by Janine Marsh
I stepped out into the courtyard and there, above my head, was a huge swarm of bees. I have never seen anything like it before or since. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of bees buzzing about. Terrified, I ran into the house and called out for Mark, who was making a cup of tea in the kitchen. He must have heard the panic in my voice, as he came into the hall instead of yelling ‘What?’ from the kitchen like he normally does.
‘Get the dogs in, quick,’ I shouted. ‘Close the windows. Close the doors. Get the cats in. Oh my god, the chickens!’
I was running around like a headless chicken myself trying to see how many cats were in the house.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ asked Mark, looking at me with a worried expression.
‘Bees … bees …’ I said. ‘There are thousands of them swarming over the top of the pigsty.’
It was a biblical sight, and by now the swarm had cast a shadow over the courtyard. To my horror, I could see that I’d left the door of the pigsty open. And those bees were clearly looking for somewhere to live. Mark, being far braver than me, dashed across the courtyard and slammed the door shut before running back to the house.
We looked online for what you should do when bees swarm above your head. Apparently, the answer is: nothing. They won’t hurt you and are most likely looking for somewhere to start a new hive. They’re probably stuffed with honey, which makes them docile, and they’re generally not aggressive. There were a lot of maybes. I didn’t feel particularly reassured.
After about ten minutes of dramatic bee swarming around and over the top of the house, into the back garden and over the hedge into our neighbour Paul’s garden, they simply left.
An hour later, I was writing that, in Burgundy, good food is on everyone’s lips. Not literally, of course, but if you go to Burgundy and chat to the locals, it won’t be long until the conversation turns to food – from the best wine for poaching eggs, to how to make proper boeuf bourguignon (opinion is divided over whether it’s best to cook a whole piece of beef or do it in cubes à la Julia Child, the great American cook). Burgundians can talk endlessly about where the best markets are and where to buy the most scrumptious gingerbread. I was so engrossed thinking back to the market in Dijon – one of the best to which I’ve ever been – that when the droning noise returned outside, I didn’t realize for a few moments that the bees were back. The light was still pouring through the windows, so although the noise was by now very loud, they were clearly not above the pigsty yet. Deeming it safe to leave the building, I opened the gate and looked into the road that runs along the front of our house. There was the swarm, swirling over Monsieur and Madame Jupe’s house and garden opposite. I could hear the couple in the garden chatting away animatedly and the clink of wine glasses. It was May Day after all. Blimey, I thought, they’re so laid-back about having 20,000 bees above their heads … How very French.
I watched as the mass of bees twisted and spun, whirling about Monsieur Jupe’s car, parked at the side of the house, and over the top of the small chicken pen in the garden, which also contained Madame Jupe’s horrible goose that attacks people whenever it escaped.
All of a sudden I heard someone shouting: ‘SACRÉ BLEU! MON DIEU! REGARDEZ!’ followed by shrieks and the sound of a door being slammed loudly. Apart from the buzzing of the bees, there was now complete silence. Clearly my neighbours were not that laid-back.
Eventually the bees buzzed off. Jean-Claude told me that they had settled in the garden of a house nearby, and a local beekeeper had put up a box to catch as many as he could to give them a new home. Never a dull moment round here – always a hive of activity.
It was most likely, said Jean-Claude, the lovely weather we were having that brought the creatures our way. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that not all of them had flown away. That summer a busy little bunch of them were evident in the courtyard, going in and out of the roof of the pigsty. We asked Jean-Claude what to do about them. ‘Nothing really,’ was his advice, giving a Gallic shrug. ‘They are in the walls now, so unless you want to take the walls down they will stay there until they are ready to leave. They won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them.’
So now we share the pigsty and the courtyard with the bees. Unlike wasps, they don’t try to join us for a drink or food. In fact, they don’t come anywhere near us. The only time they seem to be bothered is when I put a light on to pick my way across the courtyard before the sun is up – then they come out to have a look.
Monique, who sometimes helps Arnaud out in the bar when Madame Armandine is away, hasn’t been so lucky. She had a hornets’ nest in her garage. These big flying bugs are aggressive stingers. Monique called the mayor, as we are all encouraged to do when hornets’ nests are involved. They have become more prevalent in France in recent years, and the Asian hornets in particular are feared here. In some towns, such as ours, the mayor takes responsibility for getting a professional in to deal with the intruders. ‘But,’ complained Monique, ‘it took two days and I had to keep my little darling in the house all that time as I was afraid she would be stung, and I couldn’t bear to lose her.’
Monique’s petit chou, which means little darling, a misnomer if ever there was one, is a snarling, yappy and precocious Chihuahua. Everyone hates the nasty little creature when Monique brings it to work with her in the bar. Even Madame Armandine’s huge dog Beau doesn’t like it, and he loves everyone. Petit Chou has a variety of jewelled collars, which are chosen to match whatever colour dress or top Monique is wearing. When it comes to work with her, she ties it to a chair in a corner and we all steer clear of it. It used to be behind the bar with Monique, but Arnaud trod on it once by accident, so now it has to be in Monique’s eyeline and away from big feet. You can’t tell Monique that it’s the nastiest little dog you’ve ever met as she is as fierce as it is, and unless you want your drink served with a scowl and no olives, you’d better be sure to say Petit Chou is a delightful creature. Just don’t put your fingers anywhere near its teeth.
Monsieur Dubarre, a long-time regular, has been trying to teach Beau to bark every time he hears the word ‘president’ and has claimed some success with Petit Chou, though to tell the truth, she barks when the door of the bar opens, and when someone talks, laughs or moves. When Nicolas Sarkozy was in power, the chat in the bar was all about his style, his hauteur, his love of bling and his glamorous wife. If you had heard the inside knowledge that everyone appeared to have, you would have been fairly certain that many from the village moonlighted as spies and may even have been part of Sarkozy’s inner circle of advisers, spending all week listening in on top-secret conversations. When François Hollande was president (or Monsieur Flanby, as some prefer to call him in a nod to a blancmange dessert that’s sold in supermarkets here) it was the same. Despite protesting that everyone is entitled to privacy, the French love juicy gossip as much as anyone.
When President Macron was voted in, in 2017, there was much excitement as he’s a ‘local’. Well, sort of. He was born in Amiens in Picardy and has a home in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage.
Most people seem to think that it’s a good thing that the first couple have kept their home here, because our little department is getting attention that it doesn’t normally receive and hopefully people will see that it’s more than just the rainy back of beyond that everyone seems to think it is. Others think he’s forgotten his roots, but Monsieur Dubarre is a fan. ‘Before you judge,’ he says wisely, ‘you should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.’ He then spoils it somewhat by adding, ‘Once you’ve done that, you can say what you like – they’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes.’
He says Macron outranks Sarkozy simply by dint of the fact that he likes cheese – the latter was not a fan of fromage at all. Your typical Frenchie will eat almost 26 kg of cheese – every year. Almost half the French eat it daily. Apparently there are around a thousand different types of cheese produced in France now – cow, goat, sheep and even horse’s milk che
ese, though the latter is not wildly popular.
Bars in our area seem to be closing with alarming regularity, the long-suffering owners tired of the ever-increasing and onerous paperwork. We used to go to one that was basically in the front room of a house that was open to the public. There were once hundreds of these types of at-home bars in the region, but now there is only a handful. We see it as our duty to support the bar owners and community lifelines, and try to visit one of our favourites each week – at least, that’s our excuse. There’s not much that beats sitting in a cosy bar with friendly locals or sitting outside on a terrace watching the world go by in the sun with a glass of something chilled, saying bonjour and au revoir as people come and go.
Jean-Claude had said that the weather was going to remain good, so we were pretty sure we were in for a bad spell. We were right. Everyone always thinks that the Brits are obsessed with the weather, but the French are just as bad, if not worse. The day after Jean-Claude predicted that fine weather was here to stay, we passed him while walking our soggy dogs, our hair and clothes dripping, while he stood under his porch, surveying the rain gushing down the hill outside his house. ‘Bit wet today,’ he commented as we passed.
The next morning there he was again, wiping his feet on an old towel as he was about to go into his little cottage. (Bernadette is very house-proud and woe betide anyone who makes a mark on her floors.) ‘Bit wet today,’ he said, ‘and humid.’ We had 91 per cent humidity that day. It was more like being in the jungle than in a northern French hamlet.
I expect you know what came next day. ‘Still raining! Did you hear that thunder last night?’
The French are very like the British in that they constantly express their disbelief at: 1. how wet it is; 2. how dry it is; 3. how hot it is; 4. how cold it is. And then talk about it all the time as if it has never happened before in the whole history of the world. Ever.
Since arriving in France I too have become obsessed with the weather and look at the Météo-France weather forecast for my area, which, much like Jean-Claude, has mixed results. I check several times a day to see if anything has changed. Every day for a whole week the forecast had little pictures of dark clouds for storms and orange zigzags to represent lightning. What actually happened was more like thunder, lightning, rain, sun, rinse and repeat. The forecast might just as well read: Everything. Except snow.
If I really want to have an idea of what the weather is going to be like, I’ll ask Claudette. At almost ninety years old, she is as spritely as a woman half her age and as thin as a reed despite her favourite snack being toasted sugar sandwiches. Sometimes she says she gets her energy from her pork-belly-and-cider breakfast, sometimes from her ritual ten-hour sleep, but, on other days, she’s say it’s from her morals. ‘I have a good conscience. Those who don’t are punished.’ She doesn’t ever elaborate on this. She has never been to a supermarket in her life, grows all her own vegetables, keeps chickens and ducks, and goes for a walk every day without fail. She keeps her house absolutely spotless, and I often see her polishing the already gleaming windows or scrubbing the doorstep. She’s never been on a plane or train; the furthest she’s been outside the village is to the local hospital 20 miles away. But she is as obsessed with the weather as the rest of my neighbours and sits watching the daily hour-long Météo à la carte programme on TV. So, as I was off to Carcassonne the next day to research the best things to see and do (I love my job), I decided to pop in and ask what the weather would be like.
Claudette lives in the next house up the hill to mine. She was born in the house in 1933 and, when she got married, her husband moved in. It’s where she gave birth to her only daughter, Bernadette, and nursed her seventy-year-old brother until he sadly passed away a couple of years ago. It’s the biggest house in the village, and when the German army occupied this area, officers were billeted there. She’s told me in the past that they were very polite and very nice to her and gave her sweets, which her mother told her off for taking. When I sit with her in the kitchen, she tells me stories of her life, of the village and the people that lived here. ‘In that room behind you were two young German officers. They liked to smoke, which used to make my mother angry. We once had a party in this room and we played music on the record player [which is still there] and danced to yé-yé music for hours.’ Yé-yé is what French people call music of the 1960s, apparently because of the phrase ‘yeah yeah’, heard in British music at the time.
She also often talks about the food she prepared there and how her mother taught her to cook. She never weighs ingredients and doesn’t possess modern equipment such as a blender or mixer. Everything she prepares is measured by eye, guessing the right amount of this and that, and made by hand, from whisking eggs to mashing vegetables to making soup.
I wandered up the hill, taking some tulips with me from the garden, and knocked at Claudette’s door. ‘Come in,’ she called. The door is always open throughout the day. ‘These knees don’t need to get up too many times,’ she always says.
Another neighbour, Bénédicte, also an octogenarian, was there too, sitting in Claudette’s kitchen. It was a warm afternoon but the oven was on as they had been baking together. A terracotta pie dish sat on top of the oven, its pastry shiny and golden, and the sharp aroma of hot rhubarb filled the air. Both women had a tiny glass of red wine in front of them on the table. Claudette poured me some of the ruby-red liquid from a stone bottle. I can’t tell you how thankful I was at the thimble-sized glass – the homemade hooch almost stripped the skin off my tongue.
‘I’m off to Carcassonne in the morning,’ I said to them both. ‘Raincoat or not?’ Even though Claudette has no desire to go travelling herself, she likes to hear about the different places I visit and get a foreigner’s view of things. I spend quite a bit of time visiting the four corners of France these days. Some of my French friends say I probably know their country better than they do, and that I see places differently, I suppose because I’m seeing these places for the first time, but also because I research the history and anecdotes of a place.
We then moved on to talking about the mobile shops. The Fish Man drives around the Seven Valleys from village to village for three days a week; the rest of the time he is at local markets and sourcing fish for his mobile fishmonger van. He reaches us on Tuesday mornings. He pulls up outside his regular customers’ houses, hops into the back of the van, opens a side-panel window, pushes up a blue and white striped awning and voilà, the shop is open. Mussels from Boulogne-sur-Mer, crabs and crevettes, shrimps, coquilles Saint-Jacques and oysters are all displayed just as they would be in a shop. His arrival is the signal for the local cats to come lurking in numbers. The old farmer who owns the white horses often buys a tray of old bits of fish, which some people put in a soup but he gives to the local stray cats. I once saw more than twenty of them all meowing excitedly in his courtyard on a Tuesday morning as we walked past with the dogs.
The Meat Man comes on Wednesday and the Dairy, Spices and Bottles Man comes on Friday. He sells yoghurts and milk, shampoo and turmeric – anything and everything – and if you ask nicely for something he doesn’t usually have, such as teabags, he’ll get it in specially for you.
That day’s main topic under discussion was the new Bread Man. I would normally hang a bag out on the gate and the old Bread Man would pop the bread in – occasionally with a recipe he thought might help my cooking skills – so I would not always see him. The new Bread Man, however, likes to chat. He looks like a short, melancholy Super Mario with a drooping moustache and deep brown eyes under a blue cap. ‘He burns his boulots a bit too often for my liking,’ said Bénédicte (in case you’re wondering, a boulot is a large loaf). ‘His baguettes are good, nice and crispy. His cakes are good too,’ added Claudette. ‘Those little financiers he brings are delicious. Madame Bernadette said they are the best she’s ever had, apart from mine. But yes, I agree, his boulots are merde.’
‘He likes a drink you know,’ Bénédicte said as she lif
ted her own thimbleful of poison with shaky hands. She closed one eye and looked around as if he might suddenly appear in the room and demand a bottle of wine. This is how rumours begin in French villages. One person says something to someone else: it could be completely and utterly untrue, but if someone says it out loud then everyone agrees. After all, there is no smoke without fire.
‘How do you know?’ asked Claudette
‘I can tell,’ said Bénédicte, ‘because he has the same colour nose as my Anton used to have and he liked a drink.’
‘Tac tac tac,’ said Claudette, sounding like a robot with a speech impediment.
What, you might ask, is that all about? It’s something that French people say a lot. ‘Tac tac tac’ comes from the word d’accord, which means okay and is used to show you understand or agree with something that’s been said. It’s hard to get right. I’ve tried saying it and I just get strange looks. It’s the same when I say cidre (cider) – somehow the tiniest nuance in the pronunciation renders me unfathomable to French speakers. Sometimes instead of tac tac tac, they will say tac tac, or just d’acc, or even dac-o-dac.
Bénédicte and Claudette are full of pearls of wisdom about people’s personalities and foibles. We get through postmen and women at a rate of knots in these parts. I have no idea why – perhaps they rotate them – but every new postie will be discussed and catalogued in this way. Recently we had a post lady with glasses as thick as the bottom of a wine bottle and jet-black hair that didn’t quite match her wrinkled complexion. ‘I bet she has a terrible temper. Look at that hair – dark hair, dark mood.’ The poor woman probably never said boo to a goose, even though in our street there is obviously ample opportunity to do so, since Madame Jupe regularly leaves the gate of her pen open and all of her birds just wander about in the street.
