A Stretch In Limousin – RSVP

A week or so ago – before the rains came – I was having a break from toiling in the field with a nice cool glass of rosé and a cigarette, when a hornet started buzzing around me – more specifically, buzzing around the wine. I have heard, and read, that hornets are particularly aggressive. I have heard that if they are angry enough, they can even kill a man. So I did what any other normal man might do in my position. I moved away from the table and offered my wine to the hornet. ‘You want it?’ I said. ‘It’s yours.’ I also happened to have my camera handy, so I took a picture of the hornet preparing itself to take that which did not belong to it. Here it is here, the little thug…

And then, inevitably, here it is moments later, doubtless regretting its decision…

Here it is after I’d held it under the wine for long enough for it to stop breathing…

I hate to say it, but the little fucker had it coming.

Anyone any idea what this is? Or what it’s going to turn into rather. There are quite a lot of them turning up in the soil. My nephew says he’d seen them in England too. I’d never seen one until recently and I hope I don’t speak out of turn, but it’s a repugnant motherfucker.

Anyone?

Wednesday 20th July, 19:13

OK. So. This is the fifth day of more or less continuous rain and I have to admit, it’s starting to get me down. Compounding the not being able to leave the house, do any work in the field, heat any water or wash any clothes is the fact that my back has just gone. Not gone gone, but gone. I’m in pain. Not pain pain, but pain. Certainly pain. And it’s cold. It’s probably the cold and the damp and the not moving around enough that’s got my back playing up, but now that it is playing up, the cold and the damp suddenly seem much worse. Plus the cat is whining. And eating all my olives.

I need to get on and get the wood burner connected up. And I need to see how much it might cost to get hot water plumbed in. Because when it’s cold and damp and your back is playing up, you really miss heat. I am missing heat.

What’s great about being here is the freedom to go outside and achieve things. Constant rain removes that freedom and suddenly I could be anywhere. I could in fact be somewhere with central heating, hot baths and television. I don’t want to care about those things, I really don’t, and for the last 50 days, I haven’t, but suddenly, today, this evening, since about half an hour ago when my back started playing up, I feel like a whine. And as I say, the cat has eaten all my olives.

20:54

Alex popped round about an hour ago. He was full of beer and as usual, mockery. ‘So how long do you think you’ll last out here then? You really think you’ll stay through the winter.’ It’s not the first time he’s asked that question. I told him, again, yes. There is no doubt in my mind. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said. ‘A few days of rain and you’re already miserable.’

‘It’s just my back,’ I told him. ‘I’m worried it might get worse.’

He then told me that his dad and him have got a sweepstake as to how long I’ll last. ‘I reckon another couple of months,’ he said. ‘My dad reckons another four days.’

He’s lying of course. He’s just winding me up because it gives him pleasure.

When he left, I started playing Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want on the guitar. I was about half way through when the cat knocked a little gas burning lamp off the second shelf of the bookcase. The glass shade shattered on the tiled floor and tiny shards flew in all directions. I had to lock the cat in the kitchen while I cleared it up.

I never even got to use that lamp. See the luck I’ve had?

It’s still raining. And, at precisely 9 o’clock, it’s pretty dark. And cold. At least in winter you expect this kind of nonsense. Not in the middle of July.

Another couple of months my arse.

Impudent cur.

22:23

I’ve spent the last couple of hours listening to the recordings that Graham and I made while he was here – our would-be band of around 10 years, The Rogue Dentists, improvising whilst under the influence – and I am considerably cheered. Outside a vicious gale is blowing qnd the rain is twatting against the windows and walls. Balls to it. I have friends in far-off places. I am warm inside.

Bonne nuit.

x

Monday 25th July, 00:24

I met a man called Septimus Belm on Saturday night (not real name). Belm has been in France for eight years and he struck me as a very cynical and rather negative type. I did not particularly care for him. He repeated the things I’ve already heard said many many times: that French people don’t go out; that when they do, they do so in family groups; that there are no women; that there is no social life; that there is nothing to do. Etc. But he went further than most people go. He basically had a negative response for each positive point I tried to make. I mentioned that I was looking forward to getting a moped so I could go from village to village, dropping into bars and meeting French people along the way. He told me there are no people. He told me it would take too long to get anywhere on a moped. And so on.

I was quite pleased when he left.

I also met a man called Eric. Eric has been in France for five years but is very soon about to leave with his wife and go live in America, where she is from. Eric also had a couple of negative things to say about France, specifically that there are fewer and fewer places that book original live music acts. He said the most popular acts are bands that do cover versions of Status Quo and the like. Eric, however, is a musician, and was making reasonable, justifiable points. Not like that miserable bugger, Belm.

You may have heard of Eric. He performs under the name Wreckless Eric. I imagine that he spells it wrong deliberately, or that the misspelling is just part of his overall recklessness. This was him back in the day…

He and his wife Amy Rigby performed at a venue called La Petite Fontaine in a village called Le Dorat. They were very good.

I ended up chatting with them at the end of the evening as they had some ice cream with the owners of the bar and a couple more of their friends. Eric signed a CD I’d bought. He wrote: ‘Get some insulation!’ He seemed concerned that my little wood burner might not be enough to get me through the winter. Amy signed my CD too. She wrote: ‘Bonne route.’ I had been talking to her about getting a moped. She was much more positive than Septimus Belm.

I also met a man – a friend of Eric and Amy I believe – a Frenchman who owns a bookshop in Limoges. I engaged him in conversation and demanded that he give me his email address. I insisted that we were going to become good friends. I meant it too. He may attempt to resist but a man who owns a bookshop is exactly the kind of French friend I need. I shall write to him tomorrow and cement our friendship.

Sadly, he was the only French person with whom I was able to engage this weekend. Friday was awash with ex-pats and I have to say, I am starting to get a little tired of them. I don’t mean that in an insulting way. Really I don’t. I just need to meet French people. Otherwise what’s the point?

I am starting to make a little headway though, and just as soon as I’m back from my ten days in London, I will kick Part Two of this stretch into action with the purchase of a mechanical bicycle. Then things will change. You see if they don’t.

On Sunday I made a couple of trips to the ‘media centre’ at the Le Buis mairie and then I listened to a couple more Desert Island Discs from the archive and I started to feel really afraid that my life is over and I am never going to achieve the things that I would dearly love to achieve. I started writing a blog post entitled How To Write A Bestseller When Nobody Reads Your Blog Anymore and Your Agent Never Answers Your Emails, but I’m afraid I haven’t got much further than the title.

Forecast for the week: clouds, rain, storms.

20:24

This afternoon Ray took me to his and Fay’s place at Chateauponsac so we could talk about some work that needs doing to this place. We took my bike in his van so I could ride back. Riding back took 55 minutes. In the rain. It wasn’t very nice.

At around 6.40 I went into the gazebo to mix some petrol and oil to power the generator for a while. I placed the plastic mixing can on the same metal table with the fridge on it. I poured the oil in first, then the petrol. If you’ve ever poured petrol from a large jerrycan into a small plastic mixing container via a large plastic funnel, you’ll know that there is generally some spillage. At the very least, a few splashes of petrol until you manage to get your pouring steady. And it was at that point, with the petrol splashing onto the metal table that has the fridge on it that I remembered that the fridge – that very same fridge – was running on gas.

I said out loud to myself, ‘There’s a flame about two inches from where this petrol is landing’, and probably before I’d finished the sentence, the petrol that was splashing onto the table caught fire. There was a woof, and the cat vanished.

What I did next I did without thinking, but thankfully it seemed like it may have been the right thing to do. I put down the half-full jerrycan and grabbed the plastic container – now burning quite merrily – and tossed it out of the gazebo, away from the large canister of butane gas which was connected to the fridge and no more than a foot away from the flames.

Actually throwing the burning container of oil might not have been the wisest course of action but I seemed to get away with it as only a small amount of oil spilled out onto the earth and kept burning. The container landed the right way up and seemed only to be burning on the outside. I left it for a moment and turned back to the fridge table, which was still on fire. I blew at the flame and – quite luckily I think – it went out. Then I stamped on the burning oil outside and made sure the plastic can was fully extinguished. It was. Everything was out. It was OK. I was OK. The cat was OK. Everything was OK. But I tell you what: it was fucking close.

If those initial flames had galloped up a fresh splash and back into that gerrycan, there would have been an almighty explosion, right there under my right arm. If I had lived, which is debatable, one thing is for sure: I would never have played the guitar again.

I think in all honesty, I probably would have died.

So I consider myself lucky. And I have learned an important lesson: DON’T GO SLOPPING PETROL ABOUT OVER AN OPEN FLAME. It’s just not worth it.

Bonne nuit.

Tuesday 26th July, 15:40

I’ve lost the email address of my new prospective French friend.

I am a fucking idiot.

Au revoir.

Tuesday 19th July, 19:13

Most of the time when you stand on the cat or she gets stung or bitten by something, there is a single yelp and maybe a hiss, followed by some furious licking. Ten minutes ago I was sitting on the swivel chair I found in someone’s front garden in Fleet, writing adverbs on the wall, when I moved along the tiled floor on the wheels of the chair without looking. There was a yelp. I jumped to my feet full of apologies but Maddie was already under the bed. Then she did something I’d never seen before. She continued to yelp, holding her back foot in the air.

I felt unbelievably bad. Horribly, terribly, just appallingly bad. I coaxed her out and examined her foot for bleeding, but there was none. Then, obviously, I had to give her some biscuits, to take her mind off the pain, and as I walked into the kitchen, a twisted, ghastly weep fell out of my mouth.

I’m not proud of this. I’m not ashamed of this. I’m just surprised at the depth of my emotion. Then, as I was just getting into my weeping swing, the cat yelped again as – unaware that she was even in the same room – I stood on her again, on exactly the same foot as before. I cried out too, almost unable to believe that something so unfortunate had occurred.

Then I gave her the biscuits quick and came in here to write this down. Now – having wolfed down the biscuits – she’s on my lap, sucking on the left hand piece of string that hangs from the hood of my hoodie and padding at my chest. I think she thinks I’m her mother.

I sometimes forget how young she is. I often forget how vulnerable she is. I think if I actually had children, I would pass away with fear and guilt and the constant emotion of it all.

She’s OK. I’m OK.

We’re OK.

More wine, I think.

The cat has now fallen in love with my vegetable patch. Two acres of land she has to play in. It’s a cat paradise. And yet all she really wants are the three square metres set aside for spinach, beetroot, carrots, cucumbers, onion, marrow and ‘salad leaves’.

Maybe it’s not love exactly. Maybe it’s closer to lust. Forbidden desire. She is like Eve with the apple. She is like Ralph Wiggum with his father’s secret room. ‘What is it with you kids and my Forbidden Closet of Mystery?’ says Chief Wiggum. It’s exactly the same with Maddie and the vegetable patch. The more I make it clear that she is forbidden, the greater becomes her desire. Unless, of course, it’s just that she has a brain the size of a walnut and really doesn’t understand anything.

No, no, she must know that she isn’t allowed on there because every time she goes on there I become transformed from a benevolent, loving giant into a vicious ogre shouting ‘Non! Allez! Allez!’ spraying her with water and foaming at the mouth. She must see the connection. I’m sure she does. And therefore, her desire must be related to the prohibition.

Very soon I shall transplant my peas from the pots in the net-covered fruit crates where they are currently happily germinating, to the corner of the forbidden vegetable patch, without netting. I will give them sticks to climb. Maddie likes sticks. She will, I predict, kill my peas.

No matter how many times I soak and chastise her, she will return to torment, torture and quickly kill my peas.

I don’t know what I will do.

One thing is for sure: it will be a test of our love.

Friday 15th July, 12:23

I woke up this morning at 8am and felt something strange in my bed. If I’m honest, feeling something strange in my bed is not that unusual out here because firstly, the kitten is usually in there somewhere, nosing around or pouncing at something, and secondly, waking up with a bug crawling over my body is not unheard of. A decent-sized gap under the bottom of the front door ensures a regular parade of all manner of bugs in the night, many of whom unashamedly seek the warmth of my bed. And indeed my body. Ooh la la. This was different, however.

I actually didn’t have time to work out how it was different before it became apparent when a mouse shot up my body, over my chest, out from under the covers, onto the floor and along the skirting board. The kitten – who was clearly as surprised as I was – jumped out of the bed and darted into the corner of the room, unaware that the mouse had already made its way into the kitchen. It all happened very very quickly and took me so much by surprise that I found myself sitting up in bed and laughing out loud.

I can’t imagine that before it made its way into my bed, the mouse was aware that there was both an adult human and a infant cat already in there. Otherwise that would make it, like, the Chuck Norris of mice. Even so, I had to admire its balls.

I admired its balls even more an hour or so later when it was back in the kitchen, hanging around the cat’s litter tray and seemingly facing her down. I was only aware of this because the kitten was in the doorway, staring at something, her tail sweeping from side to side dramatically. She didn’t, however, attack. Only when I joined her in the kitchen doorway did the mouse disappear behind a cupboard, and only when I moved the cupboard did it dash to the sink, through a gap between two leaky pipes and then through a hole in the wall. Meanwhile the kitten, always one step behind, was still nosing around frantically behind the cupboard.

She worries me, if I’m honest. But she’s young. That’s what I’m thinking. She’s not even three months old yet. I’m sure that by the time she’s nine months or a year maybe, she’ll be an excellent mouser. I’m sure that in time she will allow me to admire the balls of many mice as she leaves them with a Rorschach test of entrails by the side of my bed. At the moment, however, Maddie is no mouser. At the moment she is a mousee. The mice – and I have now identified two, a baby and a parent mouse I think – are playing her for a fool. My worry is that maybe she is a bit of a fool. At the moment, for example, she’s currently being easily and repeatedly outwitted by an empty box.

Oh, God. I do hope she doesn’t turn into a simpleton. That must be a terrible worry for parents – I guess especially for adoptive parents – that their children will turn out to be halfwits. Or sociopaths. Thankfully all cats are sociopaths – which is to say they have no conscience to speak of – so I don’t have to worry about that. But please don’t be a simpleton, Maddie. I mean, I’ll love you anyway, of course I will, and I’ll pretend not to be embarrassed as mice and moths and pieces of string run rings around you, but deep down part of me will be sad, and then another part of me will be ashamed for feeling sad. Don’t put me through that. Be brilliant. Bring me the entrails of Alfredo Souris. And soon.

Incidentally, the whole mouse affair woke me from a dream in which I had just decided to call off my impending wedding – it was a week away – because I could not remember who the bride was.

Stupid dream.

Tuesday 12th July, 16:40

Back from the ‘media centre’ in the garden eating bread, brie, tomato and ham, and I watched Maddie – bless her delicate paws – lose her first fight with a bee. I am giving her some of my lunch to make her feel better, but also I’m thinking, ‘Oh, come on. Even to your tiny mind, there can’t be that much difference between a wasp and a bee.’ She lost a fight with a wasp last week and I hoped she learned a lesson that she might apply across the board – if it’s colourful and buzzing, it’s probably dangerous: leave it alone. But apparently not.

Not ten minutes later, I was absentmindedly reading something slightly annoying whilst playing with Maddie with one lazy hand when she lost interest and stalked off back toward the house in pounce mode. Sure enough, there was another bee, identical to the last one, but presumably not the same one. The first one – presumably – had gone off to the bees’ graveyard. How long does it take for a bee to die from having stung its one sting? Really you would think that whole sting-and-die thing would already have been sifted out and dispensed with by evolution. It’s the equivalent of a human being dying after throwing a punch. Actually, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Bees must have pacifism hardwired into them.

But then what about baby bees? All animals must take time not to be impetuous idiots. My sweet foolish kitten being a case in point. Surely then, inexperienced bees – beelings? – must have a tendency to become aggravated and lash out, to sting in the heat of the moment and go to an early grave? Their sting after all is their only defence. And yet they’re not allowed to use it. Not without fatal consequences. Imagine that. Sometimes evolution is as idiotic as God. I’m not surprised bees are dying out. Mankind gets the blame, but it’s not mankind’s fault. It’s the bees’. They need to evolve infinite stinging power, like the evil wasp. Until they do, I’m afraid bees are, by their very nature, stupid.

Not, however, as stupid as my kitten.

Having said that, just as I first started writing this, something occurred to Maddie, and rather than pounce on the second bee, she started furiously licking at the paw that had been stung not half an hour earlier. Her brain must have sent her paw a message, reminding her of the pain and how she came by it. That’s intelligence, right there, the formation of intelligence, in action.

Now that I’m writing this, there are two more identical bees buzzing around the same flowering weed beneath the living room window and she’s just lying there, watching them. With no sign of pouncing. Yes. She has learned a valuable lesson. Good girl.

Oh. Now she’s trying to grab my cigarette. Oh well. I’m sorry, Maddie, but this is for your own good. Come here. Tssss.

Another lesson learned. Good girl.

Monday 18 July, 17:39

The sun has just come out. If the last three days are anything to go by, it won’t stay out. Rather, in about 20 minutes, there will be yet another downpour lasting from ten minutes to three hours followed by a long period of dark grey cloud cover and another couple of downpours. Then the sun will come out again. Maybe long enough to dry the wooden bench by the fire pit, then the rains will return.

It’s been raining a lot recently. I’m not complaining. People’s wells are running dry and hosepipe bans have been announced so it’s really good news. It just means that I’m indoors for most of the day and starting to go a little bananas. I’m not complaining. I like being indoors. I quite like going bananas. I’ve done lots of French work and it’s going very well. It’s just that, my conversations with the cat are becoming increasingly weird. Also, after nearly three days of rain, I need a week of solid sunshine. I think we all do.

Through the front door I can see steam rising off the field. That’s nice.

I had to spray Maddie with insecticide again today. It took her a while to forgive me, but she’s back on my lap now, suckling in her sleep. She is a rapacious little swine and no mistake, but I do adore her. On Friday night I’m afraid I rather agreed to take another kitten when I get back from my August jaunt to London. I fear I may become a proper madman in the winter.

Two friends came to visit last week. Because I have not asked their permission to write about them, I am going to give them fake names. I am going to call them Fay and Ray. Fay said, ‘You’ll be getting snowed in here big time in the winter. It’ll be like that Stephen King book.’

‘What, Misery?’ I said, stupidly. Then the conversation took a detour but I realised yesterday while I was writing on the walls that she must have meant The Shining. They get snowed in in The Shining, don’t they. And Jack Torrance goes insane trying to write a novel and becomes your classic knife-wielding maniac.

Hmm.

I’ve got to get a moped.

The sun has gone in.

Wednesday 13th–Monday 18th July

Apart from Saturday night, which was for the most part excellent, and was spent with lots of people, this is the longest period of solitude I’ve experienced since moving out here. I am not daunted.

Friday and Saturday I worked hard in the field, sawing, lopping, dragging and piling all of the rest of the broom. Apart from a few seedlings, I’m pretty sure I got the lot. I also stood the fence around the field back up where it had been knocked down by fallen trees or pulled down by nasty broom and bramble. It’s actually starting to look a tiny bit like I believe it once must have – which is to say glorious. Next round of ethnic cleansing will take out the bracken and the rest of the errant bramble. Then the long grass. And once the long grass has gone, we will very much be talking. I need to get a book of Limousin flora and fauna so I can start putting a name to things.

Saturday was fun, and included my first dinner invitation, which I am unable to accept because I am an idiot without a driving licence (et un con sans Mobilette). The woman who invited me to dinner told me something about France that I didn’t know. She told me that Limousin is unlike any other province in France in that it is unique in having such vast amounts of uninhabited space and such gargantuan distances between isolated pockets of human civilisation. In other words, it is one of the most remote areas of Western Europe and I am stranded in the middle of it without an engine to my name. Oh, and my back tyre has a puncture.

I am working on these things. I will not be beaten. I will prevail.

The last couple of days I have been forced indoors by bad weather where I have been reading the French dictionary I have. It’s very good. A real page-turner.

Bonne journée.