We started the week by going with everyone to the local market
in Marcigny. Mixed in with the usual fruit and veg stalls were cages of
chickens, rabbits and lots of other small farm animals. The strangest thing though,
was how quiet it was, none of the UK style market patter, the traders clearly
just rolled up, unloaded their goods onto a table and sat back waiting for you
to approach them. After a wander round the market we stopped off for a
lunchtime coffee before heading back.
So back on the farm it was time to start work. First job of
the day; build a fire pit. Well I say build it, there was already a purpose
built metal drum as the core, my part was to shift a load of tiles and other stone
around the edge and then pound it all with a sledge hammer for a couple of
hours until the pieces were about the size of a 50p. Much better workout than a
session at the gym!
Today was also Matt and Roberta’s last day , after a two
week stop on the farm they were heading off to Nantes for the next step on
their journey. Malc and Jen decided to fire up the pizza oven to give them a
send off meal. Now I know we haven’t got to Italy yet so maybe I should reserve
judgement but so far those were definitely the best pizzas I’ve ever
tasted.
More than a few bottles of wine later and we made our way
over to the fire pit, where Malc got out his guitar and took requests to play rock and blues tunes.
Eventually the fire began to die down and we decided to call
it a night. However there was still time for one more big surprise from the
French countryside. Being properly out in the middle of nowhere means there
isn’t a single light for as far as you can see in every direction.
When you
look up, the sky is incredible. It’s nothing like the handful of stars you can
pick out back home, there are literally millions upon millions of them, and on
top of that you can clearly see the white streak of the milky way across the
centre of the sky.
Everyone had a bit of a lie in this morning, well except Iain
who is always up with the sun, and had already started work on the roof by the
time the rest of us dragged ourselves out of bed.
Before breakfast Becki and I went over to feed the chickens
and made an important discovery........chickens are racist. There are only two
black chickens and all the others chase them off whenever they try to get any of
the food. We were later informed that this is actually because the black chickens
are the youngest and so are lowest down in the hierarchy of chicken society. Incidentally this is the origin of the phrase
‘Pecking Order’. See this blog isn’t just entertaining you’re also learning
something.
Also there is one, which Becki has named Joanna Lumley
Chicken... decide for yourselves!
Our main job of the day was to collect up a bunch of tiles
that were scattered in the undergrowth and sort them ready to go back up on the
roof. Now this might not sound like a great job, but it does have one main
selling point, it’s too time consuming to move the piles of tiles by hand, so
instead you get to drive the dumper.
Day after day of 40 degrees temperatures had to break sooner
or later and when it did, boy was it was a big one. We could hear continuous
thunder rolling in for about an hour in the early evening, and as the dark
clouds approached we went to stand in the garden and watch the lightning
strikes in the distance inch closer.
One minute it was completely still and then suddenly the
wind hit, within just a couple minutes it had grown into a powerful gale. We
dashed around quickly trying to tie anything loose down and got completely
drenched in the process.
As much as we wanted to stay outside at this point the
wind was throwing some fairly big things around (including the blue door you
can see in the video below) so we had to retreat under the terrace at the edge
of the house and watch from there. The
centre of the cyclone must have passed right through because one moment the wind
was going West to East and the next it had completely switched around. Here is
a video pretty much at the height of the storm. I'm working on getting this uploaded for you non Facebook users but its proving tricky!
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