A day in the forest

Well you all manage to blog fantastically well and my little blog has difficulty in following the standard set. I do wonder if there is some blogging on company time and whether we will see another case of Petite Anglaise. Today I’ve got two pictures for you.

I am friends with an old lady who lives on her own in a big house in the middle of the Sologne forest. She has pheasants, deer and wild pigs running around near her house. When I first met her I thought she was Scandinavian, she has a blond complexion and doesn’t talk quite like the locals. In fact she is Alsacienne. She married a Frenchman ‘de l’interieure’ as they call people from the other side of the Vosges and has lived in Orléans for yonks. But she is still very Alsacienne. I think she likes me because she considers me a stranger, like her, confronting the terrors of Orléans locals. She explains to me, in a shocked tone, that her neighbours can’t sort their rubbish. Though she does admit to a little cheating, putting leaves in with the normal rubbish, but she hides them well. A concession to local custom.

She also appreciates me because I do good turns. Living in the middle of a forest her gutters get full of leaves, and that was the mission. I spent a few happy hours up a ladder in freezing cold weather, my hands in soggy decomposing leaves and icy dirty water trickling down my neck. Better than looking for Indian restaurants I thought, or reading Colinb's blog.

In exchange for my good deed she let me photograph her tap. She also has two lovely brooms, a red one; that would go nicely with Sarah's house. I always take a professional interest in brooms. These ones had magnificent bristles, supple but efficient.The photo shows an impressive galvanised pipe coming down from the gutter, where I had spent those fulfilling hours. If you look carefully at the photo you can see my footprints. By that time I had been walking in the decomposed leaves from the gutters, hence the dirty traces.

Later I found this lovely wheel barrow; retired to the bottom of the garden. Gracefully passing its retirement without hassle nor trouble. Willing to give a hand if need be, but not endlessly and boringly recalling past glories. I fell in love with that wheelbarrow

A chat, an orange juice and it was already 5 o'clock. Time for me to wend my way along the narrow roads of Sologne and back to my lovely little wife. What a happy day.