In which we meet Zazie, the incredible gamboling lamb who walks like a dog, pets like a cat, and plays like a puppy, and in which we furthermore burn the uninflammable ‘Rolls-Royce’ of coal, ward off the hygiene inspectors, impersonate an aficionado of capraphilia, bury a sheep, give birth to a goat, squeeze a few teats (as one does), name check Bin Laden, and encounter considerable duckshit and not a little snow. Oh, and write a novel in between times.

Click here for an excuse

February 2005

CAST:
Diarist – muggins
Jeannette – muggins’ helpmeet
Amelie – Jeannette’s granddaughter
Jean-François – Jeannette’s son, Amelie’s dad
Lola – Amelie’s friend
Paul and Marusja – owners of the farm
Zazie – a lamb
Sailor – a dog
Assorted ungulates, poultry, donkeys, dogs and foxes

Thursday 17th

Reached the farm last night, though for a while it seemed we might not.

Having set off in the old Peugeot 205, heedless of everyone mocking us for undertaking a 500-mile journey in a 20-year-old car, we got as far as Nantes (where we were due to visit an exhibition of etchings by Jorj Morin) only to find that the motor was overheating. Pulled over in the centre of town and opened the bonnet to let it cool off, but when we tried to close it, the hinge jammed leaving the windscreen end of the bonnet sticking up in the air. Eventually forced it shut, buckling the top of the bonnet in the process. Set off again and again the motor started overheating . . . and steaming. Pulled over once more, only we could no longer open the neatly buckled bonnet. Jeannette went to call the insurance and breakdown services, but couldn't get through to anyone. By the time she got back, the motor had cooled off. Set off yet again, found the exhibition centre, overheated yet again. Happily there was a garage 500 yards down the road. Unhappily it was a Citroen garage and they didn't have the right to work on other types of car. But the mechanic was friendly and came out to have a look. Transpired the problem was minor, something to do with the heating system jamming the radiator, and in 10 minutes he'd fixed both bonnet and radiator. Visited the exhibition, which was great, then on the road again.

10 miles from Nantes, the petrol light comes on. 15 miles to find a garage.

Nothing but unleaded petrol.

"Where's the Super?"

"It doesn't exist anymore. Since two days you can only buy unleaded."

This was distressing news. For a nasty moment, we thought we were going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with a heavily loaded car that required a prohibited fuel. Turns out that we have to fill up with unleaded fuel, then buy a bottle of lead concentrate or something noxious like that, which we add to the unleaded fuel so that we can carry on polluting – and rolling.

Less drama the next day, but bitterly cold and snow forecast everywhere.

Now on the farm, we have a five-day-old lamb in the kitchen that has to be fed from the bottle every three hours and spends the rest of the time frolicking – didn't know what that meant before, but in the kitchen it means leaping two feet in the air and kicking down the frying pans. Within the next fortnight the goats are due to give birth to two, three or four kids. I believe we're going to be busy.

Snow forecast for Saturday when Amelie is due to arrive.

Friday 18th

Busy building provisional shelters for when the kids are born, revising who eats what when, and rigging up a separate shelter for Zazie the lamb, who was spending rather too much time pissing on the kitchen carpet.

Main development of the day has been a slight rise in the temperature outside (it might be warm enough to snow) and a large rise in the temperature indoors. The latter is due to Jeannette spending hours over the stove (a stove designed for burning sawdust, it should be said), poking what Paul claims is ‘the Rolls-Royce of coal’, but which seems to contain rather too much uninflammable rock to be the Rolls-Royce of anything very much. Jeannette and Marusja have also resurrected an ancient petrol stove, which behaved like a small and temperamental bomb when they were trying to get it going, but seems to be working well enough now, so long as you don’t breathe too deeply within its vicinity. The next challenge is going to be palpating the goats’ teats to test whether birth is imminent. This is necessary since they’re young, have no experience of giving birth (nor do I, for that matter, but there’s nobody palpating my teats), and have to be hustled into the birthing room when their time is due so they don’t just drop the kids in the bush somewhere and saunter off leaving them to get on with it. Oh, and we’ve got to be careful when circling the donkeys, as one of them has taken to kicking anything that passes behind her. So, in brief, as long as we’re not frozen, incinerated, or asphyxiated, and the goats accept that they’re not born to give birth free, and the kids don’t get lost, and the donkeys don’t kick anybody’s teeth in, everything should be fine.

Eggs! I nearly forgot the eggs. Between the geese and the ducks and the hens, we’re getting about ten eggs a day, so the cholesterol should be looking good after a fortnight. Mind you, there are about fifteen places where eggs are being laid and five of those sites have to be left unmolested as several birds are broody, including one sterile duck that’s covering everybody else’s eggs. She’s going to be in for a bit of a shock when they hatch and turn out to look nothing like her or one another. Not sure whether this is due while we’re here or not.

More anon. Old MacDonald.

Saturday 19th

There's a change. The first morning it had been so cold inside the house, the oranges had frozen. This morning it was so warm outside the house that everything was covered in snow. 3 inches on the car, 2 on the ground. Jeannette a bit anxious as she has to drive to Toulouse to fetch Amelie from the airport, but the roads are clear, so should be alright. The snow has also solved the problem of the pregnant goats, since it's now too risky to leave them out in case they give birth during the night and the kids die of exposure. So all the pregnant ones have been locked into the nursery. As for the broody geese, they sit for thirty days, so we're not going to have a lot of frosted goslings.

Went for a walk this morning with the dog. The landscape is lovely, the oaks, pine and juniper rimed with snow, everything else under a crisp white blanket. Sadly, the temperature continues to rise, so the snow is rapidly turning to mud. However, come morning we're due for another snowfall and it's meant to carry on like that all week . . . snow and melt, snow and melt.

8pm Goats, geese, sheep, ducks, hens, the whole ark put to bed, donkeys &c fed, Paul and  Marusja gone, curry made, stove glowing red, my glass as well, and all that remains is to see if Jeannette and Amelie make it back from the airport . . . this after learning mid-afternoon, long after Jeannette's departure, that there was an airport strike in Paris. Several frantic phone calls later and we discover that Jean-François got Amelie on a priority list so that she ended up taking a flight earlier than the one she was meant to take. Meanwhile, hail and snowstorms have whitened the farm again. Don't know what the state of the hill up from the village is, but it's entirely possible Amelie will start her visit with a nighttime walk. The only other drawback is that Zazie, all frolicsome and glug-glug-glug with Marusja, has to be virtually force fed by me. Hopefully, come the morning she'll be hungry. Otherwise the pastoral duties are going to be a bit tiresome for both parties.

Sunday 20th

Jeannette and Amelie arrived at 9 last night, the roads clear. A hard frost this morning, but no snow. Zazie drank her first bottle greedily then got picky again. Problems? Nothing imminent except that we had a call from the people who dropped Paul and Marusja off at the airport to say all was going well and . . . and . . . the hygiene inspectors might visit, in which case we must, under no circumstances, let them inside the house! The prohibition is entirely understandable. Any hygiene inspector exposed to the main house would probably have to take early retirement with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Quite how we are going to prevent them coming in is another matter.

7pm No sign of the hygiene inspectors, but this being a Sunday, that's no very great surprise. Zazie is offering only minor resistance to her milk and is frolicking like mad when we let her out. Only new problem, walking with Amelie: she's slower than the baddy's horse. Mind you, Sailor is even worse. Faced with a very minor off-path scramble, he point blank refused to continue. Definitely not a mountain dog. When I think of Bati (our recently deceased Old English Sheepdog) climbing, paw by paw, a five metre rockface with a metal ladder set into the stone!

Monday 21st

All well. Zazie has so accustomed herself to me she actually breaks off drinking her milk to take a sniff of my hand and, when I take her out for a bit of exercise, does her frolicking at my feet, following me round the pound. No sign of the hygiene inspectors, which is just as well, as there's precious little sign of hygiene, either. Every time I open a drawer or lift a bundle of rags in the main house, there's another small and manifestly baneful debacle awaiting, often as not with a good crop of penicillin growing on it. New developments? I've started writing my novel, after a fashion, and evidently inspired by my tapping, the budgerigars, who are just in front of me, have started fornicating – after a fashion.

4.30pm The afternoon feed and a blizzard arrives. Mild but dense. Fairytale stuff feeding the animals under a gentle snowfall. Tried to persuade Amelie to stand still on the corner till tomorrow morning so we could have a snowman, but she declined.

Tuesday 22nd

Busy, bitty day, hence the telegraphese. Woke to white, then blue skies opened out and a warm (warmish) sun for the rest of the day. Took Ben (Paul and Marusja’s mythomanic 84-year old friend) to the opticians, whom he bemused somewhat by demanding the cheapest pair of glasses in the world because he kept losing them, promptly followed by the announcement that he'd never worn glasses before and certainly hadn't used that optician, despite being on their computer records.

Zazie frolicking like crazy. If she's taken out after a feed, you can hear the milk sloshing about her stomach as she gambols about. The pregnant goats meanwhile, interned against the snow, have celebrated the improving weather by liberating themselves, and were found strolling about the field calmly grazing. Inquisitiveness was their downfall though. Hearing me hammering to escape-proof their pen, they came in to see what was happening and I smartly shut the door.

No news from the hygiene inspectors.

Wednesday 23rd

Neglected to recount the following anecdote in yesterday's diary. Going to fix the goats' pen, I was suddenly jabbed in the testicle by a thorn. No great surprise that a thorn should work its way into my clothes given the rural activities, so I proceeded, tugging at my crotch in an attempt to keep it off the skin. But every time I bent or twisted, it jabbed again. Eventually, in the goat pen/shelter, I dropped my trousers and pants, found the offending article and cleared it. Only afterwards did it occur to me it might have looked a little odd to an outside observer to see me tottering bandy-legged across the field tugging at my crotch then dropping my trousers in the goat pen.

Jeannette woke this morning poleaxed by flu. She is very tired and finding the farm all a bit overwhelming.

Took Zazie for a walk in the big field this morning. She belts off then comes back to hop around my feet. The snuffling of my hand during feeding is, I think, an instinctive search for a second teat.

Thursday 24th

No news is good news. All quiet on the western front . . . apart from the honking geese, whining dog, braying donkeys, chirping budgies, farting (that's what it sounds like) parrot, and bleating lamb. The latter is more endearing by the day, damn nearly jumping into our arms when we go to feed her and doing some hilarious acrobatics about our feet when we take her for her 'walk'. I'm progressing with my novel, but so rapidly in terms of what's to be told, I suspect it will be more of a novella in the end, therefore doubly unsellable.

The rest of France including Brittany (where the motorway is closed) is under snow. Here everything has melted save for a few strips in the lee of buildings.

Hygiene inspectors still staying at home.

Friday 25th

I begin to suspect the hygiene inspectors could stay at home and we could go to them. Went to fetch a new stock of the Rolls-Royce of coal again today and, as always, had to have a shower afterwards – a cold shower, of course, since the hot water pipe is outside the house. Shower notwithstanding, all I have to do is blow my nose or spit and there's enough toxic looking black stuff to have me sectioned. I now understand why miners have traditionally been considered so belligerent. Leaking black stuff from every pore, I'd be a bit belligerent, too. Despite that, the coal is of an increasingly shoddy quality, largely stone with a moderate black varnish, passing through the stove unscathed. Jeannette not unscathed. As I mentioned, the stove was designed for burning sawdust. Scrabbling about to extract the unburned stone, she is constantly burning her hands. Non-stop effort means the temperature in the house gets up to 8º by the end of the day.

Fine day today, but Sunday is forecast to be the coldest day of the year in the region. In view of the fact that I had to break up the duck ponds with a pickaxe this morning (not the ice ON the duck ponds, but the ponds themselves, which were frozen solid), this is mildly alarming.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Saturday 26th

A fine sunny day. Zazie and I now enjoy such mutual confidence that I take her out for walks on unfenced land. If she strays too far, all we have to do is call her or run in the opposite direction and she comes bounding after us. Pity such a pretty little creature should grow into such a bony-nosed beast as her parents.

According to the wine merchant in the market, tomorrow it gets cold and Wednesday it starts to snow again!

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Sunday 27th

Cold this morning, but with a fine blue sky and gentle sun, so we take Zazie for her constitutional, I do a bit of writing, then we have an early lunch, after which Jeannette and Amelie go to Cahors to fetch Jean-Francois and Amelie's friend Lola. I wash, tidy, prepare the evening meal, then go out to find the sky has whitened and, as far as the eye can see, a very fine, very light snow is endeavoring to fall.

Each PM there is a slot on the radio featuring a children's story. Without fail, these revolve around eating. Two days ago, we had Petit Flocon de Neige (Little Snowflake) munching, to my alarm, his way through everything that came his way. It was only after I expressed my dismay at this surreal and, in the circumstances, threatening turn of events that Jeannette explained Petit Flocon de Neige was meant to be a little Eskimo boy.

15 minutes later and the snow is thickening up and there's no sign of the others.

Zazie is always under my feet. This is not a figurative expression, but a literal description. Every third step has to be suspended to avoid stomping on her. Perhaps if I could just persuade her to lay on them while I'm writing . . .

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Monday 28th

Jeannette and co. got back OK yesterday.

Today, bright blue skies, but bitterly cold. A newly poured bucket of water sports a skin of ice after five minutes. The film of water left in the sink in the main house turns to a thin brittle glass after a similar time. Last night's snow settled then froze itself out of existence
The car 'overheating' . . . because the radiator is frozen solid. Flushed with hot water, burped, and filled with antifreeze, should be all right now – apart from the fan belt 'ringing' in the cold.

Zazie gets so domestic she's positively daffy. Her preferred activity is to lie in my arms being caressed. This may prove problematic when she's fully grown. It will be interesting to see if she remembers us next year. The goats we hand-reared two years ago haven't got a clue who we are. And just so long as we keep dolling out the food supplement, they don't care, either.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Tuesday 29th

Bright blue skies, warm sun, frozen ponds. Breaking the ice I get a mouthful of splashback that I suspect is basically diluted duck shit.

Returning last night from a 'walk' (read, game of blind man's buff amid the hay bales) with Lola and Amelie, the neighbour pulled over in his car to promise us a bottle of wine. This in consequence of my finding not one but two missing calves in as many days after he had moved his herd from one field to another. The second one I thought I must be saying something stupid, that it was the same calf purposefully left behind, but no, he was delighted. I guess they might have died eventually if left alone in this weather.

I progress with my novel. This is worth noting as it's nothing short of miraculous given that I never have more than an hour at a stretch in which to write and would not in any case want more given that the temperature in the room where I write is at freezing point – it's warmer when I have the door open for keeping an eye of Zazie. If the book were ever published, it would make a good tale, snatched moments between feeding Zazie the lamb, walking Sailor the dog, fighting off Bin Laden the billy-goat when he tries to scoff all the food . . .

Having realized we have a card with which I can phone without charging the costs to Paul and Marusja, I phone Mum. She's most concerned we don't catch Asian bird flu. I point out that the Asian birds are a bit thin on the ground hereabouts in mid-winter. Fail to mention that every time we fetch food for the other animals, we get a face full of pigeon, the pigeons having set up home in the granary. More than twelve pigeons in a colony cause diseases that can be caught by humans. Despite our best efforts on the first night (a bird a piece), there are fifteen pigeons here and more on the way. Keep quiet about the duck shit, too. Ho-hum.

And still no sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Wednesday 30th

Clearly got my dates muddled – I'm told it's the 2nd of March. Never mind. Lost days are indicative. Grim, dreary, wasted day taking Ben to pick up his glasses, dragging round shops, driving round circuitous lanes, eating more meat than we wanted . . . then just sitting about . . . everyone a bit fraught and irritable. Only Zazie looks cheerful.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors, though we did get an allegedly 'personal' call from someone this morning who couldn't pronounce Paul’s single syllable surname and wouldn't leave their own name.

7.30pm The mystery deepens. The phone's been cut! Either the hygiene inspectors are moving in or the roadworks down in the village have entailed some funny business.

Thursday 3rd of March

Back in the real world, at least as far as the calendar is concerned, and perhaps the climate, too. We've had bright blue skies for two days and yesterday the sun was positively hot. Spring is here, we declared. No it's not, said the sky. This morning, everything is under two inches of snow. Predictably beautiful, predictably problematic for keeping things clean and warm.

Snow melted quickly. We now go for walks with the dog and the lamb. Sounds like a pub, The Dog and Lamb.

The phone mystery has been solved, it was indeed due to the roadworks and is now reconnected. Tonight's puzzler, the Mystery of the Missing Sheep. Of four adult sheep, one has not been seen in 24-hours. This is not necessarily alarming as he's a loner (so much for 'following like sheep') and Amelie and Lola, who feed the sheep and goats in the morning, are still half asleep when they stumble out to their chosen chore. They probably wouldn't notice if a rhinoceros was trundling about the field. But I must check tomorrow.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Friday 4th

The Mystery of the Missing Sheep took a nasty turn this morning. Confirming that it did not attend the battle for breakfast, I went looking for it, and eventually found it under a bush, badly mauled and, to my horror, still alive. Much toing and froing later, it was resolved that it had to be put out of its misery, so the neighbour came round and slit its throat (I’d have done it myself, but knowing nothing about the dismantling of life, I feared I would only cause it more suffering). This after we had tenderly carried it to shelter and had been dribbling watered down milk between its lips in the hope that rehydration would put it back on its feet. But it was past resuscitating. Apparently a fox had got at it several days ago and been scared off before it could deliver the coup de grace. A pity I hadn't noticed it was missing before, if only to expedite the end. To be buried this afternoon.

Among our other charges, I forgot to mention (mainly because I forget to feed it), is a large carnivorous plant in the kitchen, into which we have to drop any dead flies we find. Gave it a cockroach the other day. Hope it doesn't die of dyspepsia.

Among the ducks, the Indian Runners (with whom we had so much hassle last Spring when they really were running, making a break for liberty and hurtling off down the lane) are most endearing. Long, thin and very upright, they are decidedly anthropomorphic. One in particular is a hoot. Unsure of himself but feeling he ought to try and intimidate anyone who approaches, he comes hopping at you, leaning slightly backward, for all the world like a cowardly braggart in a brawl, pretending to be aggressive, hoping his opponent will back off, but all the time keeping well back from danger.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Saturday 5th

Woke to the heaviest snowfall yet, three inches on the ground. The oak woods are wonderful and the ground is criss-crossed with a myriad of tracks, including hare, deer, rabbit, and fox. Ben is so alarmed by the snow that he wants to arrange for the town hall to bring us up a food parcel! That will not be required, but I'm hoping for another snowfall before this afternoon, so we can cancel a tea appointment with the couple whose daughter is accompanying Paul and Marusja on their trip. The mother more or less bullied us into coming and trying her blessed cake, despite our attempts to make polite excuses. This is the terrorism of hospitality, people so determined to be sociable that they are quite oblivious to the fact that their friendliness is a pain in the backside, or if not oblivious, worse, careless. We pray for snow.

It comes. Hallelujah!

6pm It's all melted, of course, but we're keeping quiet about that and watching the new lot fall, hoping it settles.

30 minutes later, just back from putting everybody to bed and the snow is falling thick and fast; another 3 inches for tomorrow, I would imagine.

Jeannette has begun a thorough cleaning of Paul and Marusja’s house, and come back predictably depressed as a result.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Sunday 6th

A thick sticky snow coats everything, even the wires of the fence. Otherwise a bright blue sky. (I appreciate that all this talk of 3-inches of snow may sound a little bizarre to anyone living in a region where the climate tries to kill you everytime you open the front door, but bear in mind that this is the South of France; you only have to spit and they think it’s a rainstorm, and a couple of flocons de neige are deemed as voracious as the little Eskimo boy.)

Midday, I take Zazie and Sailor for their daily shared constitutional round the large field, during which Zazie socializes with her kin (today this included nibbling on her father's ear) and I check on the pregnant goats. This time, one was missing. I eventually found her, afterbirth hanging out of her backside, forelegs perched on a bush, peering into a tangle of branches, evidently asking herself "What the bloody hell is that?” That was her kid, perhaps a half-hour old, with Sailor sniffing round the birthing ground. Crawled in and retrieved the kid and installed both mother and babe in the cabin. The kid's had the first milk, so hopefully has the vitamins and antibodies needed to survive. A welcome for Paul and Marusja, who are due back today.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.

Monday 7th

Paul and Marusja back safely. Zazie celebrates their return by inventing a new game: select a flock of geese or ducks then leap into the middle of them – they scatter in a most satisfying way.

Much chat, much busyness. No births.

Tomorrow, we leave. Jeannette's in a hurry to have a warm bath.

No sign of the hygiene inspectors.