French hill billy territory!

 Soubrebost, France

What a day! What an unusual day! The photo could give clue. Will attempt to write it up in more detail. 

Most days are good but every now and again you get a day so packed with happenings and cameos you just do not know where to start.

So it was that Sadie stopped on this narrow little road through this tiny little hamlet right by a rural French  backwoodsman leaning on his gate and whose weather worn and moustached face, due to the raised level of his narrow front yard, was level with mine. He was shaking his head vigourosly from side to side while saying repeatedly. 

"non,non,non monsieur, vous et camper van premiere dans le village. Bravo. Bravo monsieur!" I think that meant I was the first motorhome he had ever seen come through the village/hamlet/about 4 houses.

I was not surprised. The road was very narrow, hilly, zig zaggy and any self respecting owner of a house on wheels would, with common sense governing the logistics, avoid it.

However; this was Steve; read common sense only makes sense if it has adventure attached to it. For Sadie read; point me and I'll go there. Add in a recklessly re programmed sat nav which has to now avoid any road that has the word 'main', 'primary', or 'where you should be going' attached to it, and you start to get where its at.

Oh but what fun! This area of hilly upland extremely rural Limousin is just brimming with traffic-less tiny wee roads. I'm in no hurry and regard myself as privileged to be enjoying the delights of such backwaters.

 And Sadie? Well, lets put it this way. We've not been stuck yet!

A sign indicating farmhouse cheese for sale tempts me at the last minute to brake and execute a very sharp left hander and up a steep farm track. It leads me deep into the bowels of what I would have described during my years travelling around farms in the UK as a 'muddly farm'. Untidy and with a veritable scrapyard of old and vintage farm machinery, cars and trucks scattered wherever you looked. Amid all this there was very smart and clean looking door, unlocked, which led into the small shop comprising of fridge full of cheeses, a big certificate which I presume said it's all OK, and a price list. Only thing missing was any sign of another human being. Tanya and I walked around amid the muddles, the chickens, the pig, the pack of dogs in their run and finally just above the farm this memorial ringed by rusting bits of an old wartime aircraft.

I had read about this and about how active the French resistance were in this area during the 2nd world war. I had already come across two memorials on the side of roads commemorating fighters who had died at those spots. This particular memorial was to a parachute mission in 1944 aimed at freeing a local town from German occupation. The plane had been damaged by anti aircraft fire and crashed into this particular hill.

The spot was a lovely clearing in among a glade of conifers. The sun was shining, the ground was dry and I'd had enough driving for one day. Sadie was duly and gingerly negotiated round the farmyard and into position in the memorial glade. One of my mottos is; if a tractor's been there I can get there....as long as its dry!

During all this time I had made my presence clear by calling out and of course by arriving in and manouvering a bloody big shiny white house on wheels through the farmyard. Not a soul in sight! And that is the way it stayed for about another hour which gave me time to settle in plus relax in the sunshine with glass of Rose.

"Aha! Noises Tanya. Sounds like missing humans have returned. Let's go get some cheese and request permission to spend the night here." So with Tanya on the lead to prevent hen and duck mayhem we walk down to the farm.

"Gosh Tanya is that not the pig we saw earlier?" Well it was but the actual pig was now in that delightful piggy heaven full of to die for mud pits and truffle beds and young frisky sows. This was a pig body lying in the middle of the track on a large sheet of tin and in the process of being expertly and cleanly butchered by swarthy Frenchy wielding very sharp knives. He was being ably assisted by Mr muddly french farmer weilding a hose and keeping everything spotlessly clean along with his farmworker. It was very apparent I was watching a group of people here to whom this was a familiar and well practised routine.

I was noticed and not an eyelid was batted. They were also quite happy for me to continue to view the proceedings. The butcher was an expert. It was like watching a real artist or craftsman at work.  'Ma famile' was summoned and thickset but cheerful muddly farmers wife in big boots appeared with young daghter in tow munching on a beefburger. They escorted me to the smart door of the shop and one small cheese was purchased which I clung onto as I returned and watched the remainder of piggy to pork transformation. It ended with the more familiar looking sides of pork all hanging neatly from pieces of baler twine hooked onto the prongs of a tractor loader which slowly headed down to another shed where I presume there was a freezer or some sort of prepared hanging area.

A fascinating and totally unexpected end to the day with congratulations all round on a good job done where my combination of leeetle french plus charades enactions plus copious smiles seemed to render me as agreeable and acceptable and 

"Est nooo problem, vous remainez a l'memoir sa soir monsieur".

I guess it is right what I used to continually be told by UK farmers. There is one EU for the French and Germans but a different one for the UK. The pig's registration ear tag, a European common market legal requirement, had been casually thrown aside. Plus, the whole concept of local on site butchery has long been a total no no in the UK due to EU legislation.

Ce la vie eh!