Last Friday dawned dull and drizzly. At 11.00am, after our morning visit to the llamas, we called at Mme Burgat’s house as arranged. Despite the less-than-perfect weather, Mme Burgat insisted that we should still go to look at her land, and we duly whisked her off in our mud-covered land rover, following her directions along the slippy tracks until we got as far as we could in the car. Again, despite the fact that it was raining, and very muddy, and she was only wearing toeless, backless sandals and no coat, Mme Burgat insisted that she would be fine holding my arm and her walking stick, to proceed at a snail’s pace down the last 100 meteres of undriveable track, to get to the entrance to her ‘field’.
It has obviously been a very long time since she has been anywhere near it, and she was somewhat horrified to discover how overgrown it had become. In fact it was impossible to get into it without some serious ‘debrousaillage’ happening first, so after a difficult (and a bit scarey) turning manoevre, we returned to Mme Burgat’s house, to look at her very big, very old cadastral plans of the bits of land she owns, and to hear the stories of her husband’s love of the countryside, and his sudden death aged 59yrs, while out in the countryside, collecting snails.
When Sunday arrived with a bit of sunshine, Simon headed off to Mme Burgat’s field with his trusty brush-cutter, while I did the rounds with our dog Max, to visit and feed the llamas. When I eventually arrived at Mme Burgat’s field, Simon had managed to cut a narrow path through the blackthorn, down one side of the field.
I approached with a sinking heart, realising that, if we agreed to use this land, another big load of hot and difficult work lay ahead of us before it would be fit for llama occupation. Simon, in a more optimistic mood, struck out through the middle of the sea of blackthorn, heading for the middle of the enclosure, to see if there was any open, grassy space that would make the land usable. I looked for a shady spot to leave the dog, while getting the tree-loppers and camera from the car. Then, (clearly determined that Simon should not continue to be cheerful while I was feeling so depressed) I very cleverly managed to shut the heavy back door of the land rover, on his camera. Twice.
I honestly didn’t do it on purpose – I had put it down whilst faffing with the dog, forgotten it was there, and tried to shut the door. When the door jammed the first time, I didn’t see what had stopped it shutting, and so slammed it again even harder. When it STILL didn’t shut, I looked again more carefully, and then noticed a little black (slightly crushed) object that I realised, with horror, was the camera in its leather case. With sweating hands, I took it out the case, hoping beyond hope that by some miracle of anti-physics that it would have survived the double blow intact. (I can be stupidly optimistic sometimes). I stared at the strange purple-yellow patterns on the digital screen, recognising the telltale signs of terminal screen-crack. It looked just like the broken screen on the car battery solar-charger that I had managed to squash when loading the car back in March. I switched it on, and the moving parts moved. Perhaps, since it also has a viewfinder, it might still be possible to take photos?
A few sick moments passed while I debated putting the camera back where I’d found it and pretending to know nothing about it, or perhaps telling Simon that the wind had blown the door shut on it. How could I have been so stupid and clumsy? How could this not totally spoil his day?
Of course, the childish urge to avoid taking reponsibility for my actions quickly passed, and I shambled back down the blackthorn-strewn path-of-doom to confess my sin.
Simon, bless him, was cool as a cucumber about it. Lessons in non-attachment seem to come along thick and fast these days. I swear that despite all my worthy efforts at self-improvement, Simon is racing ahead of me along the path of enlightenment, without even trying.
Anyway, I followed him through the second prickly lane he had cut, to the centre of the field, where the blackthorn thicket gradually gave way to a forest of ash saplings and some very long grass. I took a couple of photos using the view-finder to frame the pictures, and discovered that the zoom didn’t work either. (Bum. It won’t be as simple as just getting a new screen for it off ebay, then!)
Standing in the middle of this ‘clearing’ it was hard to see the boundaries, and it became obvious that fencing this land would not be as straightforward as we might have hoped. But then it never is!
I guess we’ll manage. It’ll be hard, but it’ll get done and the difficulty will pass. At least the land is only gently sloping, rather than steep, and is pretty much rectangular.
And Mme Burgat will be so very pleased to see it brought back from the brink of blackthorn annihilation, and used again as animal pasture, as it was when she and her husband were young and full of dreams.
And we still have another area of her land to go and look at, as soon as the weather is reliably dry, and the tracks up the hillside to the south of the village are passable enough for an old lady to engage in another countryside trip down memory lane.
