C'est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France, page 17
My embarrassment may have had something to do with the fact that I didn't own any gym wear. I had a T-shirt on, but I don't own sports shorts, tracksuit bottoms or anything like that; clothing shouldn't have an elasticated waist in my opinion, so I was just in my pants and in the mirror I looked like a sexual deviant trying some new flamboyant onanistic contraption.
What I needed was an exercise regime that didn't threaten either my dignity or my wardrobe, and modern technology was literally at hand. I started playing the Wii. The tennis game on the Wii, according to my brief Internet research, is a decent calorie burner, as is the boxing, and so I'd taken to spending an hour a day getting all sweaty playing both. To be honest, I do more tennis than boxing. The boxing game, while clearly more exacting and therefore beneficial, kept randomly choosing women characters as my opponents and it just felt wrong to be trying to knock them out. The tennis on the other hand I seem to be really good at, so it ticked all the right boxes.
What this form of exercise, in fact any form of exercise, offered was a decent excuse not to be doing any real work. By now I really should have been making a proper effort to write a stand-up set in French, or at least book a French-language gig but, I argued, I wasn't gigging anywhere in any language if I couldn't fit into my trousers.
Natalie watched me for a while as I was trying to show off. 'Your opponents don't seem to be very good,' she said.
'Yeah, or…' I hesitated while theatrically gathering my breath, 'maybe I'm great.'
She wasn't falling for that. When we first met I had told Natalie that I'd actually won Junior Wimbledon and she'd believed me. For about five years in those pre-Google days she'd believed me. She's believed nothing I've said ever since.
Samuel was doing his homework on the kitchen table and, without saying anything, wandered over, took the Wii remote from my hand and pressed a few buttons. I started my next match and didn't win a point.
'What have you done?' I whined.
'You were on the easiest setting, it was too easy for you,' he replied.
'But it's no fun anymore.' I stropped and turned the thing off.
I went over to the kitchen and was faced by 'this month's' culinary tradition, France really doesn't let up on these things, the annual boulangerie delicacy of pâté de Pâques, or Easter pastry. The pâté de Pâques is a cross between a scotch egg and a sausage roll and it's absolutely gorgeous; high-quality meat topped with hard-boiled egg, wrapped in deliciously light pastry and about a metre long sitting on top of the boulangerie counter asking you, almost coquettishly, how many slices you want. It's around for about a month and I can't resist the stuff.
I guiltily picked up a not-insignificant slice and bit into it, noticing that everyone was staring at me as I did so.
'You won't be fit enough to catch goats if you keep eating things like that!' said Maurice.
'Every cloud, Maurice…' I said, 'every cloud.'
Cross Words
It could be argued that my expanding girth – and let's keep these things in proportion, I kept reminding people, 'I am still fairly slender' – was the result of contentment. I was busy; Natalie was busy too; her lessons had taken off to the extent that fitting them all in had become an issue, financially we were back in the black following the sinking, hopefully temporarily, of Les Champs Créatifs and though my stand-up debut in French was a constant 'back-of-the-mind niggle', it wasn't until November, so there was plenty of leeway there. And it was spring too – anything seems possible in the spring.
In The Moon's a Balloon, David Niven quotes a Chinese proverb, 'When everything in the garden is at its most beautiful, an ill wind blows the seeds of weeds and suddenly, when least expected, all is ugliness.' In other words, my contentment didn't last long and I can pinpoint the exact moment when rural living, once again, rose up, teeth bared and took a whacking great lump out of my backside.
I had reinstalled the well pump after its necessary winter hibernation and, for the first time ever, had managed it in one go and with no recourse to visit, and revisit, Pascal at the local quincaillerie (hardware store cum handyman advice centre) for parts, tools, non-shorn piping and a shoulder to cry on. Even Manuel was impressed. This year it had taken 20 minutes.
It lasted two days.
The well pump is vital. For most of the year it feeds water all around the property from the stables to the allotment to the swimming pool; there is a vast, subterranean network of pipes and hoses, so when the pump fails to retain its pressure the fear is always that somewhere underground there is a leak and then we would be in serious trouble.
Getting the pump to work is a matter of rewiring, replumbing, repressurising and, hopefully, rejoicing when the water eventually comes gushing out of the top of the thing like we've struck oil. I get drenched in the process, the children laugh and winter is declared officially over. But after two days it broke down, and though water was still reaching far-flung taps and irrigation systems, the pump was straining to do its job and not holding the pressure. I set about the thing with sweary abandon, isolating this and tweaking that, so that every half an hour or so we had the gushing fountain, the soaking dad and the giggling kids. This is all very well if it happens once or twice, but after about eight times the humour leaves the situation entirely and the kids see their dad in a pitiful cycle of sodden pain, anger and misery that will stay with them always. Like You've Been Framed on repeat, it's not funny anymore, just cruel.
On top of this, the goats, en masse this time, had broken into the orchard again and my good humour was now completely spent. I was ready to sell up and move into a bedsit on my own somewhere that would at least promise running water and a livestock-free fruit bowl. Natalie was too busy to deal with the goats, as she was at that moment helping the vet file Junior's teeth, and I don't mean alphabetise them and store them away. There was an ominous silence coming from where I thought there should be lots of neighing and admonishing, but when I rounded the corner I could see why. The vet, in truth larger than either of the horses, had attached Junior to what looked like an equine harmonica holder, but which held his lips back and opened his mouth at the same time. It was a fearful contraption, and while she set about Junior's teeth with what looked like a pneumatic drill Natalie was trying her best to hold Junior back and his tongue to one side, even though the livid beast had been sedated. She was, in truth, struggling to do so and Junior, not used to such ignominy, was staring wild-eyed at the vet as though the minute he was released he was going to tear her apart.
When I appeared, soaking wet and apparently covered in sopping rust, his demeanour changed and rather than the maniacal, swivel-eyed look he was giving the vet he stared at me instead in a much calmer, much colder way. I've seen documentaries about how former Heavyweight Boxing World Champion Mike Tyson used to effectively beat his opponents before a punch had been thrown just with the steely-eyed, murderous stare he gave them when they entered the ring; it was like that, and I decided to back away and deal with the goats myself before I was roped in to separate Junior and the vet.
I had to stop the goats from getting into the orchard somehow. Once again this spring I had been looking forward to the start of the chutney season, which traditionally begins with the cherries in May, and eventually finishes with the medlar fruit in late November. I had bought hundreds of mini, hotel-sized 'breakfast' jars, I bought some nice paisley material to use on the jar lids and a new set of labels all ready for this year's La Maison Moore chutney production, and I was desperate to get started. I still, even now, have some in stock from previous years, but when I hand them out to people they read the label and then look at me and say things like, 'Oh, that's lovely, thanks. January 2010 you made this, yes? Erm, is it still edible?'
It's still perfectly OK to eat, the jars are always sterilised and are either completely airtight or have a special paraffin seal. These things will last forever, they'd survive a nuclear attack, but in this day and age where even 'natural bottled water' and yoghurts, yoghurts for Heaven's sake, have best before dates, handing over a jar of chutney that's a few years old is greeted with a suspicious look and the obvious misgiving that you might be trying to poison the recipient. Cherry production, for the first time in a couple of years had gone well, though, and it was good to be back in the fruit business again. In the previous few springs I'd been like the eponymous character Jean de Florette in Marcel Pagnol's novel, stomping confusedly around my produce willing it to grow and unable to understand why it wouldn't, and all the time my family watching me, eager for things to turn around for me, but deep down feeling that I was doomed to failure. Well, this year seemed to be different and I wasn't going to let a load of hairy-arsed goats ruin it for me.
My much-vaunted chutney business had suffered miserably because of the now apparently annually atrocious spring weather. There have been no cherries because early spring was too cold, then it's been too wet for the plums; the quince tree seemed to go on strike last year in protest, the pear and walnut trees didn't look well and Junior, just to cement his place at the top of the Spiteful Horse rankings, like it was ever in doubt and despite him still being obviously some way from full fitness, had eaten my apple trees. Eaten my apple trees. He knows full well it makes him ill, but he does it anyway because severe colic is a small price to pay if it goes some way towards ruining my life.
When the weather is bad in the UK I'm often asked if 'it's as bad where you live?' I say asked – it's never really a question in the proper sense, but more a plea for confirmation; that while the UK's weather did its usual post-apocalyptic thing and clouds continued to gather like angry mobs on a street corner, all violent energy and aggression, there was somewhere – not too far away – where the sun was busy getting its thing on. More often than not I'm honest enough to admit that no, the weather is pretty dreadful at home in France too and this will be met with a sad shake of the head and a doleful look in the eyes as if this is indeed 'the end of days'. Sometimes the pleas for a better weather report are so desperate that I don't have the heart to be honest and just offer an 'oh yes, it's glorious' instead, not wishing to heap misery upon misery. The truth though, is that while the UK was being battered senseless by endless storms and rain, France was too, but it was slightly warmer which was sending the garden into full-on triffid mode.
The result of this climatic- and equine-inspired mayhem was that I had been bereft of fruit. We'd planted a fig tree but it was as yet too small for any decent produce, and in the autumn we planned to plant some more apple and pear trees, which I will defend viciously. But it's in spring that I need the stuff. Chutney making is not just a hobby, it's my get-out, my escape. Standing vacantly over a boiling pot of fruit, wine vinegar and various spices, churning away absent-mindedly with my wooden spoon, helps the relentless self-absorption of stand-up comedy. If you stand next to me while I'm stirring a pan of nascent chutney, it would be like holding a shell up to your ear, you'd hear a light zephyr and soft rolling waves, there is nothing going on in my head. Nothing at all – and it's joyful.
I wasn't in the mood for goats, anyway. I'd arrived back home early that morning from one night in London where I had been to see the much-vaunted stand-up comedy show in French at the Comedy Store. It's a show they put on twice a year, French comedians are taken over to London and they perform to an audience of French expats and assorted Francophones. It was sold out, about 450 people, and was a far more raucous affair than I'd expected, though I don't know why I'd expected anything else. There isn't much of a stand-up circuit as such in France, there's no tradition of it like there is in the UK, but that's all changing. In a similar way to how rap grew from the ghettos to the suburbs in America, stand-up in France is growing at a pace from the banlieue of the bigger French cities and being driven largely by ethnic minorities, particularly those of North African descent, who feel disenfranchised from 'the system' as it is, and who are using stand-up to get their message across; to have their voices heard. To a fan of the simple concept of stand-up comedy, or humour as a tool of expression, it's very exciting and has a raw, edgy quality to it that perhaps has been mainly lost in British stand-up comedy since the 'alternative comedy' of the early 1980s. But exciting, raw and challenging are all very well from the cold-eyed observer; from the point of view of 'man in suit using barely passable second language to get foreigners to laugh' it was seriously daunting and quite, quite worrying. A lot of work would need to be done.
I had gone to London just for the one night and had not slept for nearly thirty hours, and though I can normally manage this in some kind of good-ish humour, Poitiers airport left its mark on my return. The ticket machine for the car park was en panne (out of order) as usual, so I had to queue to pay at the electronic barrier where there wasn't an official car park attendant but an opportunistic tramp who was putting the tickets in the machine for each driver while expecting some recompense. I don't actually mind things like this; my car is right-hand drive and the barrier designed for a left-hand drive, so it should help to smooth the process. The tramp though was in an even worse mood than me.
'Why have you got the ticket in your mouth you idiot?' he barked at me. 'It's a magnetic strip! You'll break it!'
'What?!' I started, a bit taken aback.
'Take it out of your mouth! It won't work!'
'Sod off!' I responded and proceeded to stretch myself across the passenger seat in order to cut him out of the entire process.
'Well, it won't work!' he said again. 'Idiot!'
He was wrong, it did work, but as I managed to try and sit back upright without pulling a hernia, stare him down triumphantly and give him the finger at the same time, my foot slipped and the car went careering off on to a verge, narrowly missing a fence post as I grappled with the steering wheel and slammed the horn for some reason. I drove off with as much dignity as I could, as the tramp, disappearing in my rear-view mirror, shook his head like he'd known all along that that would happen.
I knew then it would be a long day, and now with the pump playing up and the goats playing out it was getting longer. In truth, we had tried to re-home Chewbacca. He was the worst of the goats and we suspected him of leading the other two astray, maybe that's what you get when you name an animal after a rebellious, gun-toting Wookiee, but there had been only two responses to our adverts (pleas), both from people we suspected of being possible suppliers to the 'value, frozen beef burger' market. The goat vet in Valençay was unsurprised by this lack of interest; we even asked if he knew anyone who needed a goat.
'Ha! You must be joking!' he laughed. 'Goats are monumental pains in the arse – everyone knows that.' And he's a goat vet! He's supposed to be a fan.
It had reached the point where we could not countenance spending any more money on goat security, but if we could just get rid of Chewbacca, the obvious ringleader, then we felt the others would behave. It wasn't looking like a likely prospect, though, and I approached the raided orchard with a weary sense of déjà vu, chuntering loudly about exactly what I'd like to see happen to Chewbacca. Toby had taken himself off somewhere when the vet arrived suspecting that he was in for a good seeing-to no doubt, but he now reappeared and with a prize.
On close inspection it turned out to be the lower leg of a deer, but for one glorious moment I thought Toby, not hitherto known for his intelligence, had taken my angry rants and performed a drunken knight, Thomas Becket 'will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest' scenario and solved the escaping goat problem by simply disabling the creature in the same way that a cyclist might remove his front wheel.
'Good boy,' I said, 'good boy. Well, it's an idea, old son…' Man I was tired.
It just seemed to be one of those days, even a simple shopping trip with Samuel had proved more problematic than usual. The alarm from the checkout till security 'gates' went off the second I went near it. By now I had been up for a full day and a half and the loudly beeping alarm startled me, shaking me awake. It's the kind of gate alarm system that's usually kept by shop doorways, but our local supermarket has them on every till and they're more sensitive than a hormonal teenager with a skin complaint. I made a big show of emptying the bags in front of the checkout assistant who eyed me sceptically. Samuel was with me too and he could see that already, only five seconds into this confrontation, I was losing my temper.
'And your pockets, Monsieur?' said the assistant and I threw down my wallet, some loose change, a tube ticket and, adding to the assistant's suspicion, a sachet of tomato ketchup. 'Try and pass through again please,' she ordered.
I did and the alarm went off again. She stared at me, trying to figure out where I'd hidden whatever it was I was trying to steal.
'Maybe it's your machine?' I said angrily, while Samuel backed away quite obviously thinking that my shaking anger was caused solely by rage and not exhaustion. She asked her colleague for help while the entire shop gathered to stare at me. I had put my arms up and by now was talking loudly, proclaiming my innocence. 'Is that a new shirt?' said the colleague suspiciously and clearly thinking I'd grabbed it off the shelf.
