I woke up late yesterday. More specifically, the baby woke up late, having fallen asleep on me. Almost as soon as she stirred, the window shutters started rattling. Someone was outside, and they wanted my attention. There are three main doors to our home, any of which could be taken to be a ‘front’ door, so there was an awkward exercise in chasing the knocks around the house, as they migrated from one shuttered door to another. Eventually I gave up chasing and just started shouting ‘bonjour’ from one of the doors, in the home the knocking might come to me. They did, in the form of one of my neighbours, who happens to also be a hunter. In his hand, he held aloft a foot. My French, after four months, is still not very strong at all, but I understood enough to tell that this was a deer leg, hunted on our land, and was now being presented as a gift. It was not just a leg, for once I found the time to butcher and freeze the huge amount of meat that had been presented, I discovered a whole rack of ribs (and potentially less useful complete spine) hidden underneath the leg. This, oddly enough, is normal. I’m still discovering the full joys of rural France, and, after nine days of constant rain which flooded out one of our fields, and various portions of the roof, it’s certainly not all a walk in the park. However, the generosity of our local community has been consistently surprising, through to astounding. I tried to work out the relative cost value of the amount of meat that now sits in my freezer, and it must be upwards of €60-70, and that is probably a conservative guess. The same neighbour had also turned up on Christmas day with a brace of pheasants. In the time between the pheasants and the deer, we have had pastries, parsnips, and diet sensitive gluten free crackers delivered (same neighbours have got to grips with the household dietary restrictions better than others), all with cheerful expressions of interest into our well-being with offers of help with various activities. I have no grounds for comparison, having lived nowhere else in France prior to where we are now in the Parc naturel régional Périgord Limousin, so I don’t know if this is just the norm for rural France, or if we are just exceptionally lucky. That being said, our general wanderings in the surrounding villages and small towns near to us, seems to suggest the conviviality of our southern rural communities tends to be reasonably consistent. I do know that I am incredibly grateful for who we have found as neighbours. It’s one of those unknown quantities. You can fall in love with a house, and a landscape, but you have no way of knowing who your neighbours are. We tried our best to find out. Having settled on a home in France, we committed to revisiting the area for a week, prior to making any final decisions, or signing away every penny that we had at our disposal, and plunging into the unknown. This involved attending an inter-village games in the community. Here we met the bulk of two rival villages, and we engaged in conversation with French, Dutch and Anglo residents. There was a warmth enough to convince us that there was a community which we could thrive within. So far, we have only been reassured by that decision. Community – something lamented by so many today as being a concept lost. The idea of being able to ask your neighbours for help seems alien, but even just knowing who your neighbours are seems an abstract concept. It certainly was when we were living in Wales. Here, that is so different. Here, if we don’t see our neighbours for a few days, they get worried, prepare some food, and come knocking at the door to make sure we are okay – it is a remarkably heartening experience. There are no doubt many pitfalls yet to be seen, and climbed out of. Winter, for instance, is, we are told, particularly heinous here in February. There is a slightly macabre story about the funeral of the previous resident of our home. When he was due to be buried, the ground temperatures here had dropped to -18 degrees. It was as if the ground was rejecting him, and the heavy duty JCBs were called in, where normally hand and shovel might suffice. So, -18…that’s something to look forward to when it comes. Should it happen though, I think we can take solace and confidence from the fact that our neighbours will be on hand, to dig us out and keep us fed if the worst comes to the worst. All I can say, is that France and it’s people have been remarkable good to us, and we hope that can, in some small way, be good to it in return. Here’s to the next four months!
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