Crickey...8:15, the dogs barking...I meant to get up an hour ago! The sun was shining, and the world outside had a silvery coating of frost. I quietly got up, washed and dressed with the dog following my bare feet attempting to lick them as I walked. Made it down the stairs, almost...the cat had vomited on the bottom stair. She has issues with the alien brand of cat food from the Lidl Bargain Supermarket...never again!
Clean up the mess, feed the cat, get bundled up, take the dog out. Stunning silent frozen morning sun! There are those moments when the world seems just...perfect!
Back in the house, I make coffee and bring a cup up stairs for Janet and myself and I turn on the ADSL box to connect it and ....it won't connect...I glance at the blinking lights from time to time, but it doesn't want to connect. Hmmmm.
The phone rings and it is my neighbor down the hill asking if my email is working, nope, hers neither. That's reassuring, because I know it is a system problem, not me.
So that's that. I have things to do, I have to roll two bales of hay down from the barn for the neighbors horses. I have some graphic work to do. I want to work on some furniture pieces, bring in firewood...walk the dog, again....
In fact, it's suddenly almost time for lunch! After lunch, the neighbor comes by in his tractor and we load the hay. I am tying up the door of the barn when a car arrives and it is a visit from our friend Claud. He is a 78 year old Marchand de Vente...a disappearing profession. He arranges sales of property and handles the legal work for the people here in the countryside. He was born here in Badefols d'Ans and his fatther was a mayor. He has done well for himself, a Marchand de Vente usually makes a part of the deal he arranges...a parcel of land here, a falling down house there. It mounts up. He's a pretty interesting fellow. He and his wife are members of quite a few organizations devoted to the preservation of Occitain Culture. They play musical instruments, the cornis which is a sort of bagpipe and his wife plays the vielle which is an instrument which is cranked and has wooden keys. They are the traditional instruments of the music of rural Southwestern Rural France. Occitain is the Patois, the pre French latin tongue spoken still by the peasant population.
We were happy to see Claud. He is a great story teller. We count on him for the real background tales about our village history. I invited him in and he said he was out driving and he thought he'd stop by, then he asked me if my email was working. He got a computer for Christmas before last and now he is an email addict. I asked if he wanted a drink and poured him a glass of Pineau. We began to talk about the Movie Jacquou Le Croquant. He didn't think it was at all like the story by Eugene LeRoy but it was very pretty. He began to talk about Eugene LeRoy who was born near here and then he told us a story about a Hamlet called La Rochette. I go by La Rochette all the time on the road down to St. Agnan. It sits on a ridge overlooking the valley which the Chateau d'Hautefort dominates. I was abandoned for years an now a rich American has bought it and is restoring it. It even has a small church. The story took place in the mid 1800's. It seems that one day some workmen were working on the church, trying to hang a new bell and having a lot of problems. A man was walking on the road with a rucksack and stopped and offered his advice. They listened and let him help. The bell was hung perfectly in no time. The lord of the hamlet thanked the man and said now that they had the bell hung, all they needed was new priest as the old cure had just died. What luck! The passerby said he was a priest! He had the job. After he was there for a while, he told the lord that he needed a servant. Not too old, not too young, but nice looking. Soon the Cure had his servant who became his mistress. The people thought he was a very holy fellow because at night he would beat a pillow and moan and they would think he was whipping himself. He performed a certain miracle. He had a cupboard with a revolving shelf known only to himself. He would take a bottle, fill it with water and put it in the cupboard and pray. When he opened the cupboard, the water turned miraculously to wine! All his dinner guests were usually impressed.
The Bishop of Hautefort asked him where he was ordained and he told them Toulouse.
No one ever thought to question him because he was so well liked and obviously a great and holy Cure. He lived to be a ripe old age, but when he died, the Bishop tried to find someone to contact in Toulouse and sent his name and description in case there were relatives. He got an answer from the authorities that the man they had thought was their Holy Cure in reality was a criminal wanted for the murder of a priest and he had stolen his identity 35 years earlier!
With that, Claud started laughing until he was gasping! "He killed a priest!"...a typical Claud story. Usually he regails us with tales of hilariously botched suicides which amuse him so much he laughs until he is almost in tears!
He finished his glass of Pineau and had to get going. Say Hello to Mimi! Au revoir!
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