificent was the colours of the dying leaves. I was very content to sit on a log and just let it all sink in. I have always enjoyed just sitting quietly in the woods and watching its life go on around me. A flicker of movement caught my eye and through the oak coppice in front of me a fine Roe Buck moved out into a small clearing, where he stood, his ears twitching at the distant cry of hounds. It would have been a very fair 80 yard shot, but when I came to France I passed on my rifles to the Boy. I hope that he will get as much satisfaction from them, as I did, but that all seems long ago and far away.
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