Things old and new

Dear All –

Sorry it’s taken so long to start up some news again!

I should begin by letting you all know that we’ve reached a milestone: Greg now has more energy than me again! (to maintain perspective here, remember that that's still considerably less than most of you...but it's still very good news.) We noticed this the last couple of days, while we had fun diversion with some good friends from Scotland. Ivan and Julie have looked after us in many different ways in the past, and this time it was in playing games, eating good food, and sharing a love of art. This last was embodied in visiting the ‘gallery’ of one of our favourite French artists, Arcabas (in a church restored by his art), and then going to see a Greek play: Seneca’s ‘Medea’ (not light, but an incredible performance…even if we struggled with comprehending the poetic French) – both in the same day! Greg even insisted on driving back from the gallery himself, down windy roads. It was the first time he was able to drive with much confidence, and, despite my own occasional anxiety, seemed to do well, insisting on taking the longer route home. It was me who collapsed on the couch after it all, and who fell asleep during dinner – not Greg! He still gets frustrated by how little energy he has, but that will just take time to sort. And though it’s longer than he would like, it seems it’ll be less time than the doctors expected. We were both rather tired today.

This afternoon we puttered around the garden a little, Greg raking some leaves (his favourite exercise of late), me eyeing up potential garden designs (a bit more to work with than on our UK cement patio), and the cat racing up and down trees (she has rediscovered the marvellous things, Cellardyke being bereft of them). Greg, without thinking, decided to chase her (our cat is really more canine than feline!)…and began to run. Once he realized what he was doing, he began to jog around the garden. Not quite ‘Chariots of Fire,’ but wonderful none-the-less! He was a little wobbly (ended up having to dodge the weeping willow branches again!), but delighted. The cat was probably confused that Greg changed direction when she hadn’t. But she’s used to Greg doing strange and unpredictable things…some of you have seen him balance her on his head. She tends to treat him with bemused affection, as if he was an oversized kitten.

It is so good to be starting to do some ‘normal things’ again, like working outside, and debating over various housework plans. We hit another milestone today: our first real argument since the operation. But in a slightly weird way, it’s a good thing. It means that Greg is strong enough now that I am not handling him with kid-gloves, and we are ‘normalizing’…sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, hitting bumps as well as times of delight, truly living together. Hopefully continuing to become better for the doing so, polishing rough spots, fine-tuning strings. Grounding ourselves (while mixing our metaphors).

I had thrown out the words ‘wild boars’ on the last entry. Sure enough, we have seen them. They are massive scary beasts…really, one of the scariest I’ve seen! Fortunately there were a few barriers between us and them.
Greg had invited a local farm-hand over for coffee (but he wanted to try tea, as we were ‘Anglais’!), and he took us on a bit of a tour. First we went over to meet the farmer whose land surrounds us. He showed us about his Holstein dairy operation, and seemed quite pleased by the mix of my farm knowledge (making us not-quite city-slickers) and Greg’s lack thereof (providing opportunity to endow knowledge). G now has a free-standing invite to come watch the milking!
After this, our friendly farm-hand took us up to a place where the farmer said we could gather some scrap wood for our bread-oven. (Scrabbling up and then down a bit of a hill gave Greg a good bout of vertigo – guess his physio would have been pleased by the ‘challenging terrain’ – and when he tried to sit down in the car, he actually fell right over…fortunately onto the back seat!) Then, the “sangliers.” Apparently Greg had visions of creeping up to the mouth of a cave or something to see them. Fortunately not! But it was bizarre.

It turns out that these mean-tempered beasts are raised in captivity – big forested areas, contained by highwire electric fences. Then they are bought by the hunting clubs, released into the countryside, and shortly thereafter, hunted down. The people who raise the boars rather glowered at our vehicle as it drove slowly by. Our guide explained that these people are suspicious of all vehicles they don’t know, as they fear either boar-thieves, or, more likely, people planning to protest the practice by setting the boars free. Can’t say I’m surprised…
I’ll stick with the wildlife that roams freely around Pré Borel.

Deer – we’ve seen them bounding along the edge of our property. And gekkos in the summer. And lots and lots of birds. Great spotted Woodpecker (no joke), pheasants, tons of lovely small birds. And every morning I see at least one Great Grey Heron – they winter here, in the walnut groves. Many many buzzards (look kind of like a golden eagle to the unschooled), and quite a few sparrowhawks. As I sat out in the garden this afternoon I heard and saw a heron rise up, and circle, chased by a buzzard. The buzzard was chased by a crow. Together the threesome made much noise, wavered up and down and around, and finally the crow seemed to succeed in chasing off the buzzard. It and the heron then settled back down in the field. I can only wonder at the possibilities…any twitchers out there with insight?!

Greg, by the way, intends to be adding a few chickens to the mix, come spring. Maybe we’ll get a duck or two as well. But they shan’t be fenced in – electric or otherwise – ‘free-range eggs’ is what they call it these days. ‘Happy chickens' eggs ’ is the tag we used as kids. Hopefully Greg can resist the temptation of chasing them too (the chickens, not the eggs). But by then he’ll be strong enough he won’t have time…not if he even accomplishes half the list he came up with today!

‘I’ll to bed’ now, and maybe tell you a bit more about Pré Borel tomorrow or the next day.

Night!
Kirstin